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Boogalo posted:No in person adoption is a bit strict. Pets are a big commitment, potentially 10-20 years, not allowing you to at least interact a bit to see if its a good fit seems like a bit harsh. Our shelter doesn't allow random visitors like me who likes to stop by and pet all of the cats, but they do allow appointments to meet specific cats after pre-adoption paperwork is filled. We're a bit spoiled to have a fantastic spca. Shelter volunteer here, and yeah, this all feels like red flags to me. Safe appointment methods have been figured out for months now (granted, our shelter is generally not as careful as I wish we could be, but we still do a solid job keeping people safe) and they definitely shouldn't be adopting out cats to people who haven't met them in person for the cat's sake if nothing else . Especially if they're initially hiding issues, then there's no way to reliably know about behavior without seeing them.
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Dec 12, 2020 22:03
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Patrat posted:So my black, furry, evil cat has adopted another family and apparently had no interest in returning home, happy enough to see me but went back to their house immediately when she was able to. Please send your demand our way, we want to find our guys homes but nobody is interested by the time you change over from "weeks" of age to "months" or "years". The sad reality of shelters I guess.
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Dec 18, 2020 00:15
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Fleta Mcgurn posted:There's a kitten shortage in my area because so many people have been getting pets to give for Christmas. A KITTEN SHORTAGE. That may well be a phrase I've never heard before. Patrat posted:This sounds accurate but I ideally want a kitten or two in the next few weeks because Artemis is getting desperately lonely every time I leave the house and basically spends most of the time she cannot be sat directly atop of me crying. That... Kind of works right now given with Covid I am working from home, but even then she gets super distressed even when I go shopping for an hour. Unfortunately she is also a complete coward and I am fairly sure that if I were to bring in an adult cat she would just hide atop the wardrobe in terror 24/7. Where on earth are you guys going that adoption costs have spiked? Breeders? Ours haven't changed at all and we're getting more adoptions the past few months than any other time since I've started working with this shelter. $75 flat fee, $25 for a companion with them, includes all the vet coverage. As far as I was aware this is pretty standard for shelters and none of the others we occasionally work with/direct people to have reported fee increases. (Except the Humane Society, and gently caress the Humane Society at least in my region, no empathy for the animals in their care in the slightest.) Kitten tax, newcomers not yet spayed/neutered and already lined up for adoption before they even made it back to the cat rooms. (edit: before "wow kittens in cages cruel" that I've seen elsewhere, under normal circumstances kittens go into cat condos with 2-3 separate rooms and the crates are treated as overflow. Ongoing remodeling has a few hall cats in condos instead and several of the large ones are in use for medical issues that need monitoring and/or isolation, so we hit overflow early. Kittens spend a couple of weeks in these tops and only if they don't have foster lined up.) 
SkyeAuroline fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Dec 18, 2020 |
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Dec 18, 2020 16:34
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Slightly outside of the usual thread demographic in that "my cats" are a group of shelter cats I help care for. Most of them are good cats. Some are shy, some came from bad home situations.  Corky is a bastard cat hiding his face in shame after peeing on me for having the gall to sit on the floor. This ain't the first time, he's a territorial little man. Wish I knew what to do to help him, but at this point he's an old cat (almost 11) with some mental/behavioral issues that I only see a few hours a week, not sure there's much I can do in 2-4 hours that sticks for the other 164-166 of the week.
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Dec 27, 2020 22:52
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Just saw it elsewhere, but good call posting it here too. Don't believe our shelter has any currently but let folks handling donations know to keep an eye out for it.
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Dec 31, 2020 17:05
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Speaking of old cats, my boy turns 10 this year. I wish I could bring him home but I do what I can to make him happy as it is. Scared old guy from a neglectful home with health issues. So far, managed to work with him from "run in terror and hide above head level if anyone in the same room as him moved" to "lets some people touch him, begs me to sit down so he can perch on my lap but runs a few feet away if I move below the waist around him, still hides some but not so badly" over the course of a year and change. Not the only cat I work with, but he's bonding, and with his age/behavior/health he's not likely to get adopted by anyone else. I wish I knew how to make him happier, in a way I can actually accomplish. Cat tax from today in their new home in the shelter (remodeling in progress). 
