10 February 2010
When I woke up in the morning, Tommy Boy had eaten all of his food so I loaded him up again. After feeding, watering, and changing paper for 15 cats, I found myself late to go meet Kristina at a mini-storage near the Palms hotel. We got there around 3:30. I setup the drop trap on one side of the complex while Kristina put traps out on the other side. I had my camera and tripod so I setup the camera where I could see the display while hiding from the cats by standing around a corner. It took nearly 15 minutes for the first one to work up the nerve to enter the drop trap. Emily had TNR'd a bunch of cats (15+?) here so many of them were previously fixed. I could see that he was not one of the four I was after on this side. After a few more minutes more of the cats started to appear. A small black cat appeared, and I slowly peeked around the corner with my binoculars to see if it was the one I was after. It was! Now there two cats eating the bait. A second ear tipped cat entered the trap. Fortunately some sound spooked her and she bounded away. I started thinking about spring the trap when I saw one of the grey and white cats checking things out. I decided to wait and he too entered the trap.
Preparing to pull the string I accidentally dropped the plastic reel and it clattered on the ground. I thought for sure the the noise would scare the cats but they sat there unperturbed. I sprung the trap and knabbed all three. We released the previously trapped cat and put the other two into traps. I reset the drop trap, but 30 minutes later there was still no action. We trapped one more from the other end and left four traps behind to be checked later.
Moving
on I met Susan, David and Erika at Nathan Adelson Hospice. They had managed to catch a couple and when we finsihed up there, we had five more bring the total so far this location up to 10. A minor SNAFU occurred as I was convinced that we had left a trap somewhere at NAH, when in fact I had never counted the traps which were left at the storage place! Tricia and Trudy helped me at the White Sands and we manged to trap three more cats. Bobbi stopped the storage place and delivered two more cats. Jean, Denise and Joe had managed to trap 4 more at the NSPCA, including three that I had specifically targetted! Yeah! The total for the night ended up at 14. We staged these cats at the Humane Society.The next day, Monday, I delivered the cats that we had trapped on Sat. night to the clinic and got the checked in. The intention was to have a lot of cats ready to go first thing in the morning. Later Tricia and I took one final stab and Nathan Adelson and the White Sands. At NAH we managed to trap 2 more but had had no luck at the White Sands. Leftover kibble in the food bowls explained the reason. One very wary cat spent a long time checking out the drop trap from different angles while we hid from site behind the vehicles. Just as she about to go into the trap, a juvenile I nicknamed the "crack kitten" came zooming up to her, scaring her away from the trap. The crack kitten got his name when on the first night he ran in circles around the empty pool, never straying more than a couple of inches away from the edge.
The next morning I learned Tara would be bringing in another cat, and that Bobbi had two more. I called Kerry at HCWS to let her know how many we would be bringing in. When we got to the clinic, it was obvious that the 100 cat day was going to be a success! Before Bobbi and I arrived with our 20 cats, they had already checked in nearly a hundred. With so many cats to handle it was obvious that more help was needed so I decided to stay and see how I could help. Initially I changed paper in traps, but Harold soon took me in to do what they lovingly refer to as "The Huckeberry" or cleaning and sterilizing the surgical instruments in spay packs. Having worked years ago in a hospital performing the same work on a much larger scale, I found it quite easy to fall into a rhythm and keep up with the workload. I snuck out for a couple of hours in the afternoon to go see a client. The last surgery finished up at around 6:00 and by the time we cleaned up, and loaded up cats it was after 8 PM. 117 Signed in with 4 "Already Been Neutered" and 1 euthanasia.
Bobbi and I took our haul of 37 cats to the Humane Society office for staging. After feeding and watering all of the cats, it was nearly 10:00 PM. After showing Bobbi some of my videos and BS'ing some, it was after 10:30 by the time I got home and I was exhausted. Doc Henderson asked for 100, and Valley trappers over delivered!
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1 comments:
Wow, cool post. I'd like to write like this too - taking time and real hard work to make a great article... but I put things off too much and never seem to get started. Thanks though. naltrexone implants clinic
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