Oskar the blind kitten and the hairdryer

OK, over 200,000 of you have seen this, but I didn't until tonight. Let's add another 100 to the viral sensation (you know it's viral when there's a commercial):

Sir Morgan checks in

I was off in Houston at the Texas Animal Control Conference this week. I gave two presentations, one on marketing your adoptable pets online, and one on social media. And I came home to this cute photo of sweet Sir Morgan:

I am pooped. I came weaving into the house last night, greeted the cats, took care of the cats in the cat facility, came inside to answer email, and only managed a few before I finally realized resistance was futile, turned on the electric blanket, shut Rose in the great room so she would not pick on Nellie, and went to bed.

I'm looking forward to this weekend to sleep in and catch up.

In the meantime, I'll just look at Sir Morgan and wish I could pet that silly belly. I'm so glad he's got a great home.

Here we go again...

Here we go again!

Pheona is now Rosemary

...and has a home of her very own! I delivered her on Tuesday, and she's a very lucky girl.

I've sent some cats off to foster. Tinker has a urinary tract infection I have not been able to clear up here, so hopefully her foster home will be able to get her meds into her three times a day. Morgaine is with her, since they are buddies here and I don't want them to forget one another. I hope they will be OK. They are both very nice cats, but quite shy with strangers

It's getting downright quiet in the cat facility. If Rose didn't squall like a banshee I'd move her from the house to the barn facility. But if I put her out there, someone would hear her yelling and call the SPCA for sure!

Emoticats!

Here is yesterday's blog post on Petfinder of organizations who need help. Links to previous posts appear at the beginning of yesterday's post.

While researching, I came across some amazing videos of organizations who are on the ground in NYC, that are well worth watching all the way to the end.

International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW):

Humane Society of the United States:

American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) is also on the ground, however embedding is disabled on their YouTube videos.

Tristan and the sign language lady

One small moment of cuteness in the hurricane saga.

Buffy checks in...

Buffy and her new housemate Izzy are getting along great. Buffy still has a slightly loose stool (sigh) so I'm having another fecal check run on the other two kittens, including a check for giardia. Although in my experience, giardia = diarrhea, not a loose stool. We'll see what the vet says!

I would call this "exercise"

Yes, this would be my idea of working out.

Busy with Hurricane Sandy info...but warm, safe, dry

In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy so many stories of people and animals in need arise, as well as people helping other people.

I was IMing with a colleague today, who is still in NJ without power. He is doing his job via battery, having to stop to go recharge it.

The Petfinder blog has an ongoing list of shelters and adoption groups who are checking in to let us know if they are safe, or need help.

Facebook has been a huge help--in some cases the only way information can be passed quickly to the pubic. That and Twitter.

This video just came across Facebook, and it's a happy story in that they are also dry and fed...but without power.

Check it out:

Here are the Petfinder posts...part of what I've been doing with my warm, safe, well-fed time. If you have the ability, please consider helping one of the shelters listed here, or any others you hear of who need help

Thursday

Wednesday.

Tuesday.

Monday by Sara.

Lucky us...not so lucky for NYC

Our part of the storm passed us by with just a short period of high winds. It is now calm and rainy. Poor NYC/NJ though. What a mess.

Stay safe. Bracing for the wind....

(photo courtesy of Andy's Friends Cat Rescue, from Facebook).

Sandy has blown into Tioga County. The wind is high but not raging. They tell us that the worst will come between 9pm (soon!) and 1 am, so I'm trying to print off as much as I can for my job, before I get nailed by the pretty-much-inevitable power outage.

The images coming from Manhattan are frightening. The subways are flooded. A facade has collapsed in Chelsea, leaving apartments wide open to the weather and the street. A crane dangles from a skyscraper. Frightening. And this was all before landfall. Sandy is now on shore.

Here I've taken some steps for safety. The bathtub and every available vessel is full of water. The big barn door is propped on both sides, hopefully to keep it from being blown off. The food in the small freezer has been moved to help pack the chest freezer and hopefully keep it cold if the power goes out. My neighbors have offered their freezer (run by generator) if the power stays out too long. Old food has been tossed. I hauled 30 gallons of kerosene from the VanEtten gas station for my fuel tank. The VanEtten station is out of gas. Spencer still had some when I checked in with them.

