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About us...
This is a really small operation, presently run out of our house by myself and my girlfriend... who is basically there to keep me pointed in the right direction since I tend to be a little ADD.
The precipitating event that started us down this path was about 3 years ago with the appearance on our back porch of the little guy in the picture below:
His name
is Oscar.
He exemplified a
"tuxedo-cat", all
black with his little
white spot.
He belonged to a neighbor who would "let
him outside" on a seemingly regular basis,
and he would end up on our back porch,
always hungry for food and
attention. We were happy to supply
both. This went on for a couple
months, he would be waiting for us EVERY
morning, outside the patio door, sitting
on top of the cat house I'd built on our
patio just like you see him in the
picture. This neighbor moved, and
left Oscar behind.
So... essentially... Oscar was pretty much residing on our porch. After a while, I started to notice that Oscar was getting thin. I thought, at first, that it was just due to being outside and exercising the freedoms that came along with that (running, playing). But... he seemed to be slowing down a bit, too...
One day he showed up for breakfast, and it was obvious something was wrong with him. Listless and only squeaking his greeting, rather than having his usual meowversaion, I knew he needed help. I also knew we had no idea what to do, in that respect. Sure... "take him to the vet"... but we survive on a very limited income, and there simply wasn't any way I would be able to afford an unplanned trip to the vet.
Our "angel" arrived, after a Google search, in the form of woman named Kitty Magee (yes... her real name) who ran a rescue group in The Colony called Kitty's Pet Foundation (she's in the process of retiring from the rescue business, for personal reasons). Kitty had some focused resources, and connections, that allowed us to take Oscar to a vet. A blood test revealed that Oscar's liver was failing... as the doctor explained, probably due to being an otherwise "indoor" house cat that was left outside. It seems that "indoor" cats, with their regulated diets, lose some of the internal digestive functions that permit them to correctly digest the variety of foods and other oddities they might come across in an outdoor environment.
We took Oscar home, and kept him in a bedroom to isolate him from our 3 resident cats. Oscar was wasting away, and we didn't want him to end up dying alone somewhere in the neighborhood.
About 2 days later, he started the "death wheeze", and I took the day off from work to be with him. He passed away, mid-day, lying in my arms. I can only hope he knew he was loved, cause he was. He was a really sweet cat.
He now has his space in our backyard, with his headstone marking his spot. If it's any consolation... his is the only headstone in our backyard.
But... that started us on a mission... to try and "rescue" these little guys that were frequenting our back porch. I don't know if other people in the neighborhood have as many visitors as we do, but there must be a little dot on the kitty-GPS devices that says "food-here". Over the past several years, we've continuously had no less than 3 cats, as many as 8, visiting us on a daily basis. We've seen one of them, Ollie, have 3 litters. The 3rd happened about a month ago, and she introduced us to the 2 babies about a week ago. We'll eventually have to get the babies indoors, but for now... mom is still taking care of them.
We've repeatedly tried to catch Ollie, if only to get her spayed, but she is deviously smart. Like, she can "smell" the trap situation from a block away. One of these days I'll figure something out... I'd like to think I'm smarter than your average cat. (honestly, though... I wonder sometimes)
So, through Kitty's guidance, we've learned the routine. Get the cat cleaned up... a shampoo bath with cat-safe products, and flea treatments. Get them "vetted", i.e. checked out for diseases, worms, and other nasty's, vaccines. Get them fixed, so we don't end up adding to an already unmanageable cat-population here in The Colony... and then start the sometimes lengthy and dubious process of "socializing" them.
In the past few months, with Kitty's help, we've successfully placed 3 of Ollie's kittens: Charlie, George, and Onyx. They were from a litter of 6, but 3 had been lost in that huge rain-storms with the flooding we had last year, we assume they drowned somewhere.
