Blog – Page 5 – Mandarin’s Retreat

Tabz

Tabz had been hanging around our backyard for what seems forever. She would always come around to be fed when Mrs H brought out the food bowls. Our colony of about eight feral cats had gradually taken over our back yard especially after we added kitty tubes and a covered litter box (it’s hard to poop in the stone covered ground). Tabz was always a skittish and standoffish girl but she gradually started coming up to speak to Mrs H. Churus helped.

When Tabz came of age and started having kittens we tried in earnest to catch her. It was interesting, though; while she ran from us she would bring her sick kittens and put them on our backdoor step. I think this started when on night at about 0300. Mrs H woke up with a start and thought she heard an unusual noise, so she went to check the backyard CCTV. What she saw was blood curdling – a kitten ran after Tabz and fell into our pool. After an unscheduled pool dive, the kitten, soon to be named Luna, was brought inside, dried off and treated for ocular herpes. Luna’s eyes had been sealed shut with gunk that she couldn’t see…hence the accidental dash into the pool. Mrs H went to feed the feral cats the next morning and spoke to Tabz. She told her that we had her kitten and that the kitten was fine. A day later another kitten with ocular herpes was placed at our backdoor. The day after that we received the third and final kitten. Thus was our relationship with Tabz. She would run from us and refuse to get into a trap but would bring us her kittens; first the ill ones, then all the others once they were of age.

About three years ago, we had another major incident with Tabz. One very cold Saturday in January, I started the car remotely to warm it up and took off to do Saturday chores. I didn’t get very far before I started getting engine warning signs and loss of the electrical system. Hours later at the repair shop, we were discussing a new alternator and various belts when one of the mechanics brought in a cat’s tail. Ooops! An $800 reminder to bang on the hood of your car and then bang again, because it didn’t work the first time. I sent a pic to Mrs H and she immediately stated it was Tabz’s tail. Well, shit. If we couldn’t catch the damn cat to TNR her, how could we catch her to take her to the vet for a tail inspection? We sighted the cat several times over the next several days and it appeared that Tabz had enough of a stubby tail left she avoided incontinence problems.

Things continued on like before but with a shorter tail until about two months ago. Mrs H had put an old airline cat carrier near our front door for a feral cat named Friend. He’s our community Alpha who likes to guard the door and watch out for the FedEx guy. Mrs H thought he could use a little shelter so she put out the carrier. Within a week or so we noticed Tabz going in and out of the shelter. Closer inspection revealed four fuzzy kittens just a few days old. Our old dilemma of cat catching struck again and we had to be careful. We didn’t want her to move the kittens. We decided the most logical answer was to wait.

We had removed the door to the airline carrier before we put it by the door so we couldn’t trap Tabz and her kittens with it. We did notice as the kittens got a little older, Tabz would leave the carrier for some RNR and me time. Watch for her departure, we exchanged the old carrier with one with a door, stuffed the old towel back into it, transferred the kittens and waited for the return of Momma Tabz. Tabz noticed the switch but didn’t remove her kittens.

The situation remained static for about a week when Mrs H walked passed the carrier, saw everyone inside, reached down and closed the door. We had prepared our “double-long” kennel in our office for the family and we just placed the carrier inside the kennel and opened the carrier door. Within an hour or two with the kennel covered with a blanket, everyone was calm, making themselves at home. Mama Tabz was wary of us but, oddly, also friendly and seemingly a bit relieved. She gleefully accepted two Churus a day, licking the stuff off our fingers. Perhaps, just perhaps, we’d eventually be forgiven for our catnapping.

A week later we received a request to foster a little lost Main Coon kitten, Freya. She was tiny, skinny and it bad need of either formula or a mama to nurse. We carefully added her to Tabz litter and the momma cat immediately took her in. We think she heard her cry before we came into the room and got interested. About ten days later, our TNR partners came in possession of two kittens who had been separated from their mom by an unthinking human. We kept these two in a separate kennel for about a week for quarantine reasons and they were sorta okay but not thriving. Last week, we let all the kittens play together in our ODC – Office Day Care. This gave Tabz a bit of a respite as her kittens were getting bigger but the kennel wasn’t. At the end of ODC, all seven kittens were returned to Momma Tabz and the two smaller new kittens were brought into the family.

