After being poked fun at by my loving family pretty much non-stop (it's a good thing you guys are otherwise pretty awesome...), I decided to take my "but I'm a sterilizing superhero" defense to a new level. So now here we are in blog land, documenting the sterilization adventures of myself, a few unlucky participants I've roped in to help me, and a whole lot of feral cats and kittens.
But before we get started I feel I should offer up some background.... and kindly remind my family that they should have seen this coming considering I've been bringing home stray cats for as long as I can remember (and at least now I don't hide them in closets!).
...
My amazingly tolerant boyfriend Adam and I moved from NYC to Miami in the summer of 2010, to be closer to my family, and because I found a great job working at the University of Miami (also my Alma mater - go 'Canes!). As soon as we moved into our house (my childhood home, in fact), the feral cat problem became more than a little obvious. On any given day there would be a colony of 10-20 pathetic looking cats roaming the streets, and in particular the house directly across from us. Now I've known the woman who lives in that house since I was a little kid (my family has lived in the same house since 1951), but being that she's now in her 90s, catching feral cats was simply out of the question for her. She meant well, feeding them and trying to hire people to catch them, but she just could never get it under control. After talking to her about my plans to trap, neuter and release (TNR) the colony she cried from hearing someone was going to help them and offered me her full support and blessing (the cats are mostly on her property so I needed her permission to set traps). She then proceeded to open her photo albums and show me pictures of people I didn't know...
At first we just tried to help the really sick ones, and looked into what Animal Services could do (not knowing what that meant at the time). After a couple of weeks of feeling pretty much helpless, I was in the backyard gardening when I heard a really pitiful meow. I searched the bushes and found nothing, until I heard a large mama cat meowing for my attention in the far corner of our yard. And here is what I found:
A teeny tiny two week old kitten had gotten itself stuck in the chain link fence, and her mama couldn't get her out. So I called my fellow animal rescue freak friend Anna [http://directionsnotincluded.blogspot.com/], and we managed to pull up the gate and get her free. She was covered in dirt and was really scared, so we brought her in and cleaned her up. She went to the vet the next day, Dr. Lista at Trail Animal Hospital (amazing place, btw!!), and she was given the works. Aside from being hungry and a little dehydrated, she was in fairly good shape. Mama didn't want her back, so she was dubbed Zadie, bottle feed for weeks, and became the newest member of the family. Our awesome cat Malcolm took on the roll of momdadcat.
There were still many many many more cats outside, but we were trying to settle in and adjust to the big move before starting on a major mission like cleaning up the colony. At least we had saved one though, and she was keeping us busy teaching us what it meant to raise a kitten from such a young age... skills that would become quite handy in the coming months.
Since making her way inside, Zadie has been vaccinated, spayed and claimed her throne as ruler of the house:)
Zadie's favorite place:
Zadie with Emma, one of the two original cats, being very proper ladies:
No comments:
Post a Comment