Feral Fixers took 7 more cats today to the PAWS-Chicago Spay/Neuter clinic to be taken care of. 5 of them were ferals while 2 were 'friendly' ferals. With the 10 cats taken care of last Wednesday and the 8 taken care of last Sunday, this makes 25 cats that we have 'done' this week - a good week to be sure - and a total of 658 657 cats since Feral Fixers was founded in September of 2007.

I did no transport on Saturday as I was recovering from a rather ugly cold. I'm told its something that's going around. I slept for most of 72 hours, waking only for some home-made chicken soup and some medications (my wife is wonderful). The combo of sleep and medicine seems to have worked; I now feel more-or-less able to function again. If you've had this particular cold virus, you know it's pretty nasty. Headaches, muscle aches, (very) runny nose, sore throat, the works. I'm just thankful that it didn't get to my ears. Anyway...

The transport on Saturday was handled by Jennifer, Tammy and a new volunteer, Amy - Welcome Amy! It's good to see our ranks of volunteers grow - it means that we can handle more and more cats even when one of us gets sick...

Tammy gives this summary of the day's events:

Today's cats numbered 7. 2 friendlies from the woman who is helping her Alzheimer stricken mother-in-law, one feral from a woman who constantly has new cats show up in Roselle, and 4 more ferals from a location in Bensenville where I was transfering cats last night at 7:30 PM in the dark, cold and wind from large traps into smaller ones for transport. It was cold. We've done 9 cats at that location and all is left is a wiley Tom who really wants that food but just can't get over the going into the trap - especially with the planes going overhead every 5 minutes minimum.

Thank you Tammy and Jennifer and Amy!

We were scheduled to bring in 5 or more cats to PAWS-Chicago today, but wound up doing only 3. A couple of the caretakers were unable to trap any of their cats while 2 that were trapped and transported to Tammy's were already ear-tipped. So, only 3 cats today; 2 ferals and 1 friendly-feral. However, one of them is worth writing about, a black-and-white battle-scarred Tom from a colony in Wood Dale.

This cat is named "Shark" and never was a name more apt. Jennifer brought the cats into PAWS this morning and I did the pick-up this evening. When I called Tammy to ask how many cats I would be picking up, Tammy mentioned in passing that one of them was 'pretty mean'. Now I certainly don't have Tammy's experience with ferals, but I have transported several hundred ferals to-from Tammy's, some of them not so nice. None of them made me particularly nervous.

When I was at the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary last spring and summer to visit and volunteer, I was put to work with the 'Pahrump cats', cleaning their cages, feeding them, playing with the nice ones, etc. Some of these cats were feral and truly scary. When you work with these cats, the staff offer you gloves you can use, the kind of gloves that are elbow length and exceedingly thick. Even then, there were a couple of these cats that I didn't mess with - I let the staff handle them. Shark was of this mold. When Shark and the two other cats were brought out to the PAWS lobby so that I could bring them to my car, he made his displeasure known. When we switched trap covers from the sheets used at PAWS to the towels that we use, he hissed and growled and attempted to strike at us through the trap. Normally the cats are groggy and fairly inactive this soon after surgery. Not Shark. I made very, VERY sure that the trap was locked before I dared pick it up. When I picked it up, he hissed at me and attempted to strike my hand, again through the trap. On the ride home, he would occasionally hiss and growl, just to let me know that he was NOT happy. I was very happy to get him to Tammy's and off my hands...

Tammy told me that he had spent the previous night trying to constantly break out of the trap - a mean and ornery cat if there ever was one.

With today's 3 cats, that brings us up to a total of 660 cats Feral Fixers has had spay/neutered. In this calendar year so far, we've done 47 cats; 3 in January, 41 in February and 3 now in March. Tammy is lining up several dates to bring cats into PAWS this month and we are hoping to bring in as many as 15-20 cats to be spay/neutered this Saturday. Stay tuned!