puppy pics & feral update

On Tuesday I went to the SPCA with our fancy new digital camera, and took pictures of all of their dogs and cats for the SPCA website. Besides being a needed service, as they don’t seem to have any shutter-happy staff at the moment, it was also TONS OF FUN. These puppies nearly ate me alive, though. I have pom-poms on the laces of my boots, and they went to town trying to rip them off. When I bent down to rescue my laces, one of the puppies’ teeth got stuck in my wool sweater. When I bent further to dislodge that puppy, another one yoinked my braid. I was seriously close to panic. Did I mention that while all of this was going on, another puppy was chewing on the back of my calf? I just barely escaped with my life. I got the pictures, though.

We are continuing to spend time taming the feral cats. Demeter is really doing great. She has discovered that she really really likes being petted, and that we will pet her if she butts her head against our hands. She still hides when we enter the room, but can now be coaxed out of hiding with some salmon treats in a relatively short period of time. She climbed into my arms the other day while being petted. Sophie (the mother of Gus, if you’ve read previous posts), on the other hand, is still just an angry lump at the back of her kennel. I put on my ski gloves yesterday and reached in finally, despite the continuing hisses. She did not strike out at me, which is good. But she didn’t really seem to like being touched or petted, which is a tiny bit dis-heartening. Since she’s not aggressive, I petted her for a bit without the gloves on, but she only crouched there looking angry, and hissed every once in a while. *Sigh*. I will continue with this treatment until something happens, I guess. Not much else we can do.

From now on, I will be calling Sophie "Angry Sophie". She'd be satisfied to know that, I think.

best laid plans

So there's a lot of activity in the works, and a little bit that has already happened. Asparagus (pictured), the younger of our two feral kittens, has been taken back to the clinic to be adopted out because he's plenty tame enough. In turn we have taken in his mother, whom we've not yet named. We still have Demeter, who is still very skitzy but coming along nicely. Momma cat is still in her crate - the lady who captured her strongly suspects she is (or was) a tame cat, but she is still very freaked out so she'll probably be in her kennel at least a couple more days.

We still have the dog sitting of Megan's dogs coming up, and Trinity (pictured), the Ontario puppy mill pit bull, has re-appeared into the picture. We'll probably get her in about a week, but she already has an approved home to go to so we likely won't have her for long. Immediately after that, there's a shipment of rescued greyhounds coming up from Kansas, so we'll probably have one of those. No details from the NW Canadian Greyhound Leaque yet. We probably won't have the greyhound for very long either - there are lots of approved homes waiting for one.

Bambi is still in the back of my mind...after this whirlwind activity we'll see. We couldn't have taken her on before we were done looking after Megan's dogs next week anyway, but it still seems like lots of little things keep getting in the way of us giving her a try...

Feral Kittens!

We knew it couldn't last. After exactly one week with no foster animals, our greyhound rescue contact emailed me yesterday and asked if we had room for a feral kitten. It was good timing, with Basil having been recently adopted. Well, in the course of 24 hours one feral kitten turned into two, and they arrived today at noon. The tabby male, Asparagus (Gus for short), is about eight weeks old and only semi-feral. The grey long-haired female, Demeter, is about 12 weeks and much more feral. We've got them in a large dog kennel in the living room.

We had Gus out on our laps for a while this evening. He is not really scared but not quite sure of us yet either. He's young enought that he's just curious and not too bothered by very much. Arlo the dog was sniffing him all over and he didn't seem concerned in the least and made no attempt to get away - I suspect because he's not old enough to know he should be scared. Demeter has mostly been huddled in the back of the kennel, but throughout the course of the day we've been crawling halfway into the kennel to pay attention to her. We have very quickly progressed from being hissed at, to letting her sniff us, to touching her with gloves on (lest she attempt to kill us), to touching her without gloves, and now it's 9:30 pm and we've just finished a good long session of petting her while she purred and rolled on her back. Any sudden movements scare her, and she is giving gentle warning shots when we pet her in a way that frightens her, but she is learning very quickly that we are not that scary. She's going to be a normal, adoptable kitten in no time at all.

