Sunday, June 30, 2013

Shooting at the Shelter pt 2


This shelter also has a community room.  I remember eons ago when I adopted Tig, this room had two large cages in it with an walkway in the middle for you to go and view the kitties and enter them.  They kept the boys on the right and the girls on the left.


My how far shelters have come..

Anyway, I walked in and I only saw the kitty that is in the lower right portion of that photo.. (did you see the kitty in the window??) She (and I'm guessing as you'll find out later) came out to see me, and was attention seeking and was totally willing to pose for me.. I got some kisses and some head butts and she was really sweet to me..


Then I noticed the kitty in the window who came and sat down for a visit.  These kitties have access to the outside which I find not only refreshing but a little odd.  What if I was in the mood to adopt a kitty just like him and he didn't feel like coming inside?  But hey, I'm sure he will recognize his people when they show up..


So then I asked Miss Sociable if they were the only two kitties in there.. I would have asked Mr Handsome, but he had other ideas..


another view of the outside area.
Turns out there were several other cats in that room.  One was sleeping right next to the window.. I am pretty sure I only saw it simply because it chose to open it's eyes..


Then Miss Sociable walked to the other side of the room mewing at me..


I had NO idea what she wanted, but she kept mewing.. So I looked around..


Just as I discovered these two (the calico was in the green box you see in the above shot) a mother and child walked in.  The child was younger maybe around 10, but sadly I have no recollection if it was a boy or a girl.. They were behind me when I heard the mom call Miss Sociable older looking and a moment or two later said, not that one it swipes.  I was a little surprised, because I had just been kissing her forehead and getting head bumps..   The mom and child soon left the room - most likely because they didn't see any more kitties and went on to look at the rabbits in the next room.  I went back over to her - this time she was on the big post that was in the middle of the room.  I offered her a pat and she took it kindly and then posed for me again.

Both Yellow and Purple make her look good.. 
after a bit more loving she got up to move and I tried to get a look at if she was a she or a he.. at which point I was introduced to the "that is SOO RUDE!" attitude.. and she tried to introduce me to these..


Yes,  I TOTALLY wanted to trim those, but I didn't have a nail trimmer on me (I can't believe I go anywhere with out them) and frankly at this point she was all "you people are rude" and it would have been totally the wrong time to attempt it..   Now that I'm on a computer, I found out that Miss Sociable is in fact a girl and is named Friday.. I can't tell you how much I love that..

I went and saw the bunnies which were uber cute and totally made me want to adopt another..and then I called it a day and went about my business.. I was there for maybe an hour.. I got some beautiful photos.. and spent some time with three wonderful cats.. I have to say, I so totally hope they have all been adopted by now..

Saturday, June 29, 2013

Shooting at a different shelter


so a week ago I was up in the Portland area and I decided to stop in the "Animal Refuge League of Greater Portland" or ARL for short..  I was in the area, I had no major commitments for the rest of the day and I had my camera with me.  So I thought I would do one of my favorite things to do.. Photograph some kitties.

I stopped in and said hello to the staff at the desk, they asked me if I was here to adopt, and I said no, and you could see they were visibly disappointed.  After that I was pretty much left alone, which is good on a personal level, but I found it a little odd that no one wanted to discuss things with me, maybe try to convince me to adopt.. that sort of thing.  I mean how many people go in saying they are not going to adopt but fall in love with someone.

The main entrance is just to the left of this first cage
So I looked in cages.. There were a few kittens up for adoption.. those were in front of the front desk which on the picture above me is behind me, to the right is a small area of merchandise as well as the cages fitted in..


Kittens are always fun to look at, but shelter cats.. there are always beautiful shelter cats, and they make for much better photos.

One major down side to this shelter is that I did not feel comfortable entering cages.  As I said, the main entrance door was right next to that cage.  Down the hallway in the larger room was another door that was open (it had chain link fence in it, but it was still open) and I feared what might happen if while juggling the door to the cage and my camera the kitty said "I am out of here!"   So for the most part I did not open cage doors (OK I did it once.. and it was SOO worth it.. )  I am sure that if I had said I was interested in adopting things would have been different..


But there is a lot I do like about what they do.  They also do "meet your match" like the shelter I volunteer for, but they put it right out there.  Once you know if you an an orange kitty, you simply have to find cages with orange name tags.. no guessing.  They also keep personal items for each individual cat near them..


And then there was this.. (which touched me since I'm fostering a blind kitty)
Hello Garret
I kind of fell in love (OK fine, I fell in love like 10 times, I'm so glad I wasn't there to adopt, how would I choose??) This little girl had "No Volunteers" on her cage, meaning she tends to get a little over excited and they feel it would be best if only staff members dealt with her.  I wasn't sure what that meant for her in terms of interaction, but she totally wanted to be my friend..



Some more beautiful kitties for you to see, including one who had very dramatic reverse ear tufts - aka the fur was very long on the back of his ears.. Tomorrow I'll show you photos from the community room they also have..


Friday, June 28, 2013

How to get a human to love you - take two


So last year to the day Dorian wanted to show the kitties of the world how to get a human to love you..

