Everything was under control and then. . . .

I came home to discover that our internet wasn't working. But I have fixed it by the tried and true method of turning it off, waiting 20 seconds, and turning it on again. 54 cats when I arrived. 51 when I left. It was a very well controlled morning with lots of vollies doing their work slowly and spending time with each cat. I put Maxwell our boarder in the play place because he is a kitten and was desperate for a run. He is one of ours, I think. They must have put a collar on him when they took him home and hadn't checked how tight it was. I took it off and found a matted piece of fur below the collar.

And I noticed that half his whiskers have been trimmed. Is there some myth that if you cut a new cat's whiskers it won't wander off?

Then a woman called ahead to alert me that she was bringing in her client who has issues to look for a cat. Suddenly there were too many people around. Lovely people, vanished to elsewhere. And the nice man decided that he liked lots of cats and would go away and think about it and prepare for it. I confess that I showed him Charlie who is a softie, Valentino who loves everybody and Blackie who is a couch potato. None of them are ready yet but neither is he. Then all the vollies finished the jobs and left and I had a call from a teacher who lined me up to adopt Jerry to her at 4pm when she finished school and got to us. What to do in the meantime? I cleaned the balcony windows! And then was wondering what to do when a woman arrived to adopt Gingey for her 14 year old's birthday. DONE. Then a young couple arrived with Mum to check out Peggy. And an older mother and daughter came to pick up Pawsey II's stuff. Unfortunately I saw a litter bag sitting beside a rubbish bin with some obvious rubbishy stuff in it this morning. I took it out and put it in a rubbish bin with the other trash. It contained the stuff that had been taken home to be washed before Pawsey was picked up, returned, and packaged in a trash bag! I think I managed to pacify them with gifts of bowls and bits of bed and a carrier. In the meantime, Peggy was charming her visitors. And they adopted her. During the process, Peggy swiped her new mum but I had warned her and she seemed fine with the occasional demarcation dispute. Then the teacher arrived to adopt Jerry for her fourteen year old son. "He is a bit shy" I said. "So is my son" she said.

And I think I may have solved the problem of Gracie's wandering litter tray. We were given a grey, flat, plastic sheet that might be silicone. I put it under her tray. See the pile that she had dug and the tray stayed put!

Sandy sideswiped

It was her car, not her, sometime during the morning when she was slaving away doing angelic deeds. Unfair! Riley was being adopted as I arrived. She is to live with a primary school aged boy and a big brother cat. They know that she doesn't like to be picked up but are prepared to play with her until she gets used to the idea. Coco and Mason were in the play place overnight. Jasmyn was sitting with them when I arrived so I grabbed the nail clippers and she held squiriming cats while I clipped off gigantic claws. Coco's in particular looked dangerous because they were large and pearly against her brown fur. Front and back paws were done so they shouldn't get caught up in their bedding and come to fistycuffs any more. After fogging the playplace, Megsy had a go. He loved it (and tolerated having his front claws trimmed: he kept getting his feet caught while exploring all over). Late in the afternoon a woman dropped by with a donation of food for cats and dogs. I popped her into the play place with Megsy and she would have taken him home because he was so loving. But her parents would "kill" her. Everybody reacted well to chicken. Some cats are getting easy to stroke, eg Silky. But others are resistant eg Marigold. Gingey just wanted the cuddles. Santa Maria too. I can see why her kittens like their box. She happily stays in her condo box all the time. Patches (or is it Snowy) was more interested in hugs than chicken and climbed all over me while I tried to engage Ginger and Snowy (or is it Patches) in the box.

I am tying to update the photos on file so that every cat has a picture. My computer refused to do it for a while but it seems to be working now. So I took photos of Romeo and Juliette. Still one in front and one behind the cat carrier.

And I tried to take a good photo of Dolly but it is impossible. She just wants to crawl into your arms and snuggle. Velcro would have been a more descriptive name for her.

Charlie is a darling

I started off the day with 52 cats and finished it with 55! This is going the wrong way. Terry brought in a tabby girl. The cat that he was supposed to bring in made a mad dash for freedom over the roof and Terry could tell that if he tried to help catch that cat he would be torn to shreads. So another cat was snaffled instead. She is a pretty tabby and we called her Malabar because she was caught on Malabar Street. She is quite friendly, on that street, but a bit shocked in a condo.

Then Blacky was brought in by a woman who has to find homes for her deceased mother's cats. He is a sweet 7 and a half year old.

And finally a woman who has surrendered several cats to us that we have found homes for, had to give us her very own sweet Charlie who is only a year and a half old and who loves tummy rubs.

Blacky and Charlie have been moved straight into the Welfare area because we know that they have been vaccinated, desexed, flea'd, etc so they don't have to stay in Incoming for 10days. But in Incoming we have Red, who arrived last night after being desexed. He is not in a good mood. He got put into Quarantine because there wasn't another available condo but there is nothing wrong with him.

Moe, Tip and Sock are in the plastic condo of Incoming. I took a couple of blurry photos of them sitting on the shelf looking at me and then managed to drop my camera. I swore and when I looked up they all had horrified expressions. . . was it the noise or the language?

New in Welfare are Gingey who came from the same group as Blacky.

And there is Meow Meow. Don't know where this grey cat came from. But she/he comes with a special diet and is only 3 years old.

And there is Dolly in Incoming who is another darling, just like Charlie.

I did manage to rearrange the furniture a bit. Just in case we need to open the front doors and to give the stand alone cages a bit more separation just in case there are sneezes.