A small load today - only five cats to bring to the PAWS-Chicago Spay/Neuter clinic to have the 'full TNR treatment'.
Actually, we had some differences in the five. One was feral, the other four were 'friendly ferals'. Friendly ferals don't get an eartip, but they do get tested for FiV/FeLV. And, one of the friendly ferals had already her shots, so we didn't want to have those done again (or pay for them again).
And, when two of the friendly feral kittens were examined prior to being accepted, the examining veterinarian determined that they were too small and too young to have rabies shots.
And, of course, there was the usual 'Feral Fixers exception' in that we bring our own micro-chips and have the PAWS staff insert those instead of the PAWS micro-chips.
So, we wound up with one 'normal' feral (full feral treatment - spay/neuter, eartip, distemper and rabies shots, deworming and treated for fleas - and a Feral Fixers micro-chip inserted). One 'normal' friendly feral (full friendly-feral treatment - spay/neuter, FiV/FeLV test, distemper and rabies shots, deworming and treated for fleas and a Feral Fixers micro-chip inserted). Two other friendly ferals with the full, friendly-feral treatment (minus the rabies shots) and finally, the last friendly feral, which was to be spay/neutered and micro-chipped only.
The PAWS personnel handled all of these exceptions and differences in their usual, competent fashion. No muss, no fuss, no complaints and no mistakes - everything was taken care of correctly. And the smiles were free!
It takes really competent and caring staff to be handle all of this - and we were only five cats out of the several dozen other animals they had to deal with today.
We love you PAWS!
With these five cats, Feral Fixers has now processed 24 cats for the Month of May, 279 for this year and 1,758 overall since we started.