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Jan 1, 2021 23:55
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Shelter talk, so a little outside the normal business. I've talked around it I think, but I work with a room of 13 cats at a local shelter. With a couple exceptions these are all old or neglected/abused (or, often, both) cats and essentially the room of cats nobody else really wanted to deal with but that aren't actually hostile to people or each other. I've been working with them for over a year, coming up on two pretty fast, and I've made mixed progress with them overall; a couple "completely terrified and immediately run/hide/claw" cats have come around to let people approach them and at least touch them a little, and one particularly unfortunate guy has really come around and bondrd to me (but myriad health issues on his end & financial and availability issues on my end mean I can't really bring him home now). Overall it's been positive motion. Mostly. The shelter just finished a remodel project for their room, completely redoing it to much higher quality, opening up more space and light, & making it easier to clean and maintain on our end. When that was going on they were temporarily moved to a smaller open-wall (cage bar style) room up in the front, which they took really well with a few days of adjusting. Now that the remodel is done, everyone's moved back to the new room - much like the temp room, but a good 3x the size with more windows, more furniture/"quiet space". But all the same material, same furniture they'd been using plus some new (clean) purchases they've kind of taken to. Nominally this should be good, but it's been several weeks and most of them are doing the same as or (mainly) worse than before. Bonded pair almost completely split up besides a few passing cuddles, normally friendly cats hiding up in head height or higher beds, everyone acting very stressed still. I'm sure part of it is adjusting, but with how quickly they bounced back for the temp room that's mostly the same, I'm concerned for them now. I only get an hour to two hours a week with these guys. My resources are limited, the shelter is chronically understaffed & just barely not underfunded (both worsened by COVID restrictions - even though leadership took forever to actually implement most of them even after state level rules started), and I'm no Jackson Galaxy - our only cat died when I was like, 13, and I haven't had one since. I've done my reading and am trying to keep them engaged; I bring toys that about a third of them will engage with to some extent (rest won't react to anything), I give treats when they're doing well (that they often pass on and someone else gets instead...), I try to give everyone as even of attention as they'll allow, which ends up being low for some of them who really, really don't trust human contact. I work with other shelter staff with them sometimes, but it's just two of us that regularly work with them, on non overlapping schedules, and everyone else is busy enough just keeping things running or tending their own guys. So I'm posing the question here too, for potentially more detailed advice (even if it's harder to implement). What can I do to actually, meaningfully help these guys in the limited time windows I get? I know most of their histories & their behavior, but having that knowledge and successfully doing anything with it are very different prospects. Cat tax: the most I was able to get in one clear picture at one time, in and around the open crates they really like for whatever reason. Clockwise from top left, Kevin, Renny, Tofu, Emmett, Shari. 4 of the really shy ones and one of our room greeters. 
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Jan 10, 2021 20:41
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Hungry Squirrel posted:I don't have an answer, but I want to thank you for what you do. One of our cats was in the group room at the local shelter because she was deemed a hopeless case; overweight, too depressed to groom herself, and older. She had dandruff and bad smells but we fell totally in love with her. She was slated for euthanasia the week we brought her home. She was an amazing cat once we got her acclimated. Every little bit you do helps those cats to be able to go to a good home. Thanks. We're really trying, I promise. I'm stuck sitting here for a bit, so I guess I may as well run down the cats in short notes in case it helps for advice.
Ended up being quite a long list for 13 cats, but... yeah, these are our guys. I come out every week when I can, less now that the restrictions are in place. Some of them are okay, some of them will likely never get better, but there's a good few in there I can see where they need to go, know they can reach it, and just don't know how.
