Cat of the day and an importaint message for all cat lovers

Greetings, all! I'd just like to take this opportunity to let everyone know that me and every kitty in my family is a rescue kitty. We each would have been PTS by the public shelter system if someone from a nokill organization hadn't intervened. It is very important to get both pet and feral cats spayed and neutered and to support efforts to reduce or eliminate killing in your local shelters. Before you say "that is impossible," you should know many communities and the entire nation of Germany have eliminated the killing of healthy animals in shelters. In some places it is illegal to put such animals to sleep. For more info on the nokill movement and how you can help, please go here. http://www.nokilladvocacycenter.org/
Assistance for low cost spay and neuter is available in most places. Just use your search engine and you will find it listed state by state or by county.
Finally, at this time of giving, please remember your local nokill shelters, fostering groups, sanctuaries, and rescues. The Humane Society of the United States and ASPCA get plenty of $, but very little of it actually goes to help animals, and these are not nokill organizations. PETA, it may surprise you to know, is NOT a nokill group. In fact, they euthanize a lot of cats and dogs and are for the euthanasia of feral cats instead of trap, neuter, return. Local groups that are run mostly or wholly by volunteers really need funds and can stretch every dollar. Fostering and adopting also, needless to say, saves lives. Breeders are unnecessary and contribute to the death-toll by taking homes from shelter cats. They do not deserve support, even if they seem very nice, they are not helping cats by what they are doing. A cat is not a "product" and none of them ask to be born.
So, I will step down from my kitty soapbox now. I just wanted all you kitty lovers to know the truth because I know you want to help kitties. Thanks for your indulgence!

It is non-stop rain where I live right now. Our play yard is closed for winter. Mommy gave us a little Christmas tree we can play with on the catio. The bathroom is filled with foster kittens, thanks to people failing to spay and neuter(shaking fist). They are very cute and only 10 weeks old. Very soon they will go to the vet to be fixed. Mom is hoping she will find all of them great, indoor-only, NW Oregon homes.

I am told there have been a number of shocking and tragic events among the humans lately. This makes me sad, because I love humans very much. It also makes me sad, because if humans don't even value human life, what chance is there that they will come to value our little kitty lives?
I don't want to leave on a sad note, so please let me add that humans are very powerful and they can choose to end the killing of other humans and of cats. It may not be easy, but you can take little steps every day. By locking up guns, or refusing to buy them at all, by providing a "listening ear" for someone who is troubled. Tell politicians if you object to their actions, as people in other nations and your troupes are human, too. By protecting others from those who wish them harm, we can help change things. Do not feel helpless.
Love you all and wish all the kitties and humans good health, a happy holiday season, and a better 2013. Let's make that our lucky year!
XXXOOO-Nikolai

Spring Showers

How is everyone? We aren't on here much, but it looks like the autopay monster got mommas bank account, so I guess we'd better post more.
I'm still spraying, and I got Sprite to start, too. Sprite is a black and brown tabby that has been living with us. Anyway, momma has "assmah." What does that mean? She says it means we are killing her with our pee. She washed the curtains today and moved the couch so we cannot stand on it and spray the curtains. But don't worry, we'll just spray the couch, instead. Prozac and comfort zone didn't help at all.
We still have 2 foster kitties, Randall and Squirt. It is pretty hard to find good homes, I guess. Mommy managed to adopt out the whole litter, plus the momma cat, except for these two. We all get along quite well but two fewer of us would make things easier for mom. Plus, these two are bonded more to each other than to the rest of us, which means momma can adopt them out without upsetting us. Or so she thinks. We shall see.
Anyway...
Kitten season is here! Please spay and neuter you cats, and help other people spay and neuter their cats, and spay and neuter strays and ferals. Because there aren't enough homes. Low cost spay and neuter assistance is available in most places.
Okay, I guess that rant helps justify the expense of this page, lol
I hope everyone is well.

Happy Valentine's Day

The foster kitty I hated got adopted out! Yay! I'm still on prozac, though.
It is wet and cold here and our catyard is still too messed up to play in.
We have some kitties here that don't have pages. There is Lilly, Sprite, Peanut, and the foster kitties, Squirt and Randall. Really on facebook more often lately than here. Plus mommy is supurr lazy.
I hope all is well with all of you!
-Niko

Prozac for peein'

I hate the foster kitty, so I spray. Now I'm given a little chunk of pill every day. : ( Mommy is trying to find a forever home for the kitty. She is a big Maine Coon. I hate her. Someone come take her away, please. She bit me once and gave me an abscess. I hate her. I want her gone.
-Niko

Our Dearly Departed and A Big Job.

