My oh my--what a morning! The cats and kittens must've been partying all night long. What a messy Rescue Center we had this morning. The first thing I noticed was a whole roll of paper towels were unrolled, crinkled up and all over the floor. We have evidence that it was the artwork of Gib and friends. Then when I washed my hands, the other roll of paper towels by the sink, was also emptied and a pile of paper towels, ever so neatly, on the floor. There was high evidence of feline fur on them--a nice place to sleep at.
Then I noticed that we had hyper cats--running, zooming and acting quite crazy. When I heard a strange sound in the office, I looked and thought there must've been a green carpet put down over night. The cats (I heard thru the cat-vine that Octavia started it), opened a soft package that was delivered yesterday by donnawan/Donna H. It had multiple bags of catnip in it. Many of the bags were completely emptied out and literally everywhere in the office. I can just imagine all the sliding on the nip that was going on all night. There was catnip under and on every piece of furniture, including the tent, in the water bowl and on TOP of some of the furniture. There was still catnip dust on many of the cats. We're talking serious catnip overload here. But, I do want to thank our friend Donnawan for this gift--the cats loved it!!
:CRASH--what was that? Oh no, now one of the cats knocked over a bowl of dry food--all of it on the floor. Why is it that they think that's fun? The reason is this--they can run and slippy slide on the food--makes for a run, dive, knock cats over that's in the way and end up on the other side of the room. I swear they did this on purpose.
To add to all the chaos, I dumped a plate of food upside down, barely missing poor County's head. He looked at me like, it's okay--it's that kind of morning. What a sweetie he is. Then Farrah fell from a high perch--I do believe she is catnip intoxicated. Next, we heard a true cat fight on the catwalks. I'm embarrassed to say that my dear Zelda Belda girl was being mean. Yes, downright mean and was chasing 3 cats on the catwalk. They did NOT like that at all, which stirred up all the cats.
The fragrance of the catnip must've carried over into the Welcome Office, as the 4 cats in there were kicking up their heels--they were hopping from one cat shelf to the other (not Bondi though--she says she's innocent and then knocked over their cat food dish--wet food on the floor. Ick. Zavatar was trying to get INSIDE the rescue center while Teller was trying to get INSIDE the office--makes for tricky door opening.
Then, another CRASH. No, they didn't do it again, did they? After checking, we realized they dumped over a whole big bowl of water--all over the floor and petal furniture. Well, why not--that way, they can walk thru the water, with catnip paws and spread it even further throughout the rescue center. What clever cats!
Never give Badu too much catnip--it really brings out her, shall we say, her personality. But, this time, I think she was overloaded. She was on the refrigerator, with glazed eyes. She was actually quiet this morning!
A loud truck went by on the road out front, and startled the cats. All it took was for one cat to run amuck and they all followed suit. Cats took off in 10 different directions. Sure did clear out that room in about one second!
In the midst of all this, while I was trying to dispense medications to certain cats, Farrah jumps down and gobbles up a whole pill. Just as pretty as you please--and here, sometimes I have to "argue" with her to take her PB seizure meds. Oh well, it wasn't anything that would hurt her. I told her though that it would make her turn pink. She just ignored me.
To add to all of this, we also found 5 empty cat pouches of food. I'm sure that Octavia is teaching the kittens her thievery trick. This time, we found the pouches in water bowls, litter boxes and in the sink. What on earth are they thinking?!
So, that's how our morning started out today. Have I told you that I sure love these cats? I do, I truly do!
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We took in a new kitten yesterday. When Judy S went home, she saw a poor wee black/white kitten on the road, just sitting there, not moving. When she picked him up, she found out why he didn't move. His eyes were caked completely shut--couldn't see. He's been tested this morning and is negative! Hooray! We've cleaned his eyes several times--I'm thrilled to see there are no scars on his eyes! He's had his bath and is on antibiotics.THis kitten is a lovebug--he actually jumped out of his pen right onto my shoulder. He's a baby, a boy and his name is JoeBob. He also has a case of lice--but this is easy to fix. But, his URI will keep him in quarantine for a few days.
After much discussion with a few volunteers, I decided to let Uncle Eric take Gossamer for a while and work his charm on her. She's such a beautiful girl, but is so so scared. We're not making much progress on her sociability, so Uncle Eric will try and work his magic. I was also going to send Kiwi with Gossamer, as Goss loves cats. But Uncle Eric asked me to not send Kiwi at this time. He wants her to bond with HIM, instead of cat-friends. Makes sense to me. I am so appreciative that he is willing to help us again. I've said a few times, if we could've only gotten Gossamer earlier in her kittenhood, it would've made a huge difference. But, we didn't, so we have to think of what is best for Gossamer. We have to consider her comfort zone.
Change is good! Life is not meant to stand still. If everything stayed the same, we wouldn't grow in experience. "If everything stayed the same, there would be no weeping...but no laughter. No failings...but no dreams come true. No breaking down...but no building up. No passing of life...but no babies born into it". (unknown author). I'm sure glad life changes! Life is fun, exciting and meant to be explored. Look at the changes we've had at the Rescue Center in these 12 years. We've grown tremendously...and this is good. Just to name a few--we've expanded, we've adopted out thousands of cats and kittens, we've made friends with our volunteers, viewers and supporters, we've spayed/neutered thousands of cats. Change is good--life is good.
