When species are hated

I don't really have a decent amount of time to think about this post. However when I put something off to "post later" I often forget to post anything at all, or I lose track of the link.

This article about the hatred of the wolf by some conservationists drew a surprising parallel in my mind to the hatred of cats by a small but very vocal group of conservationists.

I'm not talking about the valid discussion about whether cats should be outdoors or not. Obviously, in a best possible world, all cats would be safe and loved in vibrant and perfect indoor homes, with supervised-only access to the outdoors. We aren't in a perfect world and we never will be.

But this essayist attempts to tackle the issue of the desire among some "conservationists" to irrationally advocate the destruction of an entire species. While I absolutely do not think the parallels are exact, I do find the similarity compelling. I honestly feel that even if TNR was proven to work--with published results---in every situation in which is was utilized, and we could verify without question that the number of outdoor cats was decreasing, there would still be angry, vocal people who would despise cats in the name of conservation.

I was on the phone today with a representative of a national advocacy group, and we talked for a moment about valid "outdoor cat" concerns versus the simple hatred of cats. It's a tough thing to address publicly, because anyone who might suggest that "You know, the issue here is that you just dislike cats" sounds like the speaker is dismissing the seriousness of the issue, as well as the seriousness of those who are legitimately concerned about the impact of outdoor cats on other animals.

Yet clearly, reading this wolf article, there are species besides cats that are NOT non-native, that are NOT "pets gone wild" and that DO belong in the wild...and nonetheless they are in some cases hated and viewed as a threat, and even, dare I say, viewed as trash. These are my words...not the author's.

I think perhaps that by examining the persecution of "legitimately wild" species, we might be able to understand, a little bit better, those certain over-the-top and irrational efforts we have recently run into where the persecution of cats is also promoted in a manner that seems beyond logical. At some point we need to understand why some anti-cat public statements sound less like conservation, and more like hatred and hysteria. It may in fact be...because they are.

Too much spam

I'm sorry, but anonymous posters will no longer be able to comment. It seems like all I do is moderate spam. I left it open to anonymous comments hoping more people would feel comfortable adding input, but it seems like the comments have remained about the same (with the exception of the spammers!) I apologize to anyone for whom the restriction is a nuisance.

Catching up on feral cats

I've been lax about posting about the actual cat-catching I've been up to. A tiger cat began appearing on Molly's bed both day and night a few weeks ago. I was sure he would turn out to be tame (what feral cat camps out on a cushy dog bed 10 feet from a front door when there is a big barn to hide in?) but he doesn't have a tame whisker on him. He has been neutered, vaccinated and tested at my vet and I'll release him here in my barn once I'm sure the weather won't drop to zero.



Hopefully he and Bullet will work out any differences with hisses rather than bloodshed.

I've noticed a few strange cats down at the Fast Food Ferals feeding station, and I also got a call about cats being fed at a business across the highway, so Sunday I headed down, met with the feeder (a man), caught two cats at his location, and two at mine. The Tompkins County SPCA was able to fit in all four. I know there are a few more FFFerals, and at least three more at the new business location, and probably a few we haven't seen, so that will keep me busy for a few weeks. The one nice thing about catching cats in Tompkins is that (at least in winter) there are free/affordable spay/neuter options that are fairly easy to get into. There are options in Tioga as well, but the gap between the cost for spay/neuter clinic surgery and surgery at my private vet is so little, I take them to my private vet to leave the limited spaces at the s/n clinic for residents.



If I'm lucky, the three I'm keeping will all be males, so they can be returned ASAP. One of the male is handleable, so I'm having him FeLV/FIV tested. If he's negative, I may keep him to find him a home. Four caught, two off the street. That would be nice.

This is one World Spay Day (formerly Spay Day USA) when I'll actually get a bunch of cats fixed!

Restricted area of Namie, Japan

Incredible. Visit them at Japancatnet.com

So many cats...

Definitely a think-about animinated short

So simple on one level. But then you do the "dog is god spelled backwards" thing, and, well, there you go.

Flashmob at the airport

Yes, I love cats, but I love orchestras too!

Tomahawk's improvements to feral cat handling equipment

I am a cat-trap junkie. I cannot even recall the days when I used to wrangle cats with gloves and substandard equipment, always in danger of being scratched, bitten, or having a cat escape. I never have to even touch a fractious or scared cat any longer, now that there are cage traps with back doors, feral cat dens, and the comb-like isolators.

However, there is always room for improvement, and Tomahawk has come up with some good ones. I love meeting up with them at conferences, because they always have something new for cats! (Apologies in advance for my somewhat-fuzzy photos).

Maybe some of you, like myself, have invested in kitten-sized traps, only to discover that those little teenage moms can squish right in there. Tomahawk has developed a kitten screen to let those tiny kittens in, but keep out the bigger adults. It's affordable at $20.



You'll find a video here.

