One Very PRECIOUS Reason Not to Adopt Long Distance

My name is Precious, I am a 3 year old tortie, and I have a very important story to share. Late June 2011, I was turned into New York's Animal Control as a stray along with my 5 newborn babies. Then I caught the dreaded cold and I was scheduled to be killed on July 13th. A woman from Michigan was so very determined to adopt me and my babies. Anjellicle Cat Rescue only agreed to help her as she seemed to really care because she drove 10 hours to come pick me up and then 10 hours back to Michigan. 

                       

                     
Sadly 3 of my babies died while in the shelter. Everyone was so happy that it looked liked I had someone who really cared. Little did they know. A few days ago, Anjellicle, was notified that I was dumped at the Michigan Humane Society. I tried to be a good girl but I guess I just wasn't good enough. It's believed that one of my remaining babies died and the other we just don't know where she is. Guess they only wanted me for my babies and nothing else.

When I got dumped at the Michigan shelter I ended up in quarantine because I scratched at someone. They don't know how scared I was. All this traveling from state to state, cages, babies are dead and gone, and I'm in heat again. The nice people at Anjellicle were really upset about me! Someone cared! They couldn't understand why this woman would not have called them rather than dumping me again at a shelter like garbage. They were even going to find someone to come pick me up because I likely would have been killed if I wasn't deemed adoptable.

My quarantine was up September 29th and my new foster family came to get me on September 30th. They live in the same area in Michigan. They made sure that I was spayed before I left, so I wouldn't have to be traumatized much more by going back and forth to the vet's. They already have kitties and doggies in their house! 

Today, I'm sitting in my mom's office at home, with her and my new 23 year old kitty sister, Sammy. My tummy still hurts from my surgery and I'm so scared again. I don't mean to but I hiss and growl only because I'm so afraid something else is going to happen. I can't take much more rejection, cages, traveling and unfamiliar faces that are cold and foreign to me. They gave me a brand new bed that pads my swollen belly. They tell me I'm so special I even get my food and water in Fiestaware bowls! I know the other kitties and doggies want to meet me but they will have to wait a while until I'm feeling much better and have gained some confidence. Somehow, I don't think I'll ever have to leave here. Today I feel so loved, so warm as I bask in the sun, my tummy has been filled with warmed up food, and I know this time I AM safe. 

PLEASE if you ever consider a long distance adoption think twice if not ten times! Precious was lucky only because others cared. Adopt or foster from your own state, there's never a shortage of fuzzlebutts that need help. What happens if they get sick or you don't want them..the rescue in the other state can't get their animals back immediately! This lousy (and I'm being very nice here) adopter cost Anjellicle many hours that could have been put to helping the hundreds of kittens and cats they rescue. This adopter cost them in higher than normal vet fees for being out of state. What you did to Precious and her kittens was nothing short of torture. You only thought of yourself. You only wanted to congratulate yourself on the back for being a hero for saving a cat and her kittens from the e-list. You only wanted a tiny baby to look at. I hate to even think of what happened to this kitten. I suspect nothing good as you refuse to answer anyone's emails. Your refusal to answer much less dumping this girl like yesterday's trash speaks volumes as to your character. Precious has been so traumatized by all of this it will take much time and work to make her feel whole again. May God forgive you for your ignorance. But guess what? Our family is willing and honored to give her this time she needs. We will teach her to feel confident. We will show her what it means to be truly loved. We will deny ourselves in order to make ends meet just to be able to help her. Precious is now HOME!

We almost lost our Lucy.......

Being as I'm not feeling so good I'm having my human mom write for me

On Wednesday, Aug 25th, Lucy and the kittens were all scheduled for their sterilization. The babies are just about 10 weeks old and weigh between 2.5 and 4 pounds. As expected we were a nervous wreck for our new little family as we dropped them off at 8am and couldn't pick them up till the following morning at 7:30am. Bright and early Thursday morning we were first in line to pick up our crew. Couldn't understand why they kept avoiding us and left us till last.

They came out with all the carriers except Lucy's. Babies were all being sent home but there had been a problem with Lucy. Briefly told that she had ripped out her sutures overnight and that they were stabilizing her for a return to surgery to see what happened. Spent most of the day making call after call to see what was going on. If it were not for all of you dear friends we would have been even more more upset than what we were.