Mama Tabz gave us all sorts of looks and demanded a third Churu per day, but she did take the kittens in and almost immediately started fussing over them. It’s absolutely heartbreaking to see and hear two little fuzzy jelly beans respond to a foster mama’s cries and trills and listen to them purr contentedly while being cleaned.

9–So, this is our Tabz. She is a feral momma cat who is just a wonderful mother to not only her own, but also to the three little ones she’s adopted. Once the kittens are grown some more, we’ll have the Humane Society or Animal Services put them up for adoption and we’ll get Tabz spayed. Whether we can keep her inside the house or we must return her to the backyard colony remains to be seen. Watch our social media and our blog and we’ll keep you informed.

Odds, Ends & Asking for Help

Rather than post a Caturday Cat this morning, I thought I would catch everyone up on the happenings around Mandarin’s Retreat. The Retreat has had to spend a bunch of money – into four figures – fixing the HVAC system in the Retreat’s Office. We remodeled our back porch into a home office and IT center about 10 years ago. It has since morphed into a cat medical center/transition site for sick or new cats in the Retreat.

Our mini-split in the office has been acting up for several years, mostly I think from the large amount of cat hair that gets captured in its filters. April was time for its scheduled maintenance and it had stopped working. The maintenance team came it, worked on it and left; but the HVAC didn’t work at all. We were sweltering in the heat and Tabz and her four kittens were not having any fun either. I called a new HVAC team who very promptly identified the problem, offered several solutions and we decided to toss out the old system and get a new one. Two days later the system was installed and we were cool. This came at the cost of about 1.5 months of operating expenses for the Retreat. Sigh…we can’t receive enough donations to cover vet costs, how are we going to cover the cost of the new system?

This leads me to ponder on what encourages folks donate to charities like ours? We take in old cats, sick cats, and cats that need help. We also try to house cats from families who have been evicted from their homes and domestic violence victims who whose emergency shelters won’t accept their cats. While this service is not used very often, we would like to think having a place to put their feline pets enables them to leave an unsavory situation.

But that goes back to the heart of the question; is doing “good things” enough? What do donors want to see in return for their hard earned cash? We don’t have mugs or t-shirts we can provide to donors (at least not yet); so what “value” do donors need in return. What should we post? Are pictures of cats enough? I personally don’t want to try to pull at the heart strings and write about sob stories involving our cats. Mandarin’s Retreat is suppose to be a happy place, a resting and healing place for the sick and handicapped. We had our logo designed to show a happy place and we want to continue in that vane.

My wife and I fund Mandarin’s Retreat out of our own pockets and in our own home. We don’t mind the cost, but in these days of inflation and product downsizing, we need help. We’ve looked into fund raising experts and those who say, “For only $3,500 a year, we can provide you with multitude of grant opportunities.” Yah, right. You want me to spend 10% on my yearly budget in hopes of getting a grant. I know you have to spend some money to make some money but where does one begin and what do donors want for their contributions?

If you have any ideas, suggestions or comments about this diatribe, please email us at meow@mrhwc.org.

Good Golly Miss Molly!

Today’s Caturday Cat is Miss Molly. She is a calico beauty who believes at Saturdays are only for petty kitties (her) and not for doing anythings except filling the food and water bowls and emptying the litter boxes.

Molly came to the Retreat as a kitten who was found by a member of Sun City Cats. The good Samaritan knowing the she was too small for TNR, brought her to us for a little upbringing and socialization skills. She is a bundle of energy who demands cuddles — especially at 3am when we’re all in bed — and has been known to give a nip or two if petting is not forthcoming.

