My trip to Kansas. Day Three

Day two started out with a trip to Wayside Waifs. You saw the first portion of that trip with my Shooting at the Shelter post..

We walked through their amazing veterinarian suites, the intake areas, the dog area, the small animal area and the cat areas. They then took me outside and showed me Teddie's Memorial Garden.

There are rocks that were painted by one of the volunteers with the names of cats that went through the shelter that passed. Most of them passed while still with in the shelter, some after they were adopted but were still very special to the staff. It was a little odd to see it in the middle of December since it is designed to be full of flowers and very pretty.. when I saw it all the flowers were in hibernation.

After seeing this we walked across the campus to the Pet Memorial Services building. Separate from shelter they have services for the general population when their companion animal passes. They have a therapy kitty there to comfort those who need her..

Can you tell I was a little enamored with this beautiful kitty??
They offer cremation as well as burial at their cemetery.

We continued a tour of the campus and then went back through the building where we walked past their laundry staging area..

Just so you know, every shelter everywhere
needs volunteers to do laundry

and we stopped and chatted with a few volunteers and called it good. I was really quite parched at this point so we decided to stop at Panera for something to drink and a snack to plan on what we were going to do next.

We had a few hours to kill before we had plans to eat dinner at the Plaza. It was to be our fancy night out then we were going to drive through looking at the lights. Unfortunately this is where my trip spiraled right out of control with the news that Jack was at the emergency clinic. Instead of going shopping we ended back at Lisa's house while I completely and utterly lost it. I can not tell you how wonderful it was to be with two 'cat people' who totally 'got it' Since I had nearly no information for quite some time, and sitting around just thinking about the 'what ifs' was going to drive me insane, so Amy and Lisa distracted me. I will be forever grateful for that.

By the time I got all of the information to know that Jack was alive, that he was in good hands, and he was no longer blocked, dinner at the plaza wasn't going to work out, so we went to a local Mexican place with was absolutely delicious!

I stole some treats from Amy's treat cabinet trying to bribe Harvey Monster or Lowenstein into spending some time with me. They totally caught on to my little trick and they hung out and ate my treats and left.. I was so exhausted I fell asleep pretty quickly even with out the purr therapy I was hoping for.

My trip to Kansas. Day Two: Part three #choosechestnut

So after going to see Santa, and visiting with friends, and then heading back to Amy's house and taking photos of the kitties, we then went into Amy's office and met her foster kitty Chestnut.

Chestnut was a stray, was adopted out and had hard time with that home and was returned to the shelter. She was traumatized by the whole thing. She also has a hard time communicating her emotional state, which very well could be because she is missing her tail. She is also missing her claws. As you can imagine this is a pretty bad place for a kitty to be in and she ended up biting. Amy was so kind to be willing to open up her home to a cat that has a history of biting. I have done it a few times, and it is taxing on you in trying to understand where a kitty is coming from and what their signals mean, because often they really do lack communication skills either from improper socialization as a kitten or because they simply no longer care after being taught that humans don't listen to them.

So Amy and I would sit in her room at night and just talk. We talked about her and cats in general and general life things. Simply being around her and asking nothing of her is a great start to helping her understand that not all humans are like those who she had dealt with in the past.

Chestnut is also a tortie / torbie mix.. she has a beautiful coat..

I was completely enamored with her.. However Chestnut seems to strongly prefer a male presents in her life. She would let me pat her, but after spending some time at Amy's house, she has fallen in love with Amy's husband and will snuggle right up to him.

As of the writing of this post, Chestnut is still up for adoption, she will need a home with someone who understands she has definite views on how life should be, aka she is full of tortitude,  and if there could be a man for her to fall in love with, she would really appreciate it.

My trip to Kansas, Day Two: Part Two

So, as we left things, I was at Lisa's house fangirling over her kitties.. because... kitties!!

No I mean seriously.. although when Lisa brought out the cat toy I not only found myself wishing I had a better flash, but that I had a better camera.. You know those super professional ones that they use on the side lines of football..

Now you are just being silly

Isn't that the point?