Finally got thru and was told we could pick Lucy up at 3pm. When spaying they cut or separate the uterine horns and the uterine body

Once the cuts are made they are closed by what they call ligatures.

After her surgery all seemed well with Lucy. Staff is there very late at nite and return early in the am with a few hours of no staffing there. When they returned in the morning they found Lucy in a pile of blood and in critical condition. Took them 8 boxes of gauze pads to just soak up the blood pooled around her, put her on oxygen, IV fluids and a heating pad with a tech holding a pressure bandage on her incision.

Apparently the ligatures on the 2 ascending cuts were fine. However on the descending cut, the ligatures knots untied and she began bleeding in to her belly. When the pressure in her belly became too much, Lucy ripped out her sutures, inside and out, to let the blood drain out and she continued to bleed until they found her. Once stabilized, which took most of the day, they took her back into surgery. Again another incision to find out the problem, re-tie the ligatures, double check the other ones, and close her back up. I think they knew we would not let her stay there another night alone and unsupervised.

Back home on Thursday evening, our poor Lucy was an absolute mess. The anesthesia and pain meds for 2 days in a row really took it's toll. She was so dazed and almost confused, any slight noise just startled the daylights out of her. In between we were also monitoring the babies and trying to console our other pets who had no idea what was going and why they weren't allowed in certain rooms.

That night, Lucy was frantic and the only way to calm her was to hold her. She wanted nothing to do with a cage or an elizabethan collar. So I stayed up and held her for 4 hours straight just gently talking to her. She let her self relax. Managed to try the cage one more time for about 20 minutes, but went back to holding. So the entire night I just held her to my chest with her head tucked under my chin and let her sleep.

By Friday morning she was still groggy but very anxious about her kittens, we periodically took her in to see that they were ok and sleeping. By this time all the kittens had rallied around. Only one of the little females was a bit shocky at first, but holding her most of Wednesday night calmed her down. She was the only one that seemed to experience any pain but that seemed to subside by Thursday nite.

This post has taken me days to get completed..it's now Sunday morning and things are beginning to look up. Last night Lucy was just kind of blank and staring into space. We wrapped her tummy in a towel and sat her on the couch beside me and let the kittens out. 4 of the 5 just kind of zipped by as they were more intent on just running themselves ragged. The 5th kitten, was the little female who was initially kind of shocky. Her and Lucy just seemed to melt in to each other. Nuzzling and bathing her baby till she was soaked, Lucy seemed almost back to normal. Normal will take time as she is still run down from blood loss and tires very easily but at this time the things are finally looking up.

I'm tired but oh so much better

This is Lucy's belly today, 4 days after the double surgery. She is still quite swollen and bruised. She may not appear swollen but she had lost so much weight that it almost makes her look normal. Unfortunately it's all swelling on her tummy and inner legs

    

Here's the babies resting up

except for this guy who's feeding his fat little face again. He's the biggest at 4 pounds

Our sincerest thanks and gratitude to all our extended family on Bonanzle and the Pet Finders Forum for their many prayers and good wishes for Lucy's recovery. If it had not been for you all, we would have never survived ourselves much less Lucy. Such a great and loving bunch of people that it is our pleasure to call them part of our family. So many, many thanks and undying gratitude for those that sent donations to help with the mounting bills, mainly food bills now. Just this family is consuming 18 cans of Fancy Feast per day!....may God bless you all for helping raise this family of felines..these are your babies too! We love them all to death and have only wanted the best for them

On Lucy's behalf...many heartfelt kitty kisses and hugs to you all,

Mary & Russ

Lucy & her Babies

Sofy & Joey

Sammy, Jessy & Billy

I am in love and with the wrong person?

This has been a rough week! I have been out mixing with all my new brothers and sisters and WHAM, something went askew. Mom says I'm in heat. I was all cranky then suddenly became all lovey with everything in site. I loved all the furniture, I rolled all over the place, even down the basement stairs. Do cats get PMS? I kinda think so. I tried loving the boy cats, but Jessy and Billy just look at me all dumb and bewildered and sit like lumps. I have been screaming my little lungs out for over 24 hours non-stop. My little bum just stays stuck up in the air and no one is interested except for one. My new bestest friend.

