Recap: Thursday, February 25, 2016

LAPS:

Feral Colony Cats

• Rio is still hanging out at Hotel Jules with Foster Mom Jules. Jules and Rio will be at LAPS on Sunday from noon until 3 PM.
  https://www.facebook.com/LAPSlangley/posts/1093071117389986

Season, Shiver, Blossom, and Puddles

• Season and Shiver are hanging out in the communal room they were put in when they first arrived. there have been a number of visits and play sessions with them, but I’ve missed (or mostly missed) every single one of them because the stream resets while I’m watching on DVR or switches to a new cam.
• Puddles had his neuter surgery. (Blossom was supposed to be spayed, but someone mentioned that someone said on cam this morning that they decided to hold off on her spay for a week or so just in case she is pregnant. I didn’t hear that myself or see confirmation since then so I don’t really know her true status.) Puddles and Blossom are being kept in an iso room for a few days because LAPS doesn’t want URI symptoms to transfer between the two rooms. (It’s unclear from the updates I’ve heard/seen which two cats have the URI symptoms — from one conversation it seems Season and Shiver do, from another that Puddles and Blossom do, and so on.)

Mattie

• Mattie is a very fluffy, horrifically matted ginger and white senior female cat who was brought in as a stray by a woman who had been feeding her. A neighbour had been feeding her and when she went away, she asked the woman who brought Mattie in to LAPS (“the finder”) to keep an eye open for her. The finder fed Mattie and tried to cut out some of the intense mats but realized that Mattie needed far more help than she could give. So she brought her to LAPS.
• She’s an absolutely sweet cat, putting up so well with all the poking and prodding she had to go through.
• Mattie is extremely skinny and covered with a thick, tight tangle of very painful (and smelly) mats. Because she’s a stray, LAPS is obligated legally to not alter her coat in any way for 72 hours so they won’t be able to cut away the mats (unless they become life-threatening) until that hold time is up and she legally becomes LAPS property. She has no tattoo and no microchip so it’s unlikely that anyone will come claim her within that time, but they still have to wait.
• They gave her some Recovery food (don’t want to give her too much too soon) and cleaned her ears. She’s extremely dehydrated so they gave her subQ fluids. (Kayla said the following day that she’d intended to only give 100 ml but the fluids were absorbed so quickly into Mattie’s body that she did 150 ml instead.) They’ll continue doing that twice a day until she is hydrated again.
• They think she’s about 9 or 10 years old. She’s going to need a full senior checkup/panel, dental (her teeth are in really bad shape), round the clock care (fluids, etc.), and probably a number of other medical tests/procedures. (Won’t really know until she sees a vet and she can’t see a vet unless she’s in a life-threatened state until the 72-hour hold is up.) They can’t tell if she’s been spayed because of all of the mats. They took pictures as evidence in case someone turns up to claim her — they’d possibly be charged with neglect. [My own thoughts: We don’t know her backstory. We don’t know if she was abandoned. We don’t know how long she’s been out on her own, only that the finder and neighbour had been feeding her for a week or two. She’s clearly been without a loving family caring for her for quite awhile, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one out there wondering where she is and mourning her absence.]
• They’re going to get her set up in their intake area/board room. (I think that’s the room upstairs that is also their lunchroom, but I could be mistaken.)
  
  

Toffee

• Kayla made a few mentions of Toffee during Mattie’s intake (comparing giving him his subQ fluids and giving Mattie hers) so he’s still holding on. ♥

TinyKittens HQ:

Cassidy

• No updates yet today.

People for Happier Cats/TNR site:

General Notes

• Shelly headed back to the feeding station after dropping off Noelle and Elf for their spays, to try to trap Neelix.
  
  
  https://www.facebook.com/tinykittens/photos/a.463110733763796.1073741829.462536430487893/1013395518735312/?type=3&permPage=1
• After another long day waiting (and after Sisko almost messed things up), Shelly finally trapped Neelix and brought her in to TKHQ. (See the feral recovery room section below for more information on that.)

Kestrel

• Kestrel is a tame free-range cat from the neighbouring property of the one where the feeding station is. (They’d taken her inside to keep her safe, though she wasn’t their pet; she still had access to the outside. They’re moving and can’t take any of the tame feral-born indoor/outdoor cats that they’ve been looking after.) She’s possibly pregnant, though if so is too early into it for it to show on ultrasound. She has the free run of the upstairs part of the house (except for the feral recovery room, of course) for the next week or so, until they can determine if she’s pregnant or not. She’s very sweet and loves people. There were no other updates on her today.

The cams and Livestream feeds

We currently have three live streaming webcams at TKHQ:

• The Jingle Bell’s Romper Room of Delight stream: Despite the name, this is the stream that is on Noelle and Elf in their dormitory downstairs.
• The Neelix + Savina: Kittenwatch, Feral-style! stream: This is the stream showing the room upstairs where Savina, Neelix, and (temporarily) Eliann are residing.
• The TinyKittens VIP cam stream: When there are only two (or fewer) rooms of cats/kittens, this stream is usually showing an alternate view of one of the rooms. Wherever it’s pointing at any given moment, this special stream/feed is only accessible for a monthly or annual fee. (Consider it a way to donate to TinyKittens monthly, with the VIP cam feed as a perk.) Prior to Neelix’s intake, this stream was the only stream showing Savina in her room. Starting with Neelix’s intake, this stream showed an alternate view of that room, with the Neelix + Savina stream showing the main cam.