Molly is also one of eight calico kitties at the Retreat and she is the youngest. It is fitting that she is today’s Caturday Cat

Caturday’s Cat

**FeLV+ Kitty Kathy Posses for the Camera**

This Caterday the Retreat would like to highlight Ms Katie who is one of the five Feline Leukemia (FeLV) positive cats who reside with us. Katie with her sister Alicia and her two brothers James and Quasar share a room with a FeLV+ transplant from Atlanta Little Miss Gray. Katie and her siblings were born in the Retreat’s backyard as part of a feral cat colony headed by dad, Mandarin.

While trying to catch the kittens for TNR, we also captured their dad. Mandarin was a scraggly beastie who we took to our vet because we though he was sick. Confirmed to have FeLV, we also tested the kittens who having once tested negative for FeLV, who upon retesting where found to be infected. Determined not to return these cats to the wild, we fixed up a separate living space and released everyone free to explore. We took a few precautions of separate litter and feeding bowls and allowing no visitors by the other residents.

For the last two years, Katie has needed no extra-ordinary vet care. She’s had her shots and was seen for sniffles but nothing else has been needed. She has become used to us humans and demands pets and belly rugs while in the cat tree. She’s shy when not in her spot on the cat tree, but she’s a silken princess upon her throne on the tree. Katie’s fur is literately silk fine and the fur produces a very feathery fan-like tail.

Katie is quite a cat and one who we have welcomed into our hearts at Mandarin’s Retreat.

Joys and Sorrows

Running a rescue is strange at times. We’ve had births and deaths, sickness and recovery along with just anger and pain. Mandarin’s Retreat is primarily a home for sick and hurt cats, but we try to branch out when we have the space. One of those branches is to be a temporary refuge for the pets of families that are in distress. By distress I mean families who either by family violence or economics have been displaced from their homes. Cats of these families most often can’t follow their humans to their temporary quarters. They need a place to stay rather than disappearing on the streets.

Linus is just one such cat. The woman who cared for him and several other cats succumbed to age and mental heath problems. Our Trap-Neuter-Release (TNR) community stepped in to help distribute the cats to fosters. Linus went to such a foster. But as sometimes is the case with pets, the current cats in the house wouldn’t accept Linus as a fellow occupant. A new foster was sought and found, but she couldn’t take in Linus for about 10 days. Mandarin’s Retreat got the call and we answered.

Linus arrived a bit matted, shy and a bit hungry. He went into a kennel in my office to acclimatize and decompress. Within a day or so, Linus informed us the kennel was too small for his needs and he was given access to the office. The office had been take over by Cookie and Toby, but they also had access to the rest of the house. They came and went when ever someone would open the door for them. They accepted Linus after a lot of sniffing and a few murmurs.

We quickly discovered that Linus is a snuggler. If anyone sat down, he was in your lap, purring up a storm. By observation we found that Linus was an old cat, older than we were told. We guess he’s older than the 10 years listed on his paperwork. He’s probably closer to 14 or 15 and with all the problems older age brings to cats (and humans, also). He appears to have some kidney problems based on his litter box trips. We’ve got a vet visit scheduled but we feel we already know the problem.

This brings me back to the “anger” part of the opening paragraph. We conveyed our thoughts on Linus’s health to the soon to be foster and the response was, “I thought I was getting a healthy cat, so just keep him!” For such a sweet cat to be rejected automatically because he’s “Not Healthy”; makes my blood boil and I wonder about the character of a person I haven’t met. This happening so soon after the lost of my Winston, impacted me even harder. In this disposable society, Linus is just another item to be thrown away because he’s not new, healthy, shiny or the latest version. He’s an old sick cat who only wants love and pets and not much else.

Though we don’t really have room, we’ll keep him. He’ll go to the vet and see what needs to be done. He’ll have a place to stay and will be cared for and petted until he tells us its time to go over the rainbow bridge. We’ll ease his journey as best we can, wish him sun puddles and pets forever and we will cry a lot.