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Jan 10, 2021 21:20
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pidan posted:My local cat rescue orgs (not shelters) often have a bunch of cats fostered together. They're happy to give away cats that get along. However, it also sounds like a good way to get fleas. Shelter (worker, that is) that works with a foster network checking in: our fosters all use the same flea treatment procedures we do, it's not any bigger of a concern than shelters unless the foster is incompetent or breaking fostering policy. You'd be surprised how easily that sort of thing can slip through in an understaffed shelter (so, all of them) where it's less likely to when an individual foster can give closer individual attention. (regardless, no cat is leaving the shelter without flea treatment, so that's not exactly a risk for adoption either, don't get me wrong; individual cats about to go get extra close attention/etc to catch any potential problems)
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Jan 12, 2021 17:04
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Uncle Piss Salad posted:Why do cats loving suck? Cats are great. Some individual cats are gremlins.
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Jan 16, 2021 15:55
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Well wishes for my elderly boy. Lifelong upper respiratory issues, but today was rougher than usual for him, spitting up a bit of foamy mucus stuff once or twice. Medicators already know to keep an eye on him, so I'm sure he'll be okay, but the poor boy's been through a lot and I still worry. Well wishes for everyone else's, too.
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Jan 18, 2021 00:34
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Seconding Caspar as a good name.
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Jan 18, 2021 14:46
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Shelter kitten of the week: this beautiful little guy. I'm really glad that even with current events, cats and kittens are still finding homes without too much trouble. Things have slowed down a bit but they're still moving. 
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Jan 18, 2021 16:45
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seiferguy posted:Alright, I'll take him in then. I'm a little late and should have spoken earlier, but I'd second their evaluation, that looks like when our Russell got a ringworm spot & others before him at the shelter. Definitely play it safe and get them started on treatment, it's not terribly hard to deal with when it happens as long as you're thorough. Keep in mind it can spread to people & linger in the environment, and consider a quarantine if your home allows for it. Gonna be a fair amount of disinfecting to do and possibly replacing some things. Your vet will go over all that with you. Good luck on a quick recovery.
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Jan 21, 2021 17:39
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seiferguy posted:Yeah, I'm a pretty active cleaner, and thankfully he sleeps on the couch which always has a washable couch cover on it. It's contagious and human-transmissible, so I would definitely take it seriously. It's enough of a perennial problem that our shelter has most of the treatment supplies on hand & can start treatment in-house, so I can't speak from a position of experience on waiting vs going in immediately and will defer to others in the thread who have dealt with it.
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Jan 21, 2021 19:36
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Facebook Aunt posted:If you like to read, I've had some luck with nervous cats by sitting on the floor nearby reading quietly. It lets them peek and sniff from a distance in a non-threatening way. Very pointedly not looking at a cat is polite to cats. Sitting on the floor makes you smaller and less scary. Can confirm that this approach works pretty well, used it with several of the cats in my shelter room. Can't use it any more because Corky is a little goblin that treats anything on the floor as territory to be marked (he's been fixed since he was old enough to have it safely done, over a decade ago - we don't know why he does it). But it works.
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Jan 22, 2021 21:34
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I can't help with your introductions but your cats are beautiful. I do have good news from the shelter - among the handful that went home this week, our one-eyed office cat Woody finally found somewhere to go home to! I always worry about pirate pets finding a place, it's harder for them. Windy, who I think I talked about before, went home too. Happy stuff all around. Still working on getting any of my guys a home. e: I'm not embedding, because no upload would play nice except with a two minute long gif, and I've seen those do weird things to page loading. Android camera rolls suck SkyeAuroline fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Jan 31, 2021 |
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Jan 31, 2021 20:18
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Boogalo posted:Straight post the mp4 link in URL tags and it'll work. Don't use imgur's resizing options or timg. Neat. Today I've learned something.
