Spay Day USA

Today is Spay Day USA (designated by HSUS and Doris Day League), and last night I set traps for the two remaining unaltered females living in Dick's carport, and for Midget, the one remaining female (hopefully) living in Dick's home. I set the three traps on loan from AZ Cats (Altered Tails) and my new Havahart trap. I had hoped to corral Midget (with or without her brother, Grayling, in Mark's old bedroom, but she still doesn't trust me after last week's attempt to trap her (when I was able to trap one of the carport torties after I gave up on ever catching Midget), so I just baited the traps in the bedroom, baited the traps in the carport and traveled back and forth between the two areas to see if I could increase the probability of success. Midget's brother was trapped by the Havahart first, and then the dark tortie got trapped. Dilly, the dilute tortie went in a trap 3 times to lick the drippings I had used for bait, and 3 times she evaded setting off the trap. I had almost given up and then she stepped ONE MORE STEP forward the 4th time and the door shut. I left for the night after moving the two trapped torties inside Dick's house for the night. When I arrived this morning (hoping to see Midget in the final trap, I saw instead -- Hissy or Hassle, the bi-color "under the sink cat" -- hissing and flopping end over end when he saw me come in the bedroom door.

Soooo, today I had appointments at AZ Cats for 3 cats, and I took 3 (of the 4 trapped cats) to AAWL Arizona Animal Welfare League. First time I had used this location, and it worked out very well since I volunteer today (Tuesdays each week) at the Eastside shelter from 9 to 11:30am and the clinic appt. was for "between 8 and 9 am" with pickup around noon. Jan, from AAWL was very friendly, capable, and efficient, and filled out the forms (instead of me having to do it as usual) and helped me carry the traps out to the car after the operation. We talked about adoption of feral/semi-feral cats, and her experience is that the ferals kept acting feral even when adopted at a young age (8 weeks)-- I'm concerned about this since I am wondering what to do with the July kittens in the carport, and this includes two of those I got altered today. BTW, one of the torties was PREGNANT -- with 6 babies!!! The other was not. Now I'm even more concerned about Midget, because the tortie hadn't acted pregnant while Midget has been giving some signs -- I have got to trap her ASAP!!!!

Hissy/Hassle and the 2 torties came to my home (where the tortie with white or calico is also recuperating (she was spayed last Thursday at the MASH unit). I'm still thinking about whether to buy more cages and try to socialize them or put them back - except if I put Hissy/Hassle back in Dick's house, it'll be even harder to ever catch him again. Same with Grayling.... and Midget -- IF I can ever catch her the FIRST time!