Ever searching

A few months back, my mom adopted a pigeon from our rescue.  Now we're concerned that he may need a mate in order to be happy.  I never really took an interest into where this bird came from.  He was found in the wild but was banded.  My feelings were, if his previous owner didn't care enough to keep him safe then why should I look for him in the first place.  Now though, I need to know what kind of pigeon he is so I can find him a "friend."  Cats and dogs are really so much easier than birds.  I can look at a dog or cat and tell you immediately what breed it is or what kind of "mutt" it may be.  A pigeon on the other hand looks just like any other pigeon to me.  Wish me luck.

Sometimes, I really don't know if I'm cut out to be in animal rescue.  I love what I do.  I love the animals but I think it's the politics of the whole thing that I have a problem with.  I watch all these animal shows on the animal planet and it seems like some of these rescues immediately turn to "humanely euthanizing" anything that so much as has a cold when it comes into them.  I have a real problem with that.  I strongely believe that every living animal has the right to a fair chance.  I do not believe that I should try any harder to save the 1 year old dog than the 10 year old.  I hate these "kill" shelters.  I will never ever work at a kill shelter.  You couldn't pay me enough.  To me there's not enough money in the world to pay me to literally murder an animal that would otherwise be completely healthy had we not supposedly "saved" it from where ever it was before hand.  Our shelter gets more animals in that were going to be killed from one of these so called shelters than from people relinquishing their animal.  What does that tell you?  I think I'm just having a bad day.  I need some major animal rescue therapy. 

Just Thinking

I received an email today from one of my rescue groups.  There's a man who is calling himself a reverend.  He told one of the people on our group, who happens to support the ban against slaughtering horses in the US for human consumption, that she was going to hell because this bill is depriving people in third world countries of food and depriving US ranchers of money.  Um, tough.  Damned idiots. 

We got a cat into the rescue shortly before we were told we needed to get "rid" of all our animals.  I'm a relatively up to date cat owner but this one puzzled me and now I'm a little pissed at myself.  I don't know all the details yet.  I looked the cat over and knew he was in a lot of pain and he didn't want to walk.  His neck was swollen but I couldn't find anything outwardly physical wrong with the cat so I assumed nerve damaged or possible brain damage.  The cat was taken to the vet after I saw him.  He had punctures on both sides of his neck (I'm soooooo mad at myself for not seeing those marks) and he was frost bitten on his legs, feet and tail.  He was dehydrated and emanciated, both of which were obvious, even to the untrained eye.  I constantly need to remind myself that I'm not a mircle worker, I'm not a vet and that I'm not perfect.  I just so desperately would like to be all of those things.  I would love to have the resources to save all the homeless needy animals out there but I can't and for me that's the hardest thing possible for me to deal with.  Animal rescue is definitely not for everyone and not for the faint of heart.  You have to have balls of steal to do this job day in and day out.  Sometimes I'm not sure that I do.

Love to Cry

Have you ever loved someone so much it made you cry?  I have a "foster" cat here that does that to me.  He knows just the right things to do at the right time.  If I'm feeling sad he licks my nose until I start laughing and if I don't start laughing, he bites my nose and then of course I start laughing.  I'm so glad he found me.  He's a wonderful friend.  That's him above.  My little Lueka.  Lueka means to shine. 

I let alllllll of the cats out to play throughout the house today.  Let me tell you, it was chaos!  There were cats everywhere!  I personally own seven cats and have three fosters.  They had a blast!!!!  It was so much fun to watch them meet eachother and run up and down the stairs.  One of my personal cats was being a little antisocial, poor guy, hid behind the guest bed the whole time.  I say "guest" bed but I never have any guests.  They know ahead of time that if they stay here, they stay in the cat room so they usually make other arrangements.  *grin* I'll someday be known as the crazy old lady down the road with all the cats.  I'll sit on my front porch with my cane and shake it at little children as they walk past my front door.  I'll talk to my cats, even when they're not around.  And I'll probably be the happiest crazy old cat lady around.

I'm going to give you all something to do for me today: Act like a child, even if it's only for one minute.  Be silly.  Dance in the rain.  Sing in the snow.  Most of all, laugh.  A little laughter can do a world of good.

Bird On My Back

I've currently got Ellie on my shoulder.  I'm trying to make up with her for not spending as much time with her as I should be lately.  She's spent the last hour throughly scolding me for being a bad animal slave.  She received two bathes today due to her molting.  She hates bathes.  She got one with the spray bottle and one in the sink.  She's being rather sneaky right now.  She continues to walk back and forth across my neck so that it's almost impossible for me to catch her by myself.

