The Tabby Twins Find a Home!

Next up was getting the word out that these cats were in need of new homes. I knew a couple of things were going to make this all a bit more challenging: the tabby girls were going to need to find a home together, there was no way I was going to separate them since they were so bonded to one another; and Miss Sass was a black kitty. 

Actually, the idea that black cats are the last to be selected for adoption from a shelter was a new one for me. I mean, I knew the superstition that black cats are "bad luck" but I didn't realize it persisted today. Many shelters refuse to adopt out black cats around Halloween since people just use them as live decorations or worse. There is even a name for this: Black Cat Syndrome. 

Where we did luck out pretty quickly was that a neighbor of mine "V" was interested in adopting the tabbies. Sadly, he had recently lost the last of his bonded tabby boys and felt a natural gravitation to this pair. 

Over Thanksgiving, I had taken the three back up to my cabin as I was going to be away on travel for the holiday. Yes, poo, poo and more poo on the way there. But, what to do? 

"L", who's been feeding and watching all the cats that were abandoned by their owners at their cabin, graciously agreed to watch these guys at my cabin while I was away and she got the challenging task of getting three cats to take amoxicillin, which is no easy feat! 

The Monday after Thanksgiving, "V" and I drove back up to The Woods to snag the three kitties and bring them back to Maryland. Yes, more poo on the drive back but for all of them, it meant that would be the last time they would need to be doing these long drives back and forth. And for the Tabby Twins, it meant that they got to go to their new home! Yay! 

Two down, 8 more to go! 

Smell Ya Later, West Virginia!

After a week at my cabin, and with no luck with finding vet appointments nearby within a reasonable amount of time, it was time to take this show on the road!

I had found a vet nearby my place in Maryland that could get all three cats in to be seen and that seemed the best bet to get them their shots, dewormed and on some treatments for their upper respiratory infections. 

Unfortunately, now that I've educated myself a bit more on what is most likely the cause of all of their ailments (more on that later) I'm disappointed in the veterinary care that we received from this practice. Just a round of amoxicillin was not going to be sufficient and the Twins most likely needed some antivirals, which we would uncover after they were adopted and saw another vet practice since the were still congested and sick. 

I would have preferred to take them to my own vet practice but not unlike many vets in the area, they are backed up on getting appointments up to 6-8 weeks. 

So, we won't be going back to that vet practice again in the future.   

The good news is that the amoxicillin did help somewhat and Miss Sass (the black girl) was never as sick as the two bonded tabbies. So, getting her on an antibiotic treatment, dewormed, and with her needed shots meant that she could in turn get spayed. Which meant that she could also be adopted. 

I also recognized that I suck at sexing cats because I thought the tabbies were boys. Nope, girls. Sorry I misgendered you, kitties! :-) 

Where I did luck out was in finding a place to have them spayed. Montgomery County Humane Society could get me right after the Thanksgiving holiday. Which was good news because the other fear was that Miss Sass was pregnant (spoiler alert: she was not) and while kittens are lovely, the thought of have even more cats to foster and find homes for was a daunting proposition. 

The other positive piece of news is that all three cats' lab results came back negative for feline leukemia and FIV. Whew! 

Again showing my naivete, it didn't occur to me that any of the cats would poo in their carriers while taking the trip from the cabin to back to my house in Maryland. Again, I've never had a cat that would do that. Cry and be upset? Yes. Let 'er rip in the carrier? Nope. And unfortunately, the first to do so did jus that only about 15 minutes into the car ride. We had an hour and 15 minutes to go. There was nothing I could do; we couldn't pull over for me to clean them up because god forbid they were to get loose on the side of the road. Instead, we motored, I focused, and this was a lesson learned on cat transport going forward. But in general, poo is a constant theme with these cats and it seems to go with the territory. I'm getting slightly desensitized...slightly. :-) 

Oh the Humanity! Oh the Poo!

Yet again showing my newbiness and naivete, I did not understand that there are cats out there that for whatever reason do not naturally gravitate to using a litterbox. I'd heard of the occasional tomcat that had not been neutered that would spray but even when my elderly cat had kidney issues, she at least tried to go next to the box. 

