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Saturday Musings

It’s been a busy and frustrating week, with some successes and failures. Biggest frustration was being bounced off the DAFDay website and having no idea as to why. It’s all fixed now, but man. Sometimes it feels as if we’re just floundering around in this fund raising effort. I sat in on a marketing webinar Wednesday, and I think I’m going to focus our efforts for a while in just brand recognition. You know, just getting people to know who we are and then maybe, what we do. Times are tough and money around the Retreat is tight. But even without much money, cats have to go the the vet.

Our vet is absolutely fabulous with their four doctors doing wonderful work with our cats. They give us all the breaks and discounts they can, but the meds keep getting more and more expensive. While our cats have all sorts of cute and interesting traits, such as each “generation” teaching the next about trimming their hind claws, the most recent trend seems to be gum and thyroid problems. We’ve been jokingly asked to move into our vets office, just to save on gasoline.

We did get a bit of good news when we took Stella to the vet for a checkup on Friday. She’s doing well and was generally a very good girl. I understand she was a bit vocal when she had her blood taken, but often, I’m a bit vocal too when I get stabbed in the arm. Stella’s gained a pound of weight and we found that a minor skin infection has been gooping up her ears. We cleaned and medicated her ears yesterday – she was really not amused with that, but accepted a Churu as a peace offering. It’s interesting to note that Stella is turning into “my” cat, stepping in to replace my Winston. That girl definitely likes laying in my lap and has begun making biscuits before she settles down for pets.

Stella loves to sulk when she comes back from the vet, just to keep us on our toes and let us know about all of her displeasure. The solution? Take a guess.

It’s also of note that from turning up her nose at Churus when she first came to the Retreat, she has now become a real fan. I think it’s the result of her thyroid medicine kicking in and the protein in the treat doing her some good. Sulky cat or not, she hopped into my lap in the evening and we watched tv while see got her pets. Not a bad way to end a Saturday.

Update on Stella

Stella seems always hungry and has a heavy paw to protect her food bowl.

It’s been awhile since we’ve discussed Stella. As you may remember, Stella came to us with an inflamed, swollen nose, thought to be cancerous and a large polyp in her left ear. She was bedraggled, skeletal and listless. We sent her off to the vet, then arranged for an operation and a couple of biopsies. Her blood work was horrible. Her nose was merely badly inflamed; her left ear, on the other hand, was filled with a cancerous tumor. The removal of the polyp seems to have cured that problem (we’ll see over time), but the thinness refused to get better, no matter how much she ate. We ran blood work for her thyroid and it came back as critically overactive, requiring methimazole.

The methimazole works on humans as well as cats so gloves are need

Stella has been receiving two doses a day (morning & evening, alternating ears) for almost a month now and as her pictures show, she is a much improved kitty. When dealing with thyroid issues, change takes quite a while, with weight being about the last thing that catches up. She needs to put on maybe three or four more pounds to be “healthy”, but we’re delighted to already see such improvement.

Stella is more or less confined to my office, where she spends time with Linus, Cookie, Toby and Mama Harlequin. I normally watch TV and fend the cats off my dinner in my office every evening and that makes for some great socialization time. Linus and Stella are rivals for my lap when I’m at the TV or reading. One will get in my lap and be petted for an hour or so and then they’ll switch. It’s interesting to watch when Linus gets up to nibble at the dry cat food, Stella slides into my lap without a second glance at her large, orange friend.

Finders, keepers.

Odds & Ends

Most of the last 10 days or so, I’ve been working on creating a fillable form for our monthly Asilomar reporting to Shelter Animals Count and to Shelter Pet Data Alliance. We had to bite the bullet and buy a software subscription and then learn how to use the damn thing. I made a fool of my self by submitting a support ticket for something that was in the user manual, but you know; who reads the manual!

Any way, the Cats Gallery is set up and running and our gallery of all our cats is 99.9% done as we’re missing one photo. We don’t have a decent photo of Mishka, who is a chocolate black long hair who as a passion for hiding except at night. It’s hard to take a good picture of a black cat at night.