I have found my new soul mate, Joey. I have been trying to seduce him too but it just isn't working! Darn it! Joey just follows me around nuzzling and licking my head. However, no one informed me he has this drooling problem, so he is quite messy. And he has this annoying problem with wanting to shake paws with me all the time...his paws are as big as my head.

So mom and dad are trying like crazy to raise some money to get me "fixed". Guess if Joey could do it so can I. And the babies all have to be done at the same time if we want the discount deal. Mom says I absolutely cannot even think about looking outside, although I go back to the window well where I came in from and yell for help! I'm telling you, us cats get PMS too...I'm acting so wild and crazy. I'm grabbing my babies and just dragging them around for no reason. Then I have to meow as loud as I can..dad says I can out scream any Marshall mini stack..what ever that means. Wonder if they make Midol for cats?????

So here I am with my new Bonanzle ranch hat on..think I would do this if i was in my right mind?

And oh my, here's my new bestest guy pal that I'm in love with. OK I know you think he looks a bit goofy with his cowboy hat but oh he can turn my head with his good looks and charm. He's a younger man too! He's only 8 months old..does that make me a cougar now?

And the babies..what can I say

Mom says edumacation is very impotant, I'm halfway thru this seesaurus

Got my ranch hat and ready to do my chores. Got the mouse! Who would ever name a mouse Dell? That is just so lame.

You sure you don't need more help? Honest..I really want to help. I can unplug the keyboard again for you..would that help? Did you know how pages you can open at one time plus install wizards at the same time. What's a wizard by the way?

Mom says that you have to to take a bath every single day....personally I think it's overkill. Besides my tongue gets tired.

Can we puhleeezzz go shopping now? Look at all this cool stuff on Bonanzle  I'm sitting on all the right buttons so lets go find cat tree, and some more foods, some treats and some toys and, and, and ....

How could someone not wuz me? or my mom? I don't understand......

Dad says I've been on the computer long enough. Says he has to try and make some money to take care of all 11 of us! So gotta go for now, I have this incredible urge to keep screaming and meowing as loud as I can.

Kitty Kisses,

Lucy and the Babies

Hello Friends!

It's been hard to keep up with my blog! The babies are now 6 1/2 weeks old and growing like crazy. They weigh between 1 pound 6 ounces and 1 pound 13 ounces. I wasn't feeling so good for a couple of weeks. I had bad diarrhea and was losing weight, not like I had any extra to spare. We went to the vet for our first parasite testing about 2 weeks ago and we were all negative. Still got a dose of icky tasting deworming medicine and have to get another dose on August 10th. Vet said she had no clue as to why my tummy was so upset. But hey, I got to have lots of fresh chicken and rice, yogurt and cheese...think I'll be sick more often.

Me and the kids have been keeping mom and dad really busy. The babies have learned to play really well and jump up on everything. Mom's office desk is pretty cool to play hockey on..everything gets thrown off on the floor lol. And then there's the shelves of china to get lost in..so many places to check out.

This past week I've been going out to meet my new brothers and sisters. Samantha is a 20 year old kitty that tolerates me pretty well but is not exactly enthused about the kitties pouncing on her. Billy is 11 years old and Jessy is 8 years old. I pounded them good a couple of times and they are afraid of me...showed them who's boss! Then Sofy is an 7 year old Black Lab/Chow who loves me and the babies. Joey is the 8 month old Great Pyrenees/St. Bernard..boy is he a handful! Joey loves all of us but we have to watch him with the kittens because he gets so excited. The babies just love to crawl all over him and nest in his fur, especially that big ol tail.

Mom has to update our ChipIn page because she says we need some help to get the next round of parasite medicine and then to get us us all spayed/neutered. Before they could take us anywhere we had to get a pet carrier for me and a much bigger one for all the kids. Plus we are running out of food again. Guess we eat an awful lot lol

I am so happy in my new house! I just feel so comfortable here. I can lay down where ever I want, there's always food, water, toys and lots of attention. Thanks to all of you who helped me get here...it's the bestest ever. Here's some pictures of us! Enjoy!

Hope you all have a fabulous week! We got a new kind of litter box and we have to go try it out! Mom says it's great. It's called the Breeze Litter System by Tidy Cat   No more litter all over the place and no more perfume. We'll see you later!

Kitty Kisses,

Lucy and the Babies

p.s.  feel free to tweet us or facebook us, it would be really appreciated!