Fabulous Felines

This fall’s fundraiser (and just in time for holiday shopping) is an online silent auction. Thanks to the generosity of several supporters, volunteers, and local businesses, we have gathered a number of high quality items (both new and lovingly pre-owned) including fine jewelry, electronics, artwork, and cat furniture.

Because these are not the kind of things that could be sold at a typical fundraiser or yard sale, we will be offering them in an online silent auction. So check back on this website, or watch your email for an announcement (if you already subscribe to Fabulous Times). It will be a great opportunity to purchase some quality gifts for your loved ones . . . or yourself!

Gus is one of the cats at the foster house, and although he is shy, once you get to know him, he is a very sweet animal. A few weeks ago, one of our volunteers noticed that Gus was going from box to box, trying to urinate, but failing to produce a stream. We immediately took him to the vet, who confirmed that his urinary tract was blocked. Although they were able to give him temporary relief, it was clear that Gus needed a more radical treatment to prevent a recurrance.

Urinary tract problems are very serious, especially for male cats, who have narrow urethras that can be easily blocked by kidney stones, urine crystals, or other solids that can appear in urine. If not treated, blockages can lead to an excruciatingly painful death, a death that would have struck poor Gus had it not been for some very observant, informed volunteers.

After some discussion among our veterinary team, we agreed that Gus’ best chance to return to health was a PU, or perineal urethrostomy. This is a complete reconstruction of the urinary tract, and although it is a radical surgery, it has a very high rate of success in preventing future blockages.  Continue reading →

One of the benefits of the recent Cassini mission to Saturn was a deeper understanding of the nature of Saturn’s rings. In particular, the spacecraft discovered that the ring system was not simply comprised of billions of particles of orbiting dust, rock, and ice, but was a highly dynamic system where particles came together to form small moonlets within the rings. Cassini discovered some 60 of these moonlets in Saturn’s rings, and NASA scientists, who include a number of cat lovers in their ranks, nicknamed these moonlets “kittens” and gave them kitten names.

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That special smell of turning leaves and roasting chili is in the air. That means it is time for our Fall Food Drive. Just take your donations of cat food, litter, and paper plates (especially the small, 6″ plates) to the donation basket on the feline side of VCA Montgomery.

Also, it would be great if you would download our flyer, and share it with friends or post it in some public place!

It has often been said that chronically trouble prone people (or animals) somehow are the dearest. This is certainly true of our little cat Greystoke (he also has a column on Facebook!). Throughout his life, if there is trouble to be found, he finds it. Some of this has been dangerous, like the time he got his head stuck in a plastic pipe and almost died of asphyxiation (he did spend several weeks at the vets in a breathing chamber healing the lung damage), but most of the times when he has poked his head into trouble, the results have thankfully been non-life threatening (although occasionally hard on the china and glassware).

But, one of the funniest happened just a few days ago.

We had been cleaning out a closet, and found a couple of the “Elizabethan collars” that vets place on cats and dogs to keep them from licking a recovering injury or surgical incision. Since we no longer needed them, we decided to donate them to Fabulous Felines. We placed the two collars, a small one, and a slightly bigger one on a bench in our entry way so we could take them to the foster house.

Later that morning, as we were puttering around the kitchen, our friend, George stopped by. As we were chatting, he asked us: “Why do you have two E-collars?”

We explained that they were from two separate surgeries, and we were taking them to the foster house.

George seemed puzzled, and asked: “But why two?”

This confusion went on for several rounds until we looked back into the hallway where our friend was standing and saw that Greystoke had once more poked his head into trouble, and was now wearing the two collars: one behind his ears, and the other in front! What made it especially funny is that he seemed perfectly content to continue wearing them, as if he was proudly showing off his discovery.

It seems that he had poked his head into this latest temptation, looking for lord knows what, and the collars became stuck. After taking time for a laugh and a couple pictures, we removed the collars to a less accessible place on the seat of our car, and Trouble’s Child, little Greystoke, went looking for another place to poke his curious, trouble-prone, beloved little head.