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Jan 31, 2021 23:04
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Y'all like kittens? We got kittens. Two unsocialized 7-month-old sisters, testing the waters with the rest of my guys to see if they can deal with kittens in their room. First time working with unsocialized kittens, no shortage of unsocialized adults though - anything worth keeping in mind? Yes, I've got the rest of the staff too for questions/help, but I like asking you guys. And this way you get kitten pictures.
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Feb 4, 2021 02:37
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One of my coworkers grows it at home and packs it up. Apparently pretty easy to grow at home and it's strong stuff. Sells it locally too. So that's definitely a good long term plan. I think it's manageable inside, at least as a test run? I'll have to ask.
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Feb 4, 2021 23:11
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Revolution is slower acting than a lot of other brands nowadays, which might be what you're thinking of (takes a day or two for full effectiveness instead of sub-12 hours). The upshot is that it's very safe, affordable in large quantities, and is effective against more than just fleas. We use it at the shelter as standard.
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Feb 6, 2021 17:43
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Kitten update: these guys are incredibly sweet and adjusting quickly. Still scared of me, but they're exploring some as long as I keep a little distance, they're okay with some of the old cats being right up next to them, and they're super happy to play with feather wands. Neither one can really catch it very well, they haven't actually figured out how to use their claws (at 7 months old), but they're happy to bat at it and occasionally catch it between a leg and one of the furniture pieces. They'll come around quick, I think. Hopefully that leads to a home soon. Kitten tax.  e: they've already gotten adoption applications, wow SkyeAuroline fucked around with this message at 23:02 on Feb 6, 2021 |
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Feb 6, 2021 22:32
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mistaya posted:I mean can you blame people they're so floofy! They really are! They're also very in sync with one another: https://i.imgur.com/featXFo.gifv The person looking at taking them home has been working with ferals for a while now, so I'm hopeful that everything there pans out well, too. Okay, now question time. This isn't really a pressing thing, more a "how do I help my boy feel better". So Jasper is an older cat (10 in June) with chronic upper respiratory infections all his life. He's been in and out of vets since he came in at a few months old, no permanent solution found for him; he responds fairly well to steroid shots but the effects wear off sooner than the safe interval between shots elapses, and equally troublesome... this boy was never socialized, and neither were either of his living siblings, until I started with the shelter a few years ago. I am the closest to a human he "trusts" and he gets scared and runs if I so much as pet him with a hand on the opposite side of him from the rest of my body. (He also runs if anyone, including me, even walks around near him.) This makes him near impossible for medicators to really work with, because he absolutely will not cooperate with anyone touching him except petting a few spots a few ways. They came out of a well-intentioned-neglect situation as kittens, they were found in the basement of an elderly couple who couldn't get up and down the stairs, so all the couple could do was toss food down the stairs to them. Have that be your formative months after birth... All of that is background. What I'm actually asking about : I think he's got a combination of chest discomfort from the respiratory issues and way too much nervous energy from everything else that means he can't or won't even lay down "normally". He sleeps on his side exclusively, which is normal enough, but if he's awake he constantly props himself up on two legs to keep his chest elevated, and he's near completely unable to sit still on anything that's not flat where that's harder to balance. He doesn't overtly act like he's in pain, but he sure doesn't act comfortable either. I'm sure it's probably nothing, but with 200+ cats the professional attention is spread real thin, and I'll readily admit I went in pretty blind with this and the extent of my cat care knowledge is what I've picked up "on the job" or read about. Out of the rest of the shelter, only one or two ever does the same when I'm around to see it, and not near as constant as he does. So it might be normal, but if it is then we've got a lot of odd ones that don't. Are there any warning signs I should keep an eye out for, or anything I might be able to do for him to make him more comfortable? I don't make medication or vet calls, I've passed info along when things have flared up worse for him though and they do help him. Just would like to bring the baseline quality of life up a bit for him. He's probably a permanent resident (ongoing life circumstances mean I still can't bring him home) so gotta make the time with us the best I can.   (I know he's bridging my legs in the latter, he does the same if I have them folded so it's flat for him, that's just the best recent photo I have of him.)
