WARMFUZZY’S HAPPENING'S 

11/13/2002

As the saying goes "We’ve got good news and bad news."   This is going to be fairly lengthy as we have two months worth of Happenings to catch up on but that’s okay because WarmFuzzy’s is worth an extra minute or two of your time, now isn’t it ?!      :)

The WarmFuzzy’s Feral Cat Colony - so far we have had to put down 9 cats and 3 kittens.  Only 1 adult cat, Pepe (the Colony’s Grand Dame) tested negative so far which surprised the heck out of me.   She was altered, vaccinated and released.  While inside recovering I was allowed the privilege of petting Madame.  However she definitely wanted to be outside and she let me know it in no uncertain Loudly complaining terms.  Very Loudly, very often.

I caught a 2 1/2 month old fuzzy orange kitten who tested negative and was vaccinated.  It was very tame by the time I caught it which was very unusual as it was one of those youngsters outside that would immediately turn and run if you even dared to look at it.  It was too young to be altered.   We named her Chloe.  The mommy is Taco’s Mom and Morris is the daddy.   Chloe is the spitting image of my Taco whom we had to put down because of Feline Leukemia.  It was love at first sight between me and Chloe.  Needless to say, Chloe did not go back outside.  A few days ago we changed Chloe’s name - to Charlie.  Apparently Charlie was, shall we say, a late bloomer.  He weighs enough now to get altered.

A 3 month old black & white BIG kitten, Lewis (Fuzz is his mommy), tested negative, has been altered, vaccinated and now needs a home.  I just couldn’t bring myself to return him to the colony under the existing conditions.  I caught Lewis in the trap and hauled him to the vets.   By the time I got him back home from having surgery he was WIDE awake and NOT in the trap.  This goes in the could be bad thing column.  He was in a one of those cardboard kitty carriers.  He was fairly calm on the way home.  This went in the good thing column.  He was NOT calm when I went to take him out of the box and put him in a cage.  This went in the bad thing column.  We had yowling, spitting and hissing.  Bad thing column.  Okay, I’ve been through this part before.   You reach in, grab him by the back of the neck and put him in the cage.  Ahh, but Lewis had other plans.  I’m still not sure how he did it but he managed to twist himself around and upside down while I still had a hold of him on the back of his neck.  Out came the claws and the teeth.  Uh Oh.  Bad thing column.  I got him into the cage but he also took with him bits and pieces of me.  Really bad thing column.  For the next 24 hours he growled, hissed & bared his teeth at me from the back of the cage.  I wore a lot of band aids and tried not to drip blood all over.  Within 48 hours Lewis was in my lap, cuddling, purring up a storm and I had stopped bleeding.  Really good thing column !  He went from being one heck of a hellion to the sweetest little guy you can possibly imagine.  He is so gentle when he plays with the much younger babies.

With our resources having gone to the other rescues we are unable to continue testing for Feline Leukemia.  Currently we have saved a total of 12 baby kittens from the colony, 5 still need homes.  It just breaks my heart knowing there are other cats out there who will test negative and not to be able to do anything about it.  My only option at this point is for me to become employed full time.  This however is going to prove to be extremely difficult.

The WarmFuzzy’s property has been sold.  Papers were signed last month.  We must vacate the premises by the end of this year.  We have been frantically searching for a place to move to.  We have looked clear up to the St. Joseph/Tonganoxie area, out to Bates City/Odessa, down to Harrisonville and over on the Kansas side all the way down to Paola.  We were finding nothing suitable and putting almost 500 miles on the car every weekend.  Well, okay, nothing my husband and I could agree on.  It was becoming very depressing, we’re running out of time and this was killing my stress levels !!  Two weekends ago we found "our place".  If you have internet access you know that we have put money down on 60 acres in Drexel, MO (pictures are on WarmFuzzy’s web site).   Now we just have to put a house on it and come up with the money do to this.   I want to thank the State of Missouri for taking half of the money from the sale of our current residence.  The only good thing is that after doing battle with them for the last 10 years it is finally over.  And that is the reason why there was no newsletter for October.  We have been busy trying to find someplace to move to and pack up our belongings which we’re still packing up.  Anybody want to help pack ??

I told you this was going to be a long one.  There is still more.  Keep reading or you’ll miss something important.

Our internet servers will have to be relocated.  This means that the WarmFuzzy’s web site will blink off the internet for a few hours while we are moving the servers.  Our email addresses will remain the same.  Once we have them, our new address and phone numbers will be put up on the site.  Our internet connection in Drexel will have to be via satellite so there may times that there will be a delay in getting a response from me via email.    Unfortunately satellite internet connection is not the greatest all the time so all I can do is ask for your patience when waiting for an email response.

I’ll bet you’re wondering what’s going to happen to the WF Colony.  Well, the odds of successfully relocating a feral cat colony are slim to none and we would need to come up with some kind of shelter/housing for them.  On the other hand, leaving them here means that their current shelter is going to be bulldozed down and there won’t be anyone to feed them.   So, of course we’re going to catch every single one of them and move them.    No small feat mind you.  We also have a family of 6 raccoons living in one of our trees that is also going to be bulldozed down.  They’ve been here for quite a few years and come up and join the cats at dinner time.  Yup, we’re taking them with us.  Hey, they need someplace to live too !!  So far we are doing pretty good at beating bad odds so we’re betting (praying) that we can do it again.  We’ll be sure to put updates on the web site as to how the relocation is going.  Please, keep us in your prayers.

Our current goals are to pack up our belongings, move people and animals successfully.  Our near future goal is to get 20 - 25 cats tested, if negative - altered and vaccinated.  Our future goal is to set up one heck of a cat shelter with a whole lot of help from everyone.  Imagine what we can do on 60 acres of land !!

What are the 4 most important steps you can take to keep your pet(s) healthy ?

1 - get your pets altered,

2 - get your pets vaccinated

3 - keep your cats indoors &

4 - give them lots of love !

See, now aren’t you glad you kept reading.  Keep going.  We’re almost done.

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