And for those of you, like myself, who resort to duct-tape to keep those round doors on the feral cat dens closed, or who have discovered the cat has shut himself out of the den and now you are stuck with a peeved cat in a cage sitting on top of the closed den, Tomahawk has also come up with a spring that will not only hold the door closed, but hold it open.





And that wonderful toy we all have dreamed of owning....the remote control trap trigger:



It's $130.00, which makes it something most of us would need to save up for, but it is still far cheaper than previous versions that have been available. You'll find a video here.

(Dear family, I'll take any of these as a Christmas present next year).

Here is the page where most of Tomahawk's TNR equipment lives.

Here are their dens.

I was surprised to learn that the dens must be made one-by-one---the molds are handled by a single person. They aren't churned out by some huge machine, which is why the price is higher than you might assume, at $69.50. However, as a person who owns six of them, I can attest to the fact that both the cats, and myself, are safer and happier using them.

Unfortunately I was flying home, so I couldn't do my usual conference bargaining and come home with cool stuff for a reduced price. I usually wait until the conference is nearing a close to make an offer, so that others have a chance to get it first. I did ask about the isolator/divider, but someone else already had dibs on it. Ah well!

Name that airport

For my traveling friends...we haven't played this game in awhile. What airport is this?



And a few flying photos. I can never get enough of clouds...as long as the plane isn't bouncing around, that is. Click to enlarge.

Wings checks in!

And this is a cat who spend seven years of his life without any contact with dogs. What a happy cat!

Moxie (Jewel) checks in!

It looks like Jewel (now Moxie--a much better name!) has pretty much taken over her household, don't you think?

Maybe you got teary eyed at the SuperBowl Bud Commercial....

But did you see the extended version?

Charming. Have you ordered from a Catalogue lately?

Bullet on a snowy day

I came back from a walk on the hill and saw a speck of black and white down on the field below the barn. He let me get to the barn door, but I used the zoom so as not to disturb him back into the wet snow again.

I then went into the house and got him some fresh water and wet food. Hopefully he'll find the treat before the opossum does this evening.

To be fair to the canine contingent, Molly was looking quite dapper on her walk, too.

She looked even cuter before she lost her coat on some barbed wire.

OK, I'm swayed

So I really could care less about all those Grumpy Cat LOLs.

I didn't get why they were simply everywhere. But I was on YouTube today looking at something unrelated and "the original Grumpy Cat" video came up, and I clicked on it.

OK, he is so grumpy looking that he's cute. And, in fact, he is actually quite grumpy.



I will look at his future LOLs in a different light.

It's time to laugh

OK, I laughed at the original, but when you dub in words, it's laugh-out-loud

Warning, adult language. It you laugh loud enough, no one will hear it.



Thanks, Donna, for sharing on Facebook, so I could share it here!

Jiffy Tags

One of my personal peeves is that we harp on people for not putting ID tags on their pets,and then make it hideously hard for people to put an ID tag on their pet.

Think about it. Need a collar and tag for your pet? Chances are good a cat collar will run you 5-7 dollars. If your cat goes out, he'll likely lose it at least once a year. It needs to be a real breakaway collar, not some leather thing. Sometimes we can find cheap collars, but not often.

Then there's the tag. You should be able to pick one up for a buck or two, right? Not on your life. You'll have to come up with around $7 to buy tokens to go make one in that machine over there. Or you can buy some shrinky dink thing you have to buy for 10 bucks and cook in your oven to boot. Or you can send away in the POSTAL MAIL to have someone send you one back, also in the overall neighborhood of $10. $17 to put ID on your cat. You can feed one cat for a month for that. And maybe buy a bag of litter, to boot, if you feed cheaper food and use cheaper litter.

If you are lucky enough to live close to an animal shelter, they may engrave one for you for free, or for a small donation, because they know how important it is.

Where you are going to buy one, however, they are going to make you pay, and pay dearly.

I always tell dog owners to write their home phone number on the dog's nylon collar with a permanent marker, but I have to admit, the last time I found a stray dog, I looked for a tag (none) but I don't even think I thought to examine the collar closely on the fuzzy fellow.

A wonderful woman at a foundation recently offered me 500 surplus collars they had. I said I'd take her up on the offer if I could get tags. I had this dream of buying a bulk box of Jiffy Tags ($320) and giving away collars and tags, or at least giving them away for the cost of postage, for as long as I could. The $320 was always elusive, however. I'd check the ACES catalog and stare at the tags longingly.

Then, when the new catalog came out, they were no longer there.

I searched online. No bulk box. In a panic, I called them. Jiffy Tags are seriously the only instant tag where you can see all of the information clearly. The others require you to tag a piece of paper out of the plastic holder, or squint. As a 50-year-old, I know how squinting no longer does the job.

