Cats Out of the Bag
We had plenty of new cats and kittens come into the shelter over the weekend. While more cats and kittens means a lot more work, we adopted out all the available kittens with 5 going home today, so we'll need some more cutie pies to take to the Oakdale Farmers' Market Thursday evening.
New cats means checking out each one, testing their "purr" factor, and deciding which ones are healthy and adoptable. Tracy is our "cat lady" and together we wiped goopy eyes with antibiotic ointment, applied spot flea treatment, swabbed out gunky ears with ear mite medicine. We've got some handsome kitties with distinctive markings which means most of these kitties have "curb appeal. We also had to come up with names. The Oakdale Shelter is small and only has 10 primary dog kennels and 8 cat cages. 500 cats, and 500 dogs come through the shelter every year, and most are adoptable so we go through a LOT of names.
I got out my name notebook for inspiration. It will be Magic and Wishes for the little black/gray tabby and his sister a seal point Siamese mix. They won't be old enough to adopt for another couple of weeks. Alfie is already 2 1/2 pounds to he is ready to be neutered next week. He some goopy eyes, but no sneezing or coughing so he should be fine in a day or so. Very cute guy and a real purring machine. The 4 tabbies (3 females and 1 male) are also almost 3 pounds so they are ready to be spay/neutered and put up for adoption. We named them Hillary, Ashley, Smudge (he had a little spot on his nose.) and Pudge (he was the stout male in the group.)
After the kitties were cleaned and squared away, Ann and I started walking dogs. We usually walk the big dogs first but switched today and started with the small dogs. I walked 2 at a time which turned out to be a mistake. The senior Pug decided he was the top dog, and wanted to boss the little Shih Tzu around. The Shih Tzu decided to argue and I had to do some tricky leash work to keep them apart on our way back to the shelter. Ann "walked" Chica, the little scardy cat chihuahua by holding her in her arms the whole way. Chica was adopted yesterday and is just waiting for her spay appointment on Friday before she goes to her new home.
Our next round was a beautiful young male spaniel. We can't understand why someone isn't missing this dog and why they haven't called the shelter to claim him. If he is not claimed we will have no trouble adopting him. After 2 rounds of little dogs, Ann and I each took a big dog. I took Shiloh a handsome yellow lab, and she took Charlie a rottie/shepherd mix who is recovering from mange due to a severe flea allergy. Charlie lost much of his hair and he still looks pretty odd, but it's starting to grow back and he'll be a handsome boy eventually. It's a mystery why his family let him get this bad, but they haven't called to claim him so I guess they just didn't care.
Before we left, we gave Rascal his "last supper". Rascal is a sweet young pit bull mix who will be euthanized, not because he is a bad dog, but because few people will adopt a pit bull teenager who is past the cute puppy stage. We have learned over the years to not get too attached to any of the pit bulls who come to the shelter. Very few make it out alive, but we try to make their stay at the shelter as pleasant as possible and like to give them a big serving of juicy canned dog food for their last treat.
Tomorrow I'll tell you more about the family of maltese we have in protective custody, and the mama pit bull mix and her 3 pups.
BC