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Feb 7, 2021 17:34
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SkyeAuroline posted:They really are! They're also very in sync with one another: Good news followup: they already found a home! Fastest turnaround for any of my guys by a long shot.
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Feb 10, 2021 18:48
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Mixed-good news: both kittens went home today. Had to be sedated in the morning (to wrap up medication I think?) and even with that they were still worked up enough to nearly shake the carriers out of my hands. Hoping it's a good fit. I always have mixed feelings about adopters, I'm sure things will work out but people are often really bad at inspiring any faith in them during the adoption pickups. Fingers crossed. I still wish I knew how to make Jasper happy though. Odd little guy who just wants to rub his face against my hands/arms/legs and pace around in my lap. Happy enough and purring and whatnot when he does, just doesn't feel like it's very "happy" for him all together. Maybe I'm just overthinking it. Would at least like him to eat normally - shelter staffing limitations mean it's pretty much a free-feed situation, and even then he's really skinny & small. Enough that I've been asked if he's an older kitten before. I can't imagine his chronic upper respiratory issues are helping with that, but no long-term treatments that will really work for him that have been found with any vet so far.
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Feb 14, 2021 00:21
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 New cat just dropped. Always got strays and cats whose owners couldn't keep 'em coming in, sometimes we get lucky and they end up being really friendly like Eve here. I know the crosseyed-ness isn't good but it is cute.
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Mar 6, 2021 19:49
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Hello. Brief celebrations from the shelter. Tofu turned 9 on Monday!  Corky turns 11 on the 21st! Still the cat who's spent the longest at the shelter total - he's been here since he was a couple months old. Both of them got some very nice real chicken they seemed to enjoy a lot. (The bit they opted not to have, some other room residents shared. Nobody fought which was nice.) I like these guys and I like making sure they know they're remembered. Sometimes that just means the little things. Thanks for humoring me.
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Mar 19, 2021 06:22
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Good luck! I hope everything turns out to be okay.
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Mar 19, 2021 20:38
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My boy is ill but getting better. Upper respiratory panel came back pretty rough so they've got him on a few different medications now. Crated so medicators can get him, since he's such a nervous wreck. But for the first time in quite a while he's eating normally instead of one piece at a time and he was barely sniffing. Another shelter cat had good results out of this meds combo and ended up having their chronic respiratory issues effectively go away even after they came off. Hoping the same for him. Wasn't super happy to see me today, but getting wrangled and put in baby jail will do that. 
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Apr 4, 2021 07:26
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pidan posted:Could you say what the respiratory issues were, and what the meds are? My cat has chronic respiratory problems, apparently from calicivirus, and the vet says there is no treatment (other than interferon, which is very expensive and not very effective). So I'm always interested in news on that front. I can ask about the meds next time I talk to the medicators; I'm just a volunteer and don't handle that (not trained). Jasper has had effectively lifelong (at least since he came in at a few months old, 9 years ago) upper respiratory infections partially written off as "allergies" since they get worse if fleas get tracked into the shelter somehow. Always very sniffly, eats very little & very slowly because he ends up needing mouth breathing, and he sphinx-poses instead of laying down most of the time to keep pressure off his chest. From what I've been told his panel came back with 4 strains of bacteria and/or viruses detected total, but I wasn't given info on anything specific besides chlamydiosis. I won't be back in to see him for another week but I'll reach out to staff in the meantime.
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Apr 4, 2021 07:45
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pidan posted:Aww, poor baby! Bacteria can probably be treated with antibiotics, my cat had that too and it just took a Checking back in a few days later. Staff have been... uncooperative in communicating, even with the context that it's to help someone I know with an ill cat. The best I've gotten so far is quote:Jasper has bacteria in his nasal passages. He is on doxycycline and famciclovir. Sorry it's not much help.
