Feral Fixers brought 49 more cats to the PAWS-Chicago Spay/Neuter clinic today to be fixed. 28 of these cats were ferals while the other 21 were 'friendly ferals'.
Today was a very 'interesting' one. Because my car is still in the shop (Transmission. Problems. Expensive.), Feral Fixers Board member Sue (once again) allowed me to borrow her van so that I could bring in many of the cats to PAWS today. However, in driving the van over to Tammy's this morning, the engine started 'steaming' and I saw that the engine temperature guage was pegged at the highest level. Not good. I pulled over to the side of the road and allowed the engine to cool down and then drove the rest of the way to Tammy's. I popped the hood and opened the radiator cap - no coolant liquid in sight. I asked Tammy for a gallon of water, hoping against hope, that the level was just low and that some water would make things right. I poured the entire gallon into the radiator and then watched in dismay as it immediately began leaking out of the system. This car wasn't going to go anywhere until repaired. If we're lucky, just a hose, but more probably a leaky radiator. Super-volunteer Jennifer was the other half of today's transport in, so we loaded up her car with 28 cats and headed off to PAWS. Meanwhile, Tammy called super-volunteer Dedra to see if she could possibly come by NOW and pick up the rest of the cats and bring them to PAWS. Being the rock-star volunteer she is, she said 'yes' and immediately headed over to Tammy's. Tammy also then called Sue to deliver the bad news about her car.
Jennifer and I arrived at PAWS and unloaded 'our' 28 cats and brought them inside. Then Jennifer headed off to work while I started the paperwork (doing paperwork on 49 cats is a long, tedious process). An hour or so later, Dedra showed up with the rest of the cats and we proceeded to unload them and bring them inside. Then Dedra helped me finish as much of the paperwork as we could. Because not all of the Check-In reports had been prepared, we soon reached a standstill, waiting for the rest of the PAWS paperwork so we could finish our part. Knowing that Dedra was going to have come back in the evening to help bring the cats (she had been previously scheduled to do this) I sent her home and stayed at PAWS and finished up the rest of the paperwork when I could. Then I spent the afternoon at PAWS, keeping busy by helping the employees there do one of their least-favorite tasks, cleaning out the storage room. I got my exercise today!
PAWS said the cats would be ready at 5pm and they were. As mentioned earlier, Dedra had been scheduled to come to PAWS in the evening to help transport cats back to Tammy's, but I was supposed to be the 'other half' of that transport team - and I had no vehicle. So, Tammy had to come to PAWS herself and help pick up cats (like she doesn't have enough to do already, but there was no one else to do it). Once both cars were at PAWS, we spent some time getting all of the cats, except one friendly, into Tammy's and Dedra's car. Tammy headed home with her load. I rode with Dedra, with the extra friendly we didn't have room for in the back of the car sitting in my lap. Once at Tammy's we unloaded all of the cats and then Dedra kindly drove me to Sue's house so that I could pick up my car and drive home.
A long day for everyone involved and we are looking forward to the break next week even more. Thanks Dedra for doing both parts of the trip today (as well as doing the pickup on Tuesday - see previous blog post) and for taking me to pick up my car! Thanks Jennifer for driving in a bunch of the cats (and me!) to PAWS this morning and also coming back to Tammy's this evening to help take care of all the kittens in her basement. And Thanks Judy for being at Tammy's both this morning and this evening, helping out with everything that needed doing. And finally, sorry Sue, for the car trouble...
All 49 cats received surgery today - I think this is the largest number of cats we've ever brought to PAWS where everyone got done. No one was rejected for health reasons, no one was too small - no exceptions.
With these 49 cats, Feral Fixers has now processed 169 cats for July, 645 cats for the year and 6,621 overall.