So, with my blissful unawareness, I did spend a morning at my cabin curiously trying to figure out and play "where is that smell coming from?!?" 

I looked under beds and in the tub, under the couch and next to the fireplace. 

Well, since these cats both had the runs and most likely parasites, and they'd probably never seen a clean litterbox in their lives, a corner, behind the drapes, seemed like as good of a place as any to relieve themselves. Ack! 

Didn't see that one coming. Luckily, the curtain survived after a couple of washes and soakings and I covered that corner in puppy pads for any additional messes. 

💩Pooping is definitely a defining "theme" of these rescues. 💩More about that later. 💩 But the good news, and what I continually remind myself as my inner Felix Unger loses his mind at the piles of poo on the carpet is that this is temporary and the cats have learned to use the boxes and after their deworming, things have decidedly settled down. 

Operation Cat Rescue #1: Landing on the Beaches of Reality

So, when the word initially went out via the NextDoor app (you can read the backstory on that here), I thought, "I'm up for that!" Granted, now, that seems somewhat crazy given the situation that we are facing with a lot of very sick cats who are going to need surgeries on their eyes, etc. 

But, hubris is a beautiful thing! :-) 

And while I've done some cat rescue in my past, with some ferals that took up residence under my mother in law's deck, and then started having kittens, I don't think I was completely prepared for just how very sick these cats truly were going to be. 

What made me even consider making this attempt was 1) I have a weekender cabin in The Woods that could be a place to put a few of these guys for awhile while they got assessed and 2) my job is completely remote right now so I could work out of the cabin while simultaneously doing some cat rescuing. 

See, easy! :-) 

Considerations I had not thought of:

1) How ill these cats are. I guess I was fortunate that the ferals that we did a TNR (trap, neuter, release) with were not ill whatsoever. And the kittens were in great shape, we tamed them and found them all homes. That was not going to be the experience with these guys.

2) How overwhelmed the shelters and rescues in West Virginia are. They are just beyond overwhelmed and couldn't really help us out in any way. The idea that they would be a resource quickly evaporated. 

3) How hard it is to get vet appointments right now. With the pandemic, vets are overwhelmed as well. Every vet's office that I called within a 30-40 minute radius of The Woods wasn't going to be able to get me in for at least 6-8 weeks. With cats with bad upper respiratory infections (I later understood that they have FHV), waiting almost two months to be seen by a vet just wasn't an option. 

So, my lovely positivity crashed hard against the rocks of reality. 

But not before I had been texting with the wonderful person (we shall call her "L") who'd been feeding, looking in on, and taking care of the 10 cats, and letting her know about my plan to come up, catch a few of the friendliest kitties, bring them back to my cabin to get them out of the elements and then to what I imagined would be quickly set up vet appointments, spay and neuters and off to their forever homes. 

Um, see the 3 considerations above if you want to know how that all worked out. :-) 

Nevertheless, I did indeed head up to my cabin this week with my three cat carriers, a bunch of food, litter boxes and litter, and plans to do some cat herding at the abandoned cabin. 

That was actually the easy part!

I rolled into the driveway and was greeted by a small black kitty with a creaky meow who was wondering why no one had been there yet to feed her. 

After giving her some tuna, two other little lovelies came sauntering out as a duo also looking for food. 

While all three nibbled away at the tuna, I went back to my car and grabbed my carriers. A quick pick up with a gentle scruff and they were all easily in the carriers. They weren't happy about it but it was a short trip over to my cabin. 

Of the three, the black kitty (whom I subsequently foster-named Miss Sass, based on her big personality) was in pretty good shape. She quickly made herself at home and settled right in. 

The two tabbies were definitely sicker and definitely bonded. 

And as another sign that I didn't know what I was doing, I improperly thought the  tabbies were boys (nope, girls!). It also took quite some time to tell them apart so I would sometimes just refer to them as The Twins. 

Three captured, seven more to go!