We'll probably have Gus for a week or so, and Demeter I would guess a month or two tops.

Our greyhound rescue contact who brought these two over also mentioned that there is a new shipment of greyhounds coming up from Kansas soon. We LOVE having the greyhounds, and we'd probably only have one for a week, but now I'm not sure how to organize a greyhound AND Bambi. Hmm. We'll have to think about this.

Where are the foster animals?

Wow, empty nest! Basil went so suddenly, and so much quicker than we thought he would, that we are without a foster animal all-of-a-sudden-like.

Basil's new family sent me an email to tell me how he was doing, and it turns out he's a mouser! He killed a mouse inside the house on his first full day there! Shazam!! We did not know he had it in him. It sounds like he's doing GREAT in his new place and I think the people are already quite enamoured with him. I'm not surprised - he's a great cat.

Looks like there is also a potential foster home for Trinity in Vancouver, and since the pound in Ontario is content to keep her for a while I will take no further action and see what happens. We are still lined up to dog-sit Megan's crew (pictured) at the end of the month, so if we still don't have a foster dog after that happens I think we will go up to Duncan and see if Bambi (pictured below) fits into our household. It might work and it might not, but we can take her back to the SPCA if it turns out not to be do-able. I would hate to have to do that but we are conscious of our limitations and we try not to bite off more than we can chew. It's easy to "burn out" doing this animal rescue work and I wouldn't want that to happen to us if I can help it. Poor Bambi has been in her kennel at the SPCA for a year now. Hopefully we can help her.

I probably won't post much for the next couple of weeks unless someone lands in our house.

Basil's outta here!

Basil's initial meeting with a prospective family, homecheck, and departure occured in record time - he's off to his new home already, yippee!!

As you can tell, we finally took the plunge and bought a new digital camera. Basil is so photogenic! We only had an hour or two to snap some pics before his new family came to get him, but now we have a few great pictures to remember him by.

Basil gets his own house with a great couple and their toddler son. The little boy was so impressively gentle and caring towards Basil when they came to meet him that we just knew it would work out well.

All the best to you Basil, and your new forever home.

Adoption Pending!!

Alriiiight, it looks like Basil might have a new home! A very nice family is in the process of completing an adoption for him and we're so happy! We've had him for such a short period of time, and he has been the VERY LAST LISTING on Victoria Adoptables the whole time - it was depressing to wonder whether anybody would actually make it to the bottom of the list to see him. It's a good thing he's so handsome - I think his picture stands out, even if it's at the end of a long list of cats. Great shot by the way, Cora!

Anyway this is exciting news. I will let you know as soon as I know anything for sure!

In the meantime, we're still in limbo in terms of foster dogs. There's been no news on Trinity yet. Also, we're doggy-sitting for Megan (of "A Ruff Life" dog walking services - she's great) at the end of the month for a week, and she owns three dogs, so I'm hesitant to take on a new foster dog until after we're done watching her three for her. BUT we're suckers for rescue dogs so we might end up with one before then anyway.

what does the kitty like?

Basil Likes:

• being petted, smoothly, from head to tail
• to have his name called in an itty bitty kitty voice
• to talk to his people
• to sleep at the foot of an occupied bed
• sitting on the window ledge
  

Basil Dislikes:

• being scratched under the chin
• sitting in a lap
• being outside (we have been told)

There. Now it's all in logical order. Isn't that better?

There's a chance we may be getting an former puppy mill bitch from Ontario, where her breed is banned. Up until now she's had everything going against her in life. Kept in a shed in someone's back yard, bred over and over and over again...poor Trinity. She's a pit bull, so getting her out of the Ontario shelter would probably save her life.

These things only actually happen about half the time, so nothing is for sure until she's in our house for fostering. She's lucky - at least the people at the shelter are trying to help her!

I will keep you posted.