Inactive/intermittent streams:

• The Feral Recovery Room stream: This, as the name would suggest, is the stream that used to be on the upstairs room with its various residents until they went to their forever homes (or back to the Happy Forest); after Enara left on February 20, the feed was set to show a 23-minute loop of feral colony videos. The feral loop DVR feed went offline just after 10:00 on February 23, just before the World Spay Day feed went live.
• The Cassidy the Two-Legged #MiracleKitten stream: This occasionally shows videos of Cassidy over at Shelly’s house.

NoElf Room

This is the room downstairs where Noelle and Elf are currently residing.

• Elf and Noelle had their spays today. Assuming that Noelle’s fungassay results are negative for ringworm, they’ll be heading to their new home in Glendale, Arizona, on March 10.
• The Visits:
  • Shelly visited very briefly in the morning. She picked up the girls to take them to their spays.
    
  • Kimsies brought the girls back from Mountain View. Before she released them back into the room, she did a very thorough clean, removing all of the bedding and toys and replacing them with new/clean ones, removing and cleaning things like the doll tub that she could return, vacuuming the floor, and putting out fresh food and water.
    
  • Shelly visited in the late evening, after her adventures upstairs. She gave an update on their vet visit. Both spays went well. Elf’s FeLV and FIV tests were negative. Elf was given a body condition score of 6/9 and Noelle was given 5.5/9 — ideal is 4.5/9 so they’re both a little…um…pudgy.
    

Feral Recovery Ward

Current Residents

• Since her arrival at TKHQ yesterday, Savina has been residing in this room (the purple room upstairs) by herself, after a failed attempt to introduce her and Kestrel. She’s not been thrilled to be here.
• Shelly returned to the Happy Forest to try to trap another (hopefully) pregnant female. After hours waiting today, days of trying, and months trying before that, Shelly finally trapped Neelix. Sisko almost ruined the whole thing, but the Universe was smiling on the Happy Forest this time.
  
• Shelly brought Neelix back to TKHQ and set up a new Livestream feed for the new feral recovery room where Savina already was.
  
  • She did an intake exam on Neelix (including some nail trimming, Revolution, Profender, ear cleaning) and managed some lap cuddle time with her that Neelix tolerated despite her obvious fear. (Hopefully her fear will lessen with time and she’ll start to actually appreciate the human contact.) Neelix has had a healing bite wound on her butt for about a month now.
  • Shelly’s not sure if she’s pregnant — she has a bit of a bump and Shelly thinks she feels baby-like lumps, but that could just be winter pudge and/or poop babies. Her teeth have a bit of tartar build-up so Shelly figures she’s at least two years old.
  • There will be no snugglers with these ferals — the idea is to minimize stress for the duration of their stays, not tame them, and snugglers would just add to the stress.
  • Dr. Ferguson is going to come out to TKHQ at some point and they’re going to try to give the ferals a special vaccine for that URI that is rampant at the colony. She may also bring her portable ultrasound — that won’t be useful for another week or two so her visit will likely be timed to coincide with that.
  • Kimsies stopped by during this visit to drop off some food; she didn’t come into the room but gave her congratulations through the closed door. Kimsies offered to pick up NoElf and to bring Shelly some McDonald’s food.
  • Shelly talked about Sable, who is the most pregnant cat on the property. (Sable has a nice safe nesting area in a barn so it isn’t urgent to get her inside, and she’s much further along than any of the other cats so doesn’t quite fit what Shelly’s hoping to set up here.)
  • She’s going to set up the Cabinet of Solitude as a nesting spot — she needs to block off the Bunker of Solitude, though, so a repeat of Sisko doesn’t happen.
  • Shelly had brought a bunch of moss back from the forest and spread that around the room while Neelix explored. Neelix eventually found her way to the tent on the catio.
• Chloe from LAPS dropped off Eliann after her spay and Shelly brought her into this room as well. She didn’t spend much time with her, just let Eliann find her own place to hunker down without interference.
  
• Shelly visited in the evening. Savina is very fearful (and thus aggressive) of humans and her fear is infectious to the other two, making Shelly’s visits into the room a complicated feat.
  
  • Shelly attempted some rearranging in the room. She also tried to put a heating pad wrapped in a small blanket on the catio, but Savina kept charging her. (She eventually got it partially in the window with her trusty grabber tool.)
  • Savina tried to jump onto the catio cam platform, startling all of the cats into pinballing around the room. Neelix and Eliann both showed some signs of curiousity but Savina’s fear and aggression just sets them off.

Today’s video caps courtesy of Sara (Little Darling):

Tiny Kittens Intro to Neelix [cuts off part way through Eliann’s release]

Tiny Kittens Shellys late night visit with new mamas

[Page last updated: 2016/02/29 at 06:09 PST]