Recap: Friday, February 26, 2016

LAPS:

Feral Colony Cats

• Rio is still hanging out at Hotel Jules with Foster Mom Jules. There have been no updates today.

Season, Shiver, Blossom, and Puddles

• Season and Shiver are hanging out in the communal room they were put in when they first arrived. Like yesterday, 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.
• I don’t have an update on Blossom and Puddles.

Mattie

• They received special permission to have Mattie shaved because the mats in her coat were clearly causing her extreme discomfort and pain. Brittany from Bordeaux Spaw mobile pet grooming was onsite at LAPS grooming the dogs (she comes in once a week to do that on a voluntary basis) and they asked her to check Mattie out. She volunteered to shave her, no charge.
• Brittany shaved as much as she could, dulling several of her blades in the process. (The mats were thick and tight to Mattie’s skin and many of them were caked with urine and feces.) The whole process took over two hours, and Mattie was absolutely sweet and mellow the whole time in spite of the fact that she had scabs,  urine-scalded skin, and the inevitable nicks because some of the mats were so tight to her skin. When they got to the really painful ones, Kayla got permission from Dr. Ferguson to give Mattie a dose of gabapentin to relax her and ease the pain. Even so, after about two hours, she’d had enough so they stopped. They’d gotten most of the mats, but some of the mats (on her legs especially) are so tight and are twisting the skin that Brittany suggested soaking them in an anti-matting solution and then trying to brush or clip them out. She also said she’d come back later to finish the shaving if they needed her. (She also mentioned that she could tell by how the hair was growing that Mattie had never been shaved before.)
  
• After Brittany left, they gave her some more subQ fluids, put a sweater on her, and will get her settled back into her room, which thankfully has its own heating so they can make sure she stays warm. Kayla hoped she might be able to Periscope later (she wasn’t, as far as I can tell), and they’ll give another update tomorrow.
• They’ve bagged and kept the mats and hair as evidence, both to prove they had just reason to shave her before the 72 hours was up and as evidence in case the owner shows up and is charged.
  
• You can watch the video of the grooming session on the Day in the Life at LAPS Livestream event at http://livestream.com/accounts/14083503/LAPSlife/videos/113592820.
• If you’d like to donate towards her medical bills and care, visit http://www.lapsbc.ca/donate and mention her name, Mattie, in the message field.
  https://www.facebook.com/LAPSlangley/photos/a.190030427694064.43545.155480244482416/1093589327338165/?type=3&permPage=1

TinyKittens HQ:

Cassidy

• No updates yet today.

People for Happier Cats/TNR site:

Kestrel

• Kestrel is a tame free-range cat from the neighbouring property of the one where the feeding station is. 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, other than to say that she’s doing great.

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.)

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.

• The Visits:
  • Shelly visited very briefly in the morning. She gave them both more pain meds. She gave them cuddles. Elf is slowly getting better from her URI. Noelle’s fungassay results haven’t come back yet. They’re leaving for Glendale, Arizona, on March 10, assuming Noelle’s results are good. She commented that she’d told Dr. F that the chatters had requested a tummy tuck for Elf, but that it didn’t look like that happened. (I don’t know, I think it looks like Elfie got at least a little bit of a tummy reduction — the poochie bit doesn’t look quite as poochy.)
    
  • Lawana visited in the afternoon. Lots of cuddles and play time. The girls were extra cute. (At one point, Noelle was lying on Lawana’s feet, watching her. It was so cute.)
    

Feral Recovery Ward

Current Residents

Shelly’s Morning Adventures in Feral Juggling

• This morning, Shelly needed to give Eliann her pain meds, and she wanted to have another lap snuggle session with Neelix. But how to get access to either of them with Savina playing guard dog? It was an adventure in problem solving and coming up with solutions on the fly as the situation changed by the minute. (Let’s just say, there was a lot of pinballing cats.) In the end, she managed to inadvertently scare Savina off the catio and onto the high shelf in the litter box alcove (aka the closet), which allowed her to purrito Neelix on the catio and place her in the Cabinet of Solitude while she retrieved Eliann from the closet to give her the pain meds. Shelly was then able to get Neelix from the CoS for some lap time — she seems to have regressed a bit because of Savina’s infectious fear and fight instincts, but she’s still tolerated the petting and lap time for a good amount of time. She seems to like the CoS, which is good because it’s a good nesting place for feral mamas.
  
• Shelly is considering putting Savina in a room by herself with minimal interaction as she’s really not a good candidate for the kind of socialization Shelly wants to do here AND she’s negatively influencing the other cats.
• Shelly left the catio window closed when she left, which has been confusing to Eliann who keeps trying to get out. (And the window sill in this room is very narrow and difficult to stand on if the window isn’t open.)

Kimsies and Shelly move Savina

• Savina was still on the top shelf of the closet when Shelly decided she needed to move Savina into a separate room. (Savina just isn’t a good candidate for what Shelly’s trying to do here.) Shelly enlisted Kimsies’ help. I unfortunately didn’t get to watch it myself (I was watching Mattie’s shave and the feed had reset before I could watch it) but I heard it was impressive to see. 😉 After some failed attempts, they ended up putting the Kuranda tower in the closet (to give Savina a way down) and then put the feral den on the catio — when Savina flew off the shelf to the catio, she went right into the feral den, which they then used to transport her to the other room.
• Shelly set the other room up for minimal human interaction: the catio is all set up with the den, blankets, a heating pad, food and water; the room is dark and quiet. Shelly will only be coming into the room to put out more food and maybe scoop litter.

Afternoon Update

• Shelly gave an update on the situation with Savina, including the details of how they moved her. Savina is clearly a high-stress, fearful cat. Everything is so up in the air at the moment until she knows who (if anyone) is pregnant. Can’t really make decisions until that is known. She’s going to try not to come back in this room again today. Neelix is in the Cabinet of Solitude with some food if she’s hungry and Eliann has had her pain meds. The catio is shut for now. The upstairs washing machine died in mid-load while Shelly was visiting. She’s not gloving and gowning to come into this room as the girls have no URI symptoms and no RW fluorescing. (She is gowning/gloving to go in to NoElf just to make sure nothing gets transferred either direction.) May bring Kestrel in for a visit tomorrow.
  

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

Tiny Kittens Shelly puts shade up on catio maybe sound from another vid in beginning sorry

Tiny Kittens Shelly tries to catch the frightened most feral one for meds or something

Tiny Kittens Shelly gives them meds

Tiny Kittens Shellys visit in Neelix room

[Page last updated: 2016/02/29 at 07:22 PST]