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Apr 6, 2021 16:59
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bottle of baytril. But maybe there's something for the viruses too, that my vet hasn't yet heard of.
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Good shelter news - looks like one, maybe two, of my guys are finally finding homes very soon. Always sad to not get to see them again but at least they're happier in new homes. Jasper is still sick and doing worse than last week's significant uptick. But he was willing to run right up to a stranger and jump in their lap, which is a first... ever, for him, so I'm calling it a wash. Keeping an eye on the poor boy and brushing out where his fur is clumping up a bit. Hopefully he bounces back again. He has such a sweet face. 
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Apr 12, 2021 06:13
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Bobstar posted:Tell your pets you love them every day, Every time I see 'em, multiple times. On that note, good news - finally had one of my shelter guys go home yesterday (after a while of no adoptions). Set down the carrier with the door open to get ready, she just walked straight in like "gently caress y'all, I'm out" and was super calm. Gonna miss you, little girl. Less good news is figuring out why several other cats with no history of aggression suddenly got aggressive at once...
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Apr 18, 2021 15:29
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DarkHorse posted:Will she eat dry food? Sometimes even the cheap stuff is really attractive to eat much like how McDonald's is to people Can confirm, my guys reject treats but think that Fancy Feast dry is the greatest gift ever given to catkind and go wild over it. I don't get it, but at least it's not as expensive.
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Apr 25, 2021 16:00
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I love to hear back from adopters that really go well. We had a deaf cat (who came from a really bad home situation) go home a couple weeks ago and just heard back from the adopter. Lady is putting a ton of work in to help her be comfortable, and is even managing to teach a couple of simple sign language things (mostly "food" and "down" from the sound of it). Little girl's doing great. You love to see it.
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May 1, 2021 15:53
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I got my sponsorship letter from the shelter for Jasper and they gave me a picture of him at a few months old   He was a sweetheart then and he's still one now.
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May 11, 2021 16:35
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InvisibleMonkey posted:Black cat gang! Sounds about right. We have several in my shelter room and only Jasper and Shari don't look at me like they hate me constantly. (Beatrix, at least, just looks that way and doesn't actually hate me. Emmett and Victoria... jury is still out.)
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May 11, 2021 18:43
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 He's still in sick cat jail after major dental extraction and an upper respiratory infection, but Jasper is doing a ton better. He's so trusting too - he escaped on me when I was visiting with him, so to get him back I sat down so he could get on my lap. Climbed up onto me, I held him, he sprung out like a rabbit and... turned right back around and came right back to me.
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May 16, 2021 02:07
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LegionAreI posted:I have two cats, brother and sister, and currently one dog since his sister just passed in December. I noticed that the female half of the cats had a loose incisor and some swelling on her lip. She is probably around 12 and a BIG GIRL so I was like "oh god is it cancer is it this that etc" and did the hypochondriac google search, got all upset since my dog had just passed, all that. Was up all night, then took her to the vet the next day. She was still eating fine, a little slower but she definitely didn't stop eating. We have about fifteen (!) cats at the shelter this year who have needed significant dental extractions. (This is very abnormal and from what I've heard we've never had a year this bad for it) For the most part medicators have set them up for 2+ weeks of wet food only (no chunks of food in it if possible) while their gums heal. Most of them are able to switch back to dry food after they've healed, including one who lost every tooth, but not everyone has done well with it. The dry food requirement is a logistical one for us, though; if you can afford the wet food approach I'm sure it's more comfortable for them.
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May 18, 2021 18:19
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broken pixel posted:One of my fine young men has made a habit of specifically drinking water out of dripping faucets. I’m wondering if he may enjoy a cat fountain or if the thrill is all in getting it from sinks. Does anyone have a successful cat fountain in their home? Not in my personal home, but the shelter office has a fountain for the half dozen office cats and it's quite popular.
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May 29, 2021 00:16
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