So sad to read about the kitties who have passed recently in Calvin's diary. Mommy just cries and cries. She hopes she doesn't live to see any more of us die, but then, who will take care of us if she dies first?
Anyway, the eldest of us is Ming, and she is only 8, so hopefully mommy will have more than another decade before she has to face that. We shall see. When you do rescue you see a lot more heartbreaking stuff.
Speaking of rescue, mommy will be cat-sitting about 80 cats next week. It will be hard because they are kinda far away. But, she helps with them at least every other week, so she is the most experienced in caring for them, aside from their rescuer. We have never met the barnful of cats, hopefully we never do, because that would probably mean our mommy is dead and we had no where else to go! We smell those kitties on mommies clothes when she comes home from helping clean their barn sometimes. There are so many! If mommy ever has a big sanctuary for that many kitties, she will need some volunteers. It is hard to keep on top of.
We still have fosters here. Hilda, the momma cat, is no longer allowed outside the bathroom. She was giving our PTSD kitty rescue, Sprite, a bad time, and he was getting crazy and hiding. He is already a spooked cat, so mommy can't have him getting any worse. Hilda still has two of her kittens, Squirt and Randall. She likes her kittens, but hates all other cats. Mommy would like Hilda to be adopted with one of her kittens, because it seems like a happier ending for her than being alone. Also, it is very hard to find people who want an "only cat." Squirt is a cute little black kitten, and Randall is a striped Main Coon-looking kitty, like his mom. He loves to sleep on mommy's lap. Mommy says she can keep either or both of the kittens if she has to, but Hilda has to go. She can't just live in the bathroom forever, and she has had months to get used to the other cats, but never has. Mommy doesn't want to take her to a shelter, but she isn't getting any interested parties from her ads. So sad. She visits Hilda in the bathroom and pets her. She is an affectionate kitty. I hate her guts, though. She chases us and tries to hurt us!
Anyway, I think mommy will cut a tree down for us and put it in the catio. Not until the cat-sitting job is over, though. As you can imagine, that will take most of her time.
Hope everyone is doing well. Getting cold up here in Oregon.
xxxooo-Nikolai

Halloween and some Hopeful News

How embarrassing I got diary pick when I was transcribing mommy's rant. LOL, I guess if it convinces one reader to spay and neuter it is worth the embarrassment.
We are not totally back on raw yet. Mommy thought Andre's gums seemed better since we've been stuck on dry food, so mommy may start giving free choice dry plus one raw meal a day, or something like that. Maybe she should start eating our dry food, her gums suck!
Strangely, mommy has gotten about three phone calls and several e-mails about the kittens all of a sudden. One she isn't too sure about, because they want to let the kitty be indoor/outdoor, but on the bright side, they may want Hilda, who is the momma cat and less adoptable because she's an adult, and who has also lived outside. One may want two kitties, which would be great, and one is a little old lady who lives in a trailer with a small dog. And another is a young lady. Unfortunately at least two of them want a male for some reason, and there is only one male: Randall. They are all fixed so mommy isn't quite sure why some really want a male. Hopefully he will go to someone who feeds a good diet so he doesn't get U.C. So, maybe the wishes of adopters everybody has sent her way are starting to come true! Thanks, everyone!
Anyway, mommy has a bucket of pine cone she was going to make into Christmas ornaments for a fund raiser for a cat shelter. The kittens like to take them out of the bucket one at a time. They knocked her aloe vera plant down yesterday. They do lots of naughty things! LOL. We stay away from them. Usually we just hang out on the catio while they are loose in the house. Mommy lets them loose several times a day, then lures them back into the bathroom with a can of cat food. she tries to warn us when she is going to release the hoard.
That's all for now. I hope every kitty has a great Halloween!
-Nikolai

She's Gonna Blow!