Presently, we're fostering 2 cats... Sam and Bowie, and we're trying to get our hands on Bowie's mate, who we've perhaps inappropriately named Iman (we don't know if Iman is actually female yet). With Kitty's "outlet" disappearing (she controls a set of cages at the Pet Sense store in Little Elm, which are used to showcase the cats she is trying to adopt out), we're having to get them adopted out on our own. ...and that's how The Kitty Corner, and this page, came to be.
So... essentially... Oscar was pretty much residing on our porch. After a while, I started to notice that Oscar was getting thin. I thought, at first, that it was just due to being outside and exercising the freedoms that came along with that (running, playing). But... he seemed to be slowing down a bit, too...
One day he showed up for breakfast, and it was obvious something was wrong with him. Listless and only squeaking his greeting, rather than having his usual meowversaion, I knew he needed help. I also knew we had no idea what to do, in that respect. Sure... "take him to the vet"... but we survive on a very limited income, and there simply wasn't any way I would be able to afford an unplanned trip to the vet.
Our "angel" arrived, after a Google search, in the form of woman named Kitty Magee (yes... her real name) who ran a rescue group in The Colony called Kitty's Pet Foundation (she's in the process of retiring from the rescue business, for personal reasons). Kitty had some focused resources, and connections, that allowed us to take Oscar to a vet. A blood test revealed that Oscar's liver was failing... as the doctor explained, probably due to being an otherwise "indoor" house cat that was left outside. It seems that "indoor" cats, with their regulated diets, lose some of the internal digestive functions that permit them to correctly digest the variety of foods and other oddities they might come across in an outdoor environment.
We took Oscar home, and kept him in a bedroom to isolate him from our 3 resident cats. Oscar was wasting away, and we didn't want him to end up dying alone somewhere in the neighborhood.
About 2 days later, he started the "death wheeze", and I took the day off from work to be with him. He passed away, mid-day, lying in my arms. I can only hope he knew he was loved, cause he was. He was a really sweet cat.
He now has his space in our backyard, with his headstone marking his spot. If it's any consolation... his is the only headstone in our backyard.
But... that started us on a mission... to try and "rescue" these little guys that were frequenting our back porch. I don't know if other people in the neighborhood have as many visitors as we do, but there must be a little dot on the kitty-GPS devices that says "food-here". Over the past several years, we've continuously had no less than 3 cats, as many as 8, visiting us on a daily basis. We've seen one of them, Ollie, have 3 litters. The 3rd happened about a month ago, and she introduced us to the 2 babies about a week ago. We'll eventually have to get the babies indoors, but for now... mom is still taking care of them.
We've repeatedly tried to catch Ollie, if only to get her spayed, but she is deviously smart. Like, she can "smell" the trap situation from a block away. One of these days I'll figure something out... I'd like to think I'm smarter than your average cat. (honestly, though... I wonder sometimes)
So, through Kitty's guidance, we've learned the routine. Get the cat cleaned up... a shampoo bath with cat-safe products, and flea treatments. Get them "vetted", i.e. checked out for diseases, worms, and other nasty's, vaccines. Get them fixed, so we don't end up adding to an already unmanageable cat-population here in The Colony... and then start the sometimes lengthy and dubious process of "socializing" them.
In the past few months, with Kitty's help, we've successfully placed 3 of Ollie's kittens: Charlie, George, and Onyx. They were from a litter of 6, but 3 had been lost in that huge rain-storms with the flooding we had last year, we assume they drowned somewhere.
Presently, we're fostering 2 cats... Sam and Bowie, and we're trying to get our hands on Bowie's mate, who we've perhaps inappropriately named Iman (we don't know if Iman is actually female yet). With Kitty's "outlet" disappearing (she controls a set of cages at the Pet Sense store in Little Elm, which are used to showcase the cats she is trying to adopt out), we're having to get them adopted out on our own. ...and that's how The Kitty Corner, and this page, came to be.
The events timeline:
2016.06.06 - I posted this web-site for the first time. It is currently under development, so some things (most?) will not be working right/yet.
2016.06.05 - I started the nebulous task of applying for a 501c3 permit. The "not-for-profit" status.