I finally got around to doing something in the cat room today.  It's been in desperate need of a good cleaning for a good six months now.  It's just one of those things you put off till the next day and then the next.  Everyday I looked at that room and told myself 'today I'm going to do something in that room' and everyday I managed to put it off until it was too late to do anything at all.  It started off with doing the usual litter box cleaning and then I suddenly decided I really was going to get something done today.  I cleaned out everyone's cage and moved some cages around.  Let everyone out for play time while I cleaned.  I swept, which made a major difference.  It's not totally to where I want it just yet but hopefully by the end of the day tomorrow, it will be.  There's a lot of stuff that needs to go back to the shelter, something else I've been putting off.  There's a cage that needs to be cleaned before it goes back and a few carriers as well.  The cats will be happy though, they get lots of play time while I'm cleaning.  I can't leave them out all the time though.  I have a dog here that would like more than anything to eat herself a small kitty.  I only let the cats out when the dogs are outside and I'm there to supervise them.  I have no idea how long these two fosters will be with me.  I hate having them in that cage.  I just wish someone would come along that would love them as much as they deserve and won't mind taking two black cats.  It's hard enough to get one adopted out at a time, let alone two going to the same home. 

Thaddeus

"My" major issue.  At the shelter we have a border collie, who just happens to be a little on the crazy side.  I'm worried that he'll end up being put down because no one else besides myself can handle him.  Everyone that goes to the shelter is scared of him except for the few of us that have spent time with him.  He's apparently escaped from his cage once and scared one of our volunteers half to death.  He's just got some mental problems is all.  Once he's out of the cage, he's actually a pretty sweet dog.  Unfortunately, I live with my mother and she has never seen the sweet side of Thad, only the crazy snarling nutcase that he can occasionally be.  In other words, she doesn't want him in her house.  Now I too was scared to death of him once I first started working at the shelter but after a month he was sweet as pie with me.  And at that time I was only going there once a week, so it only took four days and he knew who I was.  I just don't know what to do.  He's not exactly the type of dog you can bring home and hide for a month before revealing the animal that's been living in the house.  He's a border collie and has tons of energy and needs to run and jump and play.  He will not stand for being locked up in a house all day long. 

This shelter thing is really getting to me.  I just want to yell, scream and hit someone.  I'm already totally stressed out because of everything that my grandpa is going through.  I spent the entire day in bed today.  I just didn't feel like dealing with anything so I said forget it, I don't care what people think or if they worry, I'm staying in bed and vegging out.  I don't know if it made me feel better or worse at this point though.  I almost think it made me feel worse.  I think I'm going to go to the shelter tomorrow.  I can't stand sitting around here, not knowing what is going on over there.  I feel like I need to be doing something. 

Fading out

The rescue is a rescue no more.  We're all very sad at the turn of events.  The animals are no longer able to stay where we had the shelter.  In a way they're being evicted.  We've found a temporary place for some of the cats and some barn animals.  It's a mad house over there right now.  Trying to scramble and find the animals some place to go rather than euthanizing them.  My two fosters will stay here with me until they're either adopted out or I find somewhere for them to go.  See, we're still adopting out animals, we just don't have a shelter anymore I guess.  I have no good things to say about the person(s) that have caused these animals to become once again homeless.  I get so sad when I look at my kitty fosters because right now, they're literally homeless.  They just have a temporary place to stay.  There's no where else for them to go except where they are.  They deserve so much better.  I obviously can't allow myself to become attached to them or they'll never leave.  I've already kept one of my fosters and now I have seven cats.  I can't keep anymore.  The girls are kept in a 4x4x4 foot cage.  It's much larger than what they would have in an actual shelter but it's still no way for them to live.  I will move onto another shelter, at least until we find a new place for our own.  I'm not doing any animals any good by quitting rescue all together so once everything is finished up at the shelter, I'll start putting in applications at other shelters and vet's offices.  I can't write about it anymore tonight.  There's a major issue I'll get into another day but for now I can't possibly deal with it any longer.  I'm going to feed everyone and then sleep.

Bird brain

My new bird and I are adapting to eachother very well.  It's taking a bit longer than I had expected but at least I'm seeing some progress.  I'm still getting bit nine times out of ten but they're not quite as bad as the bites I was recieving when I first brought her home.  She is eight inches of pure nastiness at times and then other times she can be as sweet as a newborn kitten.  More often than not though I think she has PMS.  And don't dare wake her up in the middle of the night because you'll surely pay for it when you least expect it!

Apparently I haven't been eating well lately.  I had no idea until I was made to think about it.  My mom asked me what I'd had to eat today and I realized I'd had a cookie and some m&m's.  I haven't felt hungry so I guess I just didn't think about it.  I'm going to have to set little alarms around the house to remind me to eat.  Anyone else have that problem?  I know it sounds absurd but I really do forget to eat sometimes.  I've had stomach problems for years now and my stomach doesn't growl or make any hint of being hungry.  It's ironic, when I was younger and in school, I hated when my stomach would growl.  It would always happen when the entire class was silent and I was absolutely sure everyone could hear it.  Now whenever my stomach growls I alert everyone within hearing distance.  Did you hear that?  That was MY stomach!  It made noise!! 

I believe there's problems at the rescue.  I won't actually know until tomorrow though.  I could tell by the tone in BDB's voice that we need to talk.  I just hope it's nothing too horrible.  I can only deal with so many problems at once.  When it rains, it pours.  I must go now.  I'm being called by little Mia, who is not so little anymore.  Mom, mom I have to go outside NOW!  Yes, that should be fun for those of us who DON'T have a built in fur coat.  It's only 10 degrees out right now.  That should take me, what?, about 2 hours to thaw?