Mommy is very stressed out today.
Our raw food regime was interrupted at the beginning of October when the meat grinder broke. The repair place kept coming up with reasons why it wasn't ready, then today mommy went to get it, and they had closed the shop early! A 35 minute drive each way! Plus, mommy had 3 chickens thawing for us in the sink already. It took her forever to get home, for some reason. She can't afford to feed us quality wet food unless she makes it herself. It is only about $2 a lb to make it at home, if you have a good MEAT GRINDER. She has been in a grouchy mood all day. She is sweating bullets over re-homing these foster kittens and foster cat of hers. They are getting big fast, but are still so cute and adoptable. She called the place she used to foster for, even though fostering for them always turned into a very expensive fiasco, and she was stuck with one "returned" cat from them that wasn't even her foster. But, she thought if they could take the momma cat she is fostering it would be nice, as she is having to be kenneled, anyway. But they did not have a cage available for Hilda.
Any humans out there had any luck re-homing kitties? Mommy has tried the local paper-affiliated classifieds, fliers at the vet, petfinder, craig's list, and facebook. She thought about fliers in the feed stores, but those people usually want outdoor, disposable cats.
These kittens will be in the teenager stage in no time. It costs about $70 every 20 days to feed them. And what's worse, this being a two room shack, there simply isn't enough room for 12 adult cats.
Mommy is just so depressed by it all. That the sweetest, most precious things in the world are discarded like trash. That people just want kitties to die. Hate them so much they want to take their very lives. Can you imagine being hated so much that people would pay to have you dead? They pay to have kitties "destroyed" in shelters like hazardous waste but so many won't pay to have kitties rescued, or to spay and neuter them. Humanity is monstrous. Sometimes mommy thinks if she starts to cry about it she will never stop. If people won't think of the cats, they should at least think of what they themselves are becoming.
When mommy saw the video of the little girl in China being run over, again and again, and all those people taking a good, long look at the dying child, then walking away, she thought about how that's just what people do to cats. And in China, where cats are treated even worse than they are here, now a little migrant child is being treated like cats are in America. And if people keep treating cats worse and worse here, will people just walk away from run-over children soon here too? Cruelty has a numbing effect. Empathy shuts down. People become wholly self-centered. And this may serve them well in combat, but should man exist to be nothing but a killing machine? The animal most effective at adapting to and changing its own world, does nothing to help it?
Anyway, the more mommy thinks about it, the more she thinks cats are just too good for people. She knows not all people are monsters yet, but fears they get closer every day. As desperation increases so will the "kill or be killed" thinking. Already she is seeing more abandonment. She hasn't had anyone ask for help to get their cat fixed in days, not even for free. People just don't care.
Anyway, mommy is despondent. Some kind people have tried to help her with rescue, but there are just too few kind people and they all have a huge burden and too many people who do nothing or just contribute to the problem. Most people say you should just "walk away" when you see a kitty in need of help. Yeah, just walk away, just like the people in that Chinese marketplace did! And the woman who finally stopped to help was an impoverished scavenger, who set down her own heavy burden, at risk of it being stolen, to help the dying child. : (

How Embarassing!

The Catster robot picked me as a diary pick on the 6th and I didn't even know it, nor did I have a new entry. Buddie always loved was the one who brought it to my attention.
Anyway, our meat grinder has been in the shop for 2 weeks, so we have been eating "Authority." LOL, "respect my authority!" We drink tons of water when we are on dry food. The raw diet has plenty of water in it.
Hilda, the momma of the foster kittens, attacked Ming today, so she has to be in a kennel now. Mommy wishes she could find her and her kittens homes faster. They are all fixed and ready to go. Very cute and sweet kittens who even come when called...most of the time.
What else? Fall is here but it hasn't turned to the constant rainy and gray weather yet. That will happen soon though. Mommy loves the sun but finds it hard to enjoy right now because she caught a cold from the kittens.
A good friend of ours even sponsored 2 kittens, giving them much needed names and mommy some much needed cat food buying funds. Do you know they each eat a whole can of food a day each? That's 6 cans. We are so jealous, 'cuz mommy is intentionally keeping us on boring dry food until the grinder is back so we will be sure to want our raw food again. She says canned food is like kitty crack, MOL. One of the kittens is now named "Minnie" and another is named "Sydney," and their names suit them well. Can you guess whose humans their kind benefactor is?
We got our class action legal notice about the Evo food we used to eat, but the password and claim number they gave us don't work. That's one sneaky trick! When mommy can breath through her nose again she will give them a call. We must have bought 20 bags of that stuff some years back, because mommy remembers getting at least 2 bags free with a punch card.
Anyway, looking forward to having raw food again. Lilly had a quail today but most of us just don't seem to know what to do with one!
-Nikolai

thanks!

Hi, thanks everyone for the birthday wishes!
We are all well. Mommy has just had a group of fosters fixed, and is looking forward to adopting them out. They are really cute, but we are forbidden to get attached, lol.
Well, mommy is pretty underemployed still. Her only plan won't be able to go into effect until spring. But she is not alone! LOL. Anyway, we like having her home a lot.
Better go, thanks again!
-Niko

Going to the birds

Mommy is taking the homemade raw cat food to the next level. She got 2 laying hens for the eggs for the cat food, 7 banty chickens, for hatching quail eggs, and 14 quail, for breeding for meat, and 20 broiler chicks. It is pretty crazy around here. The quail were in the bathroom last night, making crazy noises all night long. Mommy finally took their cage out to the catio at 2 in the morning.
So far, Lilly has been the only one who knows what to do with a quail. She hasn't got her own page yet. Anyway, she was munching one like a real pro. Mommy took the breast meat out of one and tried to get the rest of us to try it. We were catfused. She says we will learn.
That's all for now.