Tomorrow is Spay Day and trapping did not go nearly as smoothly as last month. Let me recount as best as I can the events of this frustrating experience.
8:30 a.m. Kris brought the traps over. I borrowed her personal traps so that I wouldn't have to pay the small rental fee. The small rental fee I saved was somewhat negated by the fact that I gave Kris a $25 gift card to WalMart. Actually, the gift card was from my mom, who is never lacking amazment when I tell her about all the things Kris does for her kitties, for me and thus for my kitties. The woman is a saint. She had volunteered once again to drive my kitties to Spay Day, pick them up and recover them for one or two nights. She started crying when she got the gift card. Personally, I think she's been a little hardened by the fact that there are a very few number of people who actually possess understanding and appreciation for this type of thing. Most of the time if you tell someone that you do this, they sort of look at you like, "Aren't there people you could be helping?" They have an excellent point, but a vast majority of the world's other volunteers help people. And frankly, I prefer cats to people.
2:30 p.m. I set up the traps. I didn't want to start too early because they sleep all day anyway. Dean helped me set them up. He was much more involved this time. I think he was feeling more curageous.
3:30 I went to go check on the traps. Traps 1, 2, and 4 were full. Trap 1 had the stinker that sniped all the food last month without actually getting trapped. Ha ha. Trap 2 had a beautiful tabby I'd never seen before. I'll take what I can get. Trap 4 had a repeat customer from last month. I had to let her go. Fortunately she didn't eat much tuna so I kept the same can and went back inside.
4:00 Traps 1, 2, 3 , and 4 were full. Trap 3 had a big tuxedo cat in it. A tomcat, and he was pissed. Again trap 4 had a repeater eater. This one ate all the tuna from the can and was dozing lazily in the trap. I had to open the door and tip the trap upside down to get her out. She didn't go very far before stopping for a bath and then a subsequent roll in the grass. Little bitch. I only had one can of tuna left (I started with six) and I used it to reset the trap.
4:45 Trap 4 was full again. This time with one of two torties I've been wanting to trap. You see, I'm mostly concerned with getting the females and over 99% of torties are females so I felt satisfied.
5:30 Traps 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 were empty. Someone realeased them all. I felt like crying. Kris was going to want to come get them soon. I had already paid $125 to have 5 cats fixed. I had a mixture of fully fed cats, half fed cats, cats who were fixed but obviously willing to roam into traps, there were mostly eaten cans of tuna everywhere and not a cat in sight. I called Kris and she told me to take my time. She wasn't doing anything and she could come pick up the kitties whenever. I took the last two cans with enough tuna in them and reset two of the traps (4 and 5). I hopped in the car, went to Publix to restock my tuna supply and figured the best I could do was try.
6:00 I got home to reset the rest of the traps, and the two I had left were already full. One with this littl girl from last month. Shoot. I let her go and reset the four remaining traps. I decided to stand out there and wait til they were filled so I could catch anybody sneaking out there to release them.
6:30 It was getting dark so Dean came out to the dumpster to keep me company. We talked about sports, the future, having kids, where we wouldn't mind living, what types of things we should save up to buy. In the meantime, traps 1, 2 and 5 filled up. With new kitties. It was starting to turn around.
8:00 Four of the five traps had kitties in them. Trap 1 had the same one I had caught earlier, the greedy one who stole the food last month. Ha ha. Trap 3 was still empty. I called Kris to ask her what I should do. She said she'd head over and hopefully by that time the last trap would be full. It wasn't. I tried a bunch of things including moving all the trapped kitties onto the lawn across the parking lot to keep them from distracting the ones who might want to eat.
8:30 Kris came, loaded up my four and offered to come back in an hour. With my kitties safe and gone, I could go inside for awhile to leave the remaining trap alone. I was certain this plan would work.
9:15 I went back out there and the trap was still empty. But the door was closed. I think my foiler was back. Next time, I will definitely tape signs to the traps informing I am trapping to spay/neuter and safely release. Maybe then the good samaritans will leave me be. Kris also said that if you don't bring in as many kitties as you say you will, you will not be refunded, but you will get a credit for next time. No big loss, I guess. 4 out of 5 ain't bad.