ACES was wonderful. Apparently the place that makes Jiffy Tags is going out of business (retirement). I hope that ACES or another place will buy the equipment, and keep making them. I wish they would market them harder to rescuers and shelters. Most small shelters adopter less than 500 animals a year. 500 tags that go out on their own pets, and 500 to give away or sell, would make a big dent.

There is research that shows 3 out of 4 cats will keep a collar on (some will not, but you ought to try). It's the jingling that drives me mad (another reason I like the paper/plastic Jiffy Tags). Research has also shown that you can't just give the tag to people. You need to PUT IT ON THE PET to increase the success of getting ID on that animals. So collar training our adoptable pets before adoption is a good idea, and then we should affix a tag with the adoptee's address at the time of adoption. That, of course, costs money and time.

At any rate, guess what I did:

I now have the makings for a thousand ID tags. ACES still had a few bulk boxes in stock. They just didn't have enough to put in the catalog. So I spent all of my Christmas money (don't worry, friends, not the mortgage refinance money!) on a box. I wish I could have purchased two. While I'm pretty sure the offer of collars, which was made many months ago, is probably not an option, I'll check in on that in case they are kicking around still and need a home. If if that's so, I'll put a little icon here and on my blog, giving away a collar and tag (maybe two tags) for the cost of postage. I'll also include an info sheet on how to gently train your cat to a collar.

And yes, I have a photo. No, I did not find my camera. While cleaning my pantry, I found an old beater camera that I have and, hey, it still works? So while it won't be good for getting great adoption photos, it will do for the blog.

In a perfect world, you could buy a cat collar for around $3 and pick up a $2 instant ID tag at the checkout line at our big box pet stores. I'm guessing there is some non-compete rule to have one of those big engraving machines in their store (that's a guess), however I think they'd make more money off selling instant tags off the rack, even if they had to go as high as $3. The problem with the bulk box, for stores, is that the tag makings aren't individually wrapped. They are more expensive if purchased in their little individual packaging.

I'm now off to get supplies to do some repairs in the cat facility. More on that adventure later! It involves electricity.

Post Note: Here is a company that offers $4.95 tags with no shipping if you just go first-class mail. That's pretty good: http://www.overnightpettags.com/Home.html

Cassie and Marbles check in!

Here they are when they were first adopted.

Sadly, Billee has passed on. She was originally found dumped at a water spring pull-off, by Bill Brothers, formerly the owner of ACES Animal Care and Equipment Services, when he was visiting from California, and he gave me a ring to help find her a home. I guess I'll have to get another statue for the cat garden. Farewell sweet Billee. She was my buddy, and went with me to many business and adoption fairs. She had a great and loving home, based on the photos of the very-happy Cassie and Marbles.

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Thanks! (she says as she wrestling with sorting three email address books into categories, and tries to remember who adopted who, without having to resort to the paper records. Ugh!)

Loss of camera = No posts. Jewel is adopted!

I've misplaced my camera, which means no posting. Posts without photographs seem sad and lost to me!

However here is some great news: Jewel is being adopted!

Jewel came into our lives during a TNR project of a barn out Fisher Settlement way. It was supposed to be an easy in-and-out. There were four older kittens and mom (Jewel) to catch and alter at the expense of the landowner. However Jewel disappeared and then reappeared after the kittens were returned, with six tiny young ones.

You know where they ended up, of course. Jewel nursed her babies in my extra room and was returned to her barn. Her first litter of kittens had grown up by then, and they drove her off. Jewel ended up in a tree in the rural yard of Christy and Gordon, who are very good friends of The Owl House. Jewel must have picked up those friendly vibes. Christy took a photo of the cat and emailed it off to me and I compared her markings to photos I had of Jewel. She was definitely the same cat.

Jewel left the area before I could tell Christy to grab her, but she turned up again in November. Back she came to The Owl House. The post on her return is here, with video.
I called the barn owners, and they comfirmed she had been missing, and that they were just as glad to have her move into the adoption program, rather than come back to the barn she had abandoned.

So here she has been for just over a year. We got an email last week from a man who had had a calico cat when he was young, and was looking for another. He came over to visit, and even though Jewel was a bit pissy because other cats were loose, he chose her. She went off to the veterinarian yesterday and came out with a clean bill of health.

Fern was being a true cutie during the adopter visit, but I'm still not comfortable letting her go until she can be picked up. The man has two teenage daughters who visit on weekends, and Fern doesn't hesitate to present her claws when picked up. Still, we now know she will show her cute side to strangers.

So let's hear it for Jewel, who will be happy to get into a home with no other cats, and the affection she deserves!

I also have an inquiry from someone who is interested in Arthur or Gawaine. Hold onto your hats, we may get another adult adoption! That would be a great way to begin 2013. I'd love to get all of our friendly cats into homes before spring when kitten season arrives. Then perhaps I would not need to hide as much as I did last year, out of fear of cat-overload.

And a Merry Christmas to you all

In case you somehow have managed to miss this. May you have a holiday filled with music...and cats.