A Rescue Reset: Benji's Boost

As you probably can tell from the crickets chirping on the blog, I've been keeping my head down, rescue-wise. Despite the hush, there's no shortage of feline residents, with 16 cats and kittens on the prowl here looking for new homes. But with the Kitty Kia clunking (literally) along unreliably, commiting to regular spay/neuter hauls hasn't really been an option. I've been doing a "kitty here, kitty there" sort of thing, chipping away at cat drama for friends and neighbors, mostly.

The Kitty Kia's steering dissolved spectacularly on the notoriously steep and winding Swartwood Hill (luckily I was going UP) and I managed to limp to a mechanic/car dealership, where I abandoned her for $500 and went home with a 2017 Promaster City van that was conveniently sitting for sale in their lot. This meant when a person I'd helped in the past called to say a cat who had been limping around the village with a dangling leg was eating on her back porch the night before snow and sub-freezing temps were forecast, I said "yes -- but call the shelter first." No surprise -- the shelter did not call back, so by the next morning, Benji the big-headed tomcat was in one of my traps in the back of the new-to-me van. (Here's his capture video on YouTube)

Any cat owner probably knows your bank account is crap-out-of-luck if you have a cat with a traumatic injury. Private veterinarians now often defer to emergency clinics, and emergency clinics often (not always) require 50% down on the estimate for the full medical care plan. That's just not an option for my bank account (currently at $98) or my credit cards at the moment. Luckily a wonderful clinic called Spay Neuter Save Network recently mentioned to me they will also do amputations, and when I shot them an email they replied "come on down!"

I threw up a fundraiser with a silent prayer that we'd raise the money before surgery was over. This clinic not only expertly lopped off Benji's leg, they extracted some bad teeth, drained and repaired a hematoma in an ear, neutered him, tested him for FeLV/FIV (negative!) and vaccinated him -- all for about 1/4 of what an emergency clinic would ask. The fundraiser is coming along great, but I could really use a little more help if any readers would like to pitch in:

I'll follow up with more details, and some great video of Benji hopping around my bathroom like he could care less about what body bits he no longer has, now that he's warm, fed, and getting lots of love. I'm guessing he'll be an easy boy to adopt out. Stand by for updates. I'm shaking the dust off this blog! (Yeah, yeah, you've heard that before).