8:30 a.m. Kris brought the traps over. I borrowed her personal traps so that I wouldn't have to pay the small rental fee. The small rental fee I saved was somewhat negated by the fact that I gave Kris a $25 gift card to WalMart. Actually, the gift card was from my mom, who is never lacking amazment when I tell her about all the things Kris does for her kitties, for me and thus for my kitties. The woman is a saint. She had volunteered once again to drive my kitties to Spay Day, pick them up and recover them for one or two nights. She started crying when she got the gift card. Personally, I think she's been a little hardened by the fact that there are a very few number of people who actually possess understanding and appreciation for this type of thing. Most of the time if you tell someone that you do this, they sort of look at you like, "Aren't there people you could be helping?" They have an excellent point, but a vast majority of the world's other volunteers help people. And frankly, I prefer cats to people.
2:30 p.m. I set up the traps. I didn't want to start too early because they sleep all day anyway. Dean helped me set them up. He was much more involved this time. I think he was feeling more curageous.
3:30 I went to go check on the traps. Traps 1, 2, and 4 were full. Trap 1 had the stinker that sniped all the food last month without actually getting trapped. Ha ha. Trap 2 had a beautiful tabby I'd never seen before. I'll take what I can get. Trap 4 had a repeat customer from last month. I had to let her go. Fortunately she didn't eat much tuna so I kept the same can and went back inside.
4:00 Traps 1, 2, 3 , and 4 were full. Trap 3 had a big tuxedo cat in it. A tomcat, and he was pissed. Again trap 4 had a repeater eater. This one ate all the tuna from the can and was dozing lazily in the trap. I had to open the door and tip the trap upside down to get her out. She didn't go very far before stopping for a bath and then a subsequent roll in the grass. Little bitch. I only had one can of tuna left (I started with six) and I used it to reset the trap.
4:45 Trap 4 was full again. This time with one of two torties I've been wanting to trap. You see, I'm mostly concerned with getting the females and over 99% of torties are females so I felt satisfied.
5:30 Traps 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 were empty. Someone realeased them all. I felt like crying. Kris was going to want to come get them soon. I had already paid $125 to have 5 cats fixed. I had a mixture of fully fed cats, half fed cats, cats who were fixed but obviously willing to roam into traps, there were mostly eaten cans of tuna everywhere and not a cat in sight. I called Kris and she told me to take my time. She wasn't doing anything and she could come pick up the kitties whenever. I took the last two cans with enough tuna in them and reset two of the traps (4 and 5). I hopped in the car, went to Publix to restock my tuna supply and figured the best I could do was try.
6:00 I got home to reset the rest of the traps, and the two I had left were already full. One with this littl girl from last month. Shoot. I let her go and reset the four remaining traps. I decided to stand out there and wait til they were filled so I could catch anybody sneaking out there to release them.
6:30 It was getting dark so Dean came out to the dumpster to keep me company. We talked about sports, the future, having kids, where we wouldn't mind living, what types of things we should save up to buy. In the meantime, traps 1, 2 and 5 filled up. With new kitties. It was starting to turn around.
8:00 Four of the five traps had kitties in them. Trap 1 had the same one I had caught earlier, the greedy one who stole the food last month. Ha ha. Trap 3 was still empty. I called Kris to ask her what I should do. She said she'd head over and hopefully by that time the last trap would be full. It wasn't. I tried a bunch of things including moving all the trapped kitties onto the lawn across the parking lot to keep them from distracting the ones who might want to eat.
8:30 Kris came, loaded up my four and offered to come back in an hour. With my kitties safe and gone, I could go inside for awhile to leave the remaining trap alone. I was certain this plan would work.
9:15 I went back out there and the trap was still empty. But the door was closed. I think my foiler was back. Next time, I will definitely tape signs to the traps informing I am trapping to spay/neuter and safely release. Maybe then the good samaritans will leave me be. Kris also said that if you don't bring in as many kitties as you say you will, you will not be refunded, but you will get a credit for next time. No big loss, I guess. 4 out of 5 ain't bad.
7 comments:
don't let it get you down, keep on trapping!!!
signs would be good.
Keep it up, I'm so inspired by what you do with those cats, I almost wish I had strays around my house that I could help out, lol.
thanks, mom. As I just told you I feel very happy and gratified today.
jackie~ I'm glad I'm inspiring somebody! I'm guessing y'all don't get many strays up in the Canadian desert. Maybe you'll be inspired enough to keep animal rescue groups in mind when looking to make charitable contibutions...
Maybe you should watch for the foiler next time too. They might be the other people feeding the cats and thought management was trying to hurt them. Then they could get traps and do 5 cats too!! NEW Recruits!!
Nice idea. In the long run the foilers helped out I think. More tomorrow.
Thanks for the hard work. The Samaritan may respond to signs, unless they're a mean child.
I can't believe someone did that! Seriously, WTF?
On the other hand, fine work once again, Natalie.
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