All too soon play time was over and we were headed back to Amy's house.. where Dottie got her photo taken..

NAC* Dottie.. 

and I attempted to get some good photos of  Evelyn

What are you talking about woman.. I ALWAYS look good.. 

and Harvey Monster explored the new cat tree..

I so want to inverse this photo and make Harvey "Ceiling Cat"
but who has a carpeted ceiling??

And about this time Lee (Amy's Husband) stated "You sure do take a lot of photos".. well yeah.. I do..

I think this is my favorite of the trip... mostly because it is VERY Amy with out Amy being in the photo..

I think this is enough for now.. I can't believe there is going to be a part three!!
*NAC = not a cat

Trip to Kansas, Day Two: Part one

So it started out with breakfast, and then a trip over to PetSmart to get a photo of Lowenstein with Santa..

We were early, so we walked around a bit. Amy brought her husband Lee with us and at some point the suggestion of getting a harness and leash for Lowenstein was brought up..

I think he liked having the freedom to walk around. He was much more comfortable being there than a lot of cats, but even so he was still getting a bit overwhelmed, so being able to explore seemed to help calm him a bit. That and he liked the fish..

Finally it was time for Santa. Oddly they didn't have anyone taking photos.. it was a BYOC kind of thing. I do have to say the staff was very nice about the whole thing, but that Santa.. well he seemed totally disengaged. He held Lowenstein, but he did nothing to try to calm him, or make the situation work.

Even in this second photo you can see he is off looking at something else entirely. *shrug* guess they just weren't expecting any cats (I suppose rightly so). I have about 20+ photos and these were the best.

While we were there I was able to surprise Amy with a gift card to PetSmart. I had won one and when I went to my local one I couldn't find anything that I wanted to spend money on. They don't carry food I was interested in feeding and I didn't need anything else. I thought it might be fun to either spend it on Amy or use it to buy something for the shelter. Well while we were there I saw they had a cat tree on a daily sale. I pointed it out to Amy and she said she needed one but financially it wasn't going to happen right then. So I pulled out my gift card and not so slyly put it in her hand and then over acted quite shocked that it was there and said her Secret Paws must have just shown up. (I had laughed so hard when I got the email telling me I had been paired with Amy). I originally thought it was $50 but it turned out to be $100! Ah well, I wouldn't have wanted to spend it any other way. It made me happy to see the look on her face and to know that Harvey Lowenstein and Evelyn are climbing all over my gift card ;)

Anyway.. She felt a wee bit uncomfortable since the Santa Paws had a much lower price cap (and I had bought her gifts in case she didn't 'need' anything at PetSmart or heaven forbid I couldn't get to one) so I told her that I'd just accept the fact that she was going to pay my "room and board" while I was here and not quibble when she offered to pick up my checks. I must say I think I got the better end out of the deal..

We then did a little shopping and met up with Lisa. As I mentioned I'm kind of a fan of Faraday and Maxwell and Allie. When I was invited I had hopes of going over to see them, but I didn't want to be pushy and say "HEY, I NEED TO SEE YOUR CATS!" (cause I'm pretty sure that's rude to some people) (btw, not to me.. say it to me any time) and wasn't I thrilled when we headed over to her house..

Now in my head I'm all fan girl. I mean serious fan girl.. like squeeing all over the place, jumping up and down feeling uber silly about meeting a couple of cats.. (cause you know.. society) but I didn't care..

And they didn't disappoint..

Yes, I got to see the "roadster"

oh my cod.. do these fangs not kill you dead??

LEG DANGLE!!

SQUEEEE!! I'm TOUCHING HIM!!!  *faint*

And he likes it!!

I so need to invest in a good flash.

Allie kind of disapproved of my fangirl aura.. which was a little sad, but that's OK. Evelyn was too ;) She was probably also annoyed at all of the flashing coming off me. I tried to put the camera away several times but I kept picking it back up.. (I was such a tourist.. I felt like should have had tube socks and sandals on)

I ended up taking over 1000 photos in December, so to be fair to you, I'm going to split this up even further.. Day two part two coming up..