I've put food out in the barn and opened the chicken coop (it has no chickens, just hay) in case any lost or displaced critters need a place to go. I picked up everything I could from the barn floor in case the stream jumps the bank and comes flowing down the road again.

Depending on how the streams look, I'll bring the big mower up to the house tomorrow. They say we won't get as much rain as we did during Irene---but far more wind. I bought extra cat food and litter, and have my travel water bowls out. The cat seem oblivious, luckily, although I'm sure they will be getting nervous in the cat facility once the wind really begins to roar.

My only real fear is the big tree by the house. If it should ever go down, no matter where it goes, it will likely wipe something out. The house, the barn, or my car. So once the wind escalates, I'm moving into the furthest section of the house, just in case. I've never experienced 70mph winds before, and I don't know if the tree has, either.

I think, given the continued storms we have been having, it's time for me to take that tree down.

Back to work email. I'm trying to clear out as much as I can, because if I lose power (and I'm sure that's inevitable at some point) my ability to work on the computer will last only a half hour before the battery backup runs out on the router upstairs.

Stay safe, everyone!

"Fujiwhara"...

...sounds like a good name for a kitten.

Tiger Tom sports grim businesswear

Note the skull and crossbones on his tie. There are similar options for humans here. We're glad to see Tiger Tom looking so dapper at home!

'Tis the season to dress cats up

Mine would give me the stink eye, but if your cat doesn't mind being dressed up for Halloween, feel free to send a photo along to me at info at americancat dot net and we'll get her or him posted!

Here's Henry as Superman:

One more!

Are you on Facebook? Can we be friends?

I am here on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/susancgreene If I can't verify you online I may not friend you so don't be offended. ;) Please mention if you put in a friend request, that you read the blog. Thanks! Susan

Greene Colony checks in with a beautiful video

I received a query from a third party about a person who needs help in Greene, NY. Since I like to check in anyway with people I've met in the past, I sent an email off to the guardians of a colony near Greene, whose story has been on the blog in the past here and here.

They sent back helpful information and this absolutely lovely video about their own feral cat experience, here

They obtained affordable spay/neuter via All Animals Matter .I note this organization has a bottle/can drive shed at my mother's veterinarian's office in Norwich, so I hope all my Norwich family and peeps will take their bottles there and help this effort.

Pheona's new home bailed out....

It's always too good to be true. The people who said before this small family was trapped, that they would take the mother, have now decided not to. I'm sure they have a good reason, and it's better for them to not take her, than return her later, IMO. So perfect Pheona needs a home.

She is petite, sweet, has extra toes, likes other cats, and is incredibly playful. She raised her family under a building in Waverly, so you know she's smart and giving. Please spread the word to anyone who is looking for a second cat. I set her down in the middle of all the facility cats and she didn't even have a hiss to share.

She is the perfect cat. And I don't say that about too many cats.

Is Bullet back?

I don't believe I posted about Bullet. He arrived right before travel got heavy for work. One day there was a tuxedo cat staring at me from under my compost tumbler. He was so curious I was sure he would be friendly when I caught him, but after I captured him in my barn, it became clear he was feral.

I had him neutered and figured I'd clean the dormant chicken coup, which has a chicken wire roof, fill it with straw bales, chairs, beds, a big litter pan, and lots of hiding places, and let him get used to the place while I was gone. Then after a few weeks, I would open the door and have him as a barn cat. I bought new large waterers and feeders so Donna and Tim could check on him without having to replenish food.

Well, it was a wash, because even though I'd checked the coop from top to bottom, he got out within half a day and was gone. He climbed right up the wood walls and pushed through a corner of the wire ceiling.

Donna put out food for him while I was gone, but no one touched it. I kept putting food out, but it became clear that it was raccoons who were getting fed. After about three weeks I stopped putting out food, but watched for tracks.

He was neutered, ear tipped, and microchipped, so I hoped that if someone else trapped him and he ended up at the shelter, they would call me. A few of my neighbors have indoor-outdoor cats and put food out, so I hoped he'd found another yard to hang out in.

Yesterday and today I saw a black and white cat. At first I thought "Dumped cat!" but then I remembered Bullet. Perhaps he's come back?

I dug out his photo (above) and have memorized his markings, so if I see the new cats again, and can get an idea whether it could be the same cat. It would be nice if it were, as I've been feeling badly about him. I've put out bowls of food, and I'll set traps again to see what I catch.

Oskar the blind cat...

Opens doors here