The most recent photo to go into the gallery was that of Luna. Luna was born in our backyard some years ago and is a daughter of Miss Tabz. Luna became an inside cat one very dark night at around 0300. Mrs H couldn’t sleep and was using her iPad to look at the backyard with one of the CCTV cameras. She saw Momma Tabz carrying a kitten and another kitten following (Luna). Unbeknown to Mrs H, both kittens had ocular herpes and their eyes were welded shut with gunk. Little Luna, a bit behind and late to the party, ran after her mom and fell into our swimming pool. Mrs H yelled at me to get up as she headed outdoors to rescue the kitten. Getting the cat out of the pool didn’t take much effort and Mrs H was soon back with one soaked little kitty. Two towels later, the kitty was dry and warm and being fed by Mrs H with a syringe. The moon was out and the kitten was gray so she earned her name of Luna. The next day brought a trip to the vet and the purchase of some meds for the kittens vicious ocular herpes.

The following days changed our relationship with feral momma Tabz. She brought all her remaining kittens (each with ocular herpes) to our back door and left them in our care. Subsequently, with each new litter, she would bring all her kittens to us once they were ready to be weaned. After several years of trying to trap Ms Tabz, we nabbed her and her latest batch of kittens in April.

This week has as also been about expanding our donor reach to include Donor Advised Funds or DAFs. Through a on-line workshop and with help from Givebutter’s support staff, we have a DAF donor form. You should see the button on our new Donations page on the website soon.

Oh, almost forgot! This week started the Community Service Campaign by Ignitify using radio stations ESPN KLAQ & KISS FM, and text messages to ask their customers and the community for donations to the Retreat. Our relationship with Ignitify began earlier this year when our HVAC mini-split bought the farm and we needed it replaced. Ignitify was quick, professional, and they liked what they saw of the Retreat. When they said they wanted to help, we were quick to say “YES!”. Talk about a business chipping in with community service! We’ll be posting more about both these companies on our “Friends” page which is currently under construction.

Please return next week to see what else is going on at Mandarin’s Retreat! 🎉

Temp Gallery

We’re trying to post gallery pictures of our cats in different situations, but have been running into roadblocks (or gallery blocks). Below is a draft of our Cats in Treatment gallery. This will be an active gallery as cats will move into or out of treatment. Please give us a shout on social media about what you think.

Cole and Cars

We got a new kitten on Friday. Presumably this is just a foster for the Human Society, but we’ll see. We haven’t had much luck of our fosters being taken back, but that’s another story for another time. This is Cole’s time. Cole came to us straight from the vet where he had been in treatment for three days. His front paws were horribly burned.

This is a photo of Cole's burnt paws.
Cole’s Burnt Toe Beans

We receuved Cole’s story from Sun City Cats and it’s posted below in his own words:

Cole’s Story

I’m Coleman… you can call me “Cole” for short. I’m named after Christian Coleman the world champion in running. 

A couple days ago I decided to explore a parked vehicle.

I guess it wasn’t very smart of me to choose to hide in an exhaust pipe.  Especially after the car started moving.  I gave it my all to keep my little paws moving and keep up with the vehicle…. Maybe if I had some “Nike Air Zooms” like Christian I wouldn’t have hurt my paws. Luckily, a very kind lady waved, honked, and screamed hysterically to stop the vehicle (before we entered the interstate). She then sprang into action, laying on the street not caring about her cloths getting dirty and she-saved me as my paws were already damaged. Thank you “kind lady”, for caring. I heard she doesn’t really know much about us furry felines, but she cared enough to save my life. We need more two legged critters like her. 

I was in the vet all week (thanks to those kind two legged critters as well). And now I’m with my favorite people. They never skimp on the Churu.  YUM. Once I’m all healed up I hope to find my fantastic family.  But I need some extra TLC right now.  Please, if you know anyone that’s sweet, patient, and gentle. I’ll fit right in. 

Sorry no biscuits right now but I’m sending you lots of purrs.  Thank you for giving me a chance! 

Fondly,  

Lil’ Cole 

Paws Covered in Gunk and Wrapped

So for now, Cole will be healing and returning to our vet for further treatment. If you would like to support Cole, please click Donations and specify in your comments that you want gift to go to Cole.