Trevor took those lessons to heart..




Head over to Peacelovenwhiskers.com to check out a guest post I did on "Opt to Adopt"

Waiting for me


All too often when I hang out in the kitten room, The Crew just hangs out and waits for me.  Often it is in the basement outside the door.. but not everyone does.. here there, where ever they happen to be.. But this time, they all decided to wait for me in the living room.. it is a rare occurrence to get so many of them in one place in one photo frame..

1, 2, 3.. how many do you see?

well all but one.. He decided to wait where he KNEW I would show up..

The momma ALWAYS comes to bed.. 

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Speaking of Crazy Pants..


Odilia wearing her crazy pants


My husband and I have a habit of watching a movie and pulling catch phrases from it that enter our life.  More than once we have re-watched a movie and we both had to do a double take when we hear a line we have quoted back and forth to one another so many time we had forgotten where we heard it..

One phrase we use in particular isn't even a real quote from a movie.  We were watching Toy Story and Mr. Potato Head puts on his angry eyes when he is angry.  We quite often joke that our kitties (Kit in particular) puts on her crazy eyes when she gets particularly playful.

The other day Odilia was being particularly playful, in that crazy kitten sort of way.  One of us commented that she had her crazy eyes on, but then we both laughed, and the other one of us coined a new phrase just for Odilia.. She is wearing her crazy pants.  (OK fine, it probably isn't a new phrase in general, but it was funny for us, and I wanted to share :) and she was being particularly crazy: turning quickly, swatting at nothing, rolling over, etc all while on top of the climbing tower)

Looking particularly pleased with herself.. 
a fairly good photo of her 'eyes'

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Catching up - Take your kitten to work day


So last Friday was officially Take your Pet to Work Day..
It was also a Friday, which is a short day for me..
and it was also the last work day before my birthday..

so I did.. :)



Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Scotty



Sunday night I wrote up a blog post about Scotty and what was going on and then I thought better of posting it because I tend to get over emotional and I know it.. I don't want to burn bridges, and the rational part of my brain does not expect the world to work as I want it to.. but the red headed, heart on her sleeve, inner ten year old me sometimes has other things to say - and occasionally she accesses my blog.

I had it all worked up, I proof read it, and I was about to hit post, but at that point it was 2 AM (2 AM during a super full moon to boot), and I thought better of it.  Things were either going to work out, or they wouldn't, and either way the post could wait.

Having discussions with my husband, the thought dawned on me that Scotty has now been out of the house for almost a week, and went into someone else's house and was exposed to who knows what.  Not being a fan of mixing litters for the exact reason of "exposed to who knows what" and just having mixed four different sets of kittens - each one exposed to 'who knows what" As much as I wanted Scotty back because I missed him and I'm sure Trevor misses him, I have had a little too much of "who knows what" going on right now for my own comfort..

Part of me wanted to just not deal with it any more.  Part of me wanted to be that temper tantrum throwing two yr old and cause a big stink of the fact that this kitten was kitten napped out from under my care.  (and part of me did.. hopefully most of it was in private) and the adult side of my brain said: Look, he's being taken care of.  Just because it is not by you doesn't mean he isn't fine.

This is true.  How it all went down though, the lack of consideration for me in almost all this is really where I am more than a little cheezed off, but alas, I really am not in this for me am I?

I got a call this morning from the awesome shelter worker (who always replies to me even if she doesn't know he answer.. I love that in an employee and in a person) saying I just wanted to let you know that Scotty wouldn't be in until after 10 AM so if you were planning on coming before that, know he wouldn't be here..

So now I had a decisions to make, ignore the whole thing, let Scotty go emotionally and let him land where he was going to land, or go in and face the decision if I should bring him home and open that 'who knows what' door again..  Well I can't seem to let things go and leave them unfinished.  I didn't think it would be very professional nor very considerate of me to just not go in and not follow up on things.  So around 2 PM I went in.

Scotty was there, feeling thin.  He was back down to 1lb 2oz.. which is not good (his max weight at my house was 1lb 4oz) They said his stools were liquid again, and you could feel his spine.  But he ate in front of me, he purred, was bright eyed, he was ambulatory and investigatory of his environment.. So what ever is going on with him is still going on, but he's hanging in there..



He is also back with his sister.  The woman that brought Scotty into the shelter found another kitten in the same area.  His sister is beautiful, but frightened, and dramatically larger than Scotty.  I have to say the inclusion of the sister - especially with a small scratch/wound on her temple - made it a LOT easier for me to make the decision to not bring him back to Casa de Gato.


So good luck Scotty, I will be thinking of you for some months now I'm sure.. May what ever is wrong with you work its way through and you become the handsome strong specimen of a mancat you were born to be..

As I was leaving, there was a cage full of kittens waiting to be adopted.. They were oh so cute - the first one looking very much like Jack did when he was a baby..


*sigh* looking at healthy beautiful kittens does fix a multitude of sins.. I'm telling you... powerful medication those kittens.. they need a warning label.
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