one year later...

hi there... been a while.

here's a small update.

this is tippy (on the left) when we first brought him home a year ago.

and here is tippy today

he grew up to be quite a handsome boy! he still thinks he's a crazy kitten, even at a year old, but he gets along famously with all our other animals and we love him dearly. we're so glad he stayed.

here is my current foster animal:

this is betty. betty is one of several animals who were rescued from the same 'high kill' shelter that tippy and lola came from. i've been able to rescue more animals because of the help and devotion of two of my best friends, janine stoll and melissa mcclelland. we came together to create the Ladybird Animal Sanctuary. we're a small, foster home based rescue at the moment, but our goal is to eventually purchase property to build on so we can house many more rescued domestic animals, and also be able to take on any farm animals who need our help. it's quite a dream, but with the help of my friends, i know we'll attain that goal in the not to distant future.

i'll probably be retiring this blog to focus my attention on the LAS, so if you want to follow us on blogspot, you can find us here.

http://ladybirdanimalsanctuary.blogspot.com/

thanks for checking in. and again, we created this pet overpopulation problem, so we're responsible for fixing it. please have your pets spayed or neutered, don't breed, adopt instead of buy, and please consider fostering for your local animal shelter or rescue. you, and the animal whose life you saved will be all the better for it.

the ladies of the ladybird animal sanctuary

yep. i'm a sucker...

so...looks like lola will be staying. she's just too sweet for words. she's settled herself in nicely here and gets along with everyone swimmingly. she's purring her head off in my lap right now and i'm smooching her face after every sentence i type.

this is supposed to be a blog about fostering, but i've kept two of the four cats i've featured here.
sheesh.

but there shall be no more keeping of the cats. have to be realistic about things 'round here. heehee.

there will, however, be more fostering in the new year. and a new blog about an animal sanctuary that myself and two friends are currently working to get up and running. our goal: to get animals out of high kill shelters and into loving homes. also to give 'unadoptable' senior animals a place to live out their days.
and for that (until we have a proper facility), we'll need a network of foster homes.
want to be a foster home for us? please send me a message or post a comment here.

until next year!

lo lo lo lo lola....

lola has been confined to the spare room for the now since one of my cats (martha) has been unwell. after xrays, a two day stay at the vet, and various costly tests, i still don't know what caused her health issues. but of course, after being home and seemingly fine for a few days, martha has now come down with a serious case of upper respiratory virus and has been sneezing her head off for the past week. she's currently on a couple of different medications and is slowly improving.
i don't want to stress her out more by introducing a new cat to the clan right now, and don't want to expose lola to martha's virus...so poor lola is still spare room bound for the moment.
i love spending time with lola though. she's pretty much the perfect cat. all she wants to do is sit on your lap and purr. that's it. she will bat a little at her toys, but she really just wants to get comfy on your lap, or your chest if you're laying down, and hang out there until you get up. she's very, very sweet.

turns out she wasn't spayed, so that has been done. how does someone have a cat for six or seven years and not have her spayed?? living with a cat in heat for just one year would be bad enough, but seven? crazy.
anyway, while she was under for the spay she had one of her funky toes removed (it was a dead one just hanging by skin...ew), she had the last of her shots, got a microchip and had some tartar build up scraped off one tooth. she came through it all with flying colours. big thanks to the cat clinic in hamilton for doing all the work. dr. o'brien is a serious champ for the kitties.

speaking of getting fixed...tippy was fixed a couple of weeks ago at the low-cost spay/neuter clinic in newmarket. thought it might calm him down a bit, but no dice. he's still nutty. um...yeah. hehee. i was right about his fur too. there are only a few light grey flecks in his tail and the rest of him is solid dark grey. he's growing up to be a handsome man.
photos of him, and lola soon...

but for now, enjoy the video of the song that inspired the title for this blog.



danny michel. so good.

good news...other news...

good news:

oliver has gone back to the kitty sitter's to be fostered until his original adopter is settled into her new home. should only be a couple of months. makes me so happy that he won't be spending those couple of months locked in our spare room. he's got a nice big condo to wander around, and according to the kitty sitters, he's lounging around the place like he's always lived there. i miss him, but i can visit often. i'm just so glad i know there will be a permanent place for him to go soon. let's hope when he's settled, it can really be his 'forever' home.

other news:

i went to hamilton animal control last sunday, and brought home lola (formerly kiara.) these are her petfinder.com photos from when she was in the shelter.

she was a stray kitty who came in with another cat, who they put to sleep, only because he was black. (i know...i can't believe it either.) she's about 6 or 7 years old, and is polydactyl, meaning she has lots of extra toes. i just love how her feet look like bear paws, or baseball mitts. so adorable. the other cat they killed was neutered, so they assumed she was spayed, but when i took her in for a check up, my vet couldn't find a spay scar. she has an appointment to be fixed and get the rest of her shots on wednesday. they may open her up and find she's already spayed, but it's better to be safe than sorry. lola is a very, very sweet kitty. she is a lot like oliver in the affection department. not sure what she's like with dogs or unfamiliar cats as i haven't introduced her to the other animals yet. i'll let her recover from her surgery for a spell before i see how it goes with everyone here. if she does well, she can stay, but if not, i'll be looking for a home for her.

the employee who does the rescuing for the shelter didn't have the heart to put her to sleep, so she had been at the shelter since august. she's one of the lucky ones.

i posted some photos i took of the other 'lucky ones' on flickr, and below is what i wrote for the description. it's a disturbing and sad story...

Normally, all animals at HAC are put to death unless they are claimed by their owners, or taken in by a private rescue service. HAC does not offer adoptions from their facility.

When the split happened between the SPCA and the city (they actually built a wall straight down the middle of the building they shared) HAC signed a "non-competition" agreement with the Hamilton SPCA for adoptions. The original idea was that the SPCA would get their animals for adoption from HAC. For whatever reason...this doesn't happen. It is a rare occasion that the SPCA shows its face on the animal control side. As of today, the SPCA hasn't taken a single animal from HAC since April. That means straight through spring, summer and early fall (the busiest times for any animal shelter) not one animal has been removed from HAC and taken to the SPCA to be put up for adoption.

The SPCA says they are a 'no kill' shelter, but they are directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of animals by not following through with what they agreed to do when the split happened.

A very kind employee at HAC is trying to save these doomed animals by setting up a Petfinder site for them in hopes that they can be adopted through a third party rescue. When a cat comes into HAC, it has 72 brief hours to be claimed, or rescued. Otherwise it is euthanized. This means cats (and dogs, and rabbits etc) of all ages, sizes and temperaments, needlessly killed because of overcrowding, and a misguided agreement between two facilities who are both supposed to be there to help the animals.

Euthanasia takes place every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning. A vet is paid to come in and perform this duty.

When it comes down to it, the sheer number of animals is what overwhelms any shelter, but Hamilton seems to have a particularly high volume of strays and "owner surrenders." The only solution to this is spaying and neutering. Unfortunately, the cost for this procedure at most vets is beyond the means of the average pet owner, so it is put off, and more and more kittens are born every year...only to produce kittens of their own, who produce kittens of their own...and so on and so on.

The Hamilton SPCA built a small vet clinic on their property, but for some unknown reason, the clinic is not open to the public. They use the clinic for their own animals, and nothing more. If someone wants to have their animal fixed at a discounted price, they have to go all the way to Newmarket to the OSPCA Low-Cost Clinic. Quite a hike from the hammer. If there is a city anywhere that could use a low-cost clinic, it’s Hamilton.

I could suggest all the usual things to try to make changes in a system that is clearly broken, (writing letters or petitions, protesting etc) but when it comes down to it, those animals need to be out of the shelter, and into loving homes.

Take a look at the Petfinder site, and you'll see the current animals that the HAC employee is trying to save. Check back in a couple of days, and most of the animals you saw will not be on the site anymore. After 72 hours, they will be dead, and there will be a whole batch of newcomers, waiting for their deaths.

Lola was an exception, as are a few other cats you will see on the site that say “Urgent” next to their names. The kind employee there just doesn’t have the heart to mark the X on the cards of those cats. But their time is slowly running out…

Petfinder site for Hamilton Animal Control

Petfinder Pet List for Hamilton Animal Control

still waiting...

still trying to find a new home for oliver. thankfully, he had a break from the spare room for a couple of days while we had a guest at the house. i was hoping the cat sitters would fall head over heels for him and decide to keep him. they certainly did the first part, but not the second, so he's back with us. i know the perfect home is out there somewhere. hopefully it comes along sooner than later...

going through changes...

back in the first blog post, i wondered about the kitten's coats because their colour was so unusual. well..tippy is changing colour almost daily. his face is entirely dark grey now. he still has the lighter shades in the rest of his body though. my prediction is that his body will eventually turn the solid grey colour that his face is. the vet thinks he's going to be a big kitty when he's an adult. i agree with her. his feet are huge! he's turning out to be a very handsome little man...

below is tippy with his 'sister' martha.

still trying to find a home for oliver. i'm continuing to flood the internet with his story and video, but no takers. he's such a wonderful cat. if people could just look past the virus he has and see that, he would have found a home ages ago. so sad he has to be stuck in the spare room. breaks my heart...and his. i'm working on a new video of him that i'll post here when it's done.

even though it's almost autumn, animal shelters are still full of cats, kittens, dogs, puppies and small animals in need of fostering. if you have the time and space, please contact your local shelter and ask about their fostering program. i can guarantee they will be overjoyed that you are willing to take in some wayward critters.

squirrel visit

the shelter where i work called asking if i could transport a baby squirrel to a wildlife rehabilitator. i had 'significant other' pick this little guy up from the shelter and we had him for the night. he was fed and kept warm before being delivered to the rehabilitator the next morning.

a short visit, but it counts as temporary fostering i guess.

sorry the photos aren't the best, but he didn't sit still for very long, i didn't have the best lighting. and, he was covered in fleas so i didn't want to spend loads of time trying to take his picture. heh.

oliver is still looking for a home. i've basically flooded the internet with his story, but no takers as of yet. he's really not happy being stuck in our spare room. he wants to be hanging out with everyone giving love all the time. poor oli.

tink was spayed at the OSPCA low cost spay/neuter clinic. the surgery went well and she's settled in nicely to her new permanent home. her new owners are smitten with their new kitten. yay! i can't thank them enough for taking her...

and tippy is growing like a weed. he's completely nuts and keeps us highly entertained. our cats are getting some serious exercise with him around.

fun times...