Good bye, Millicent...

It took me a few days to get around to writing this, because it is hard to write about Millicent without crying. Well, I still can't...

On Sunday, we let Millicent go to Rainbow Bridge. The malignant tumour in her abdomen was huge, and while she was still eating, she'd clearly lost her spark, and we didn't want to make her wait any longer. The vet was amazed the tumour had not yet caused a blockage in her digestive tract...

She was very calm and relaxed at the vet's office. She stretched out on the blanket they put down for her, and we said our good-byes.

Millicent came to us a year ago after being abandoned at a nearby farm when her owner went into a nursing home. A kind elderly neighbour named Helen saw that Millicent was starving, but couldn't take her in, so she made sure she was fed every day, and loved. And then Helen asked us to take Millicent in. She offered to pay for her spay. So Millicent became ours...

Millicent was supposed to be a barn cat, but that didn't quite work out. After she got an abscess on the base of her tail, we brought her in the house to recuperate, and she never left! She stayed in Gordon's office for many months, of her own volition. Then one day she just decided to join the rest of the household.

Her favourite place to be was on my desk, preferably stepping on my keyboard while blocking my view of the computer screen, as she purred loudly and demanded petting.

Even as she grew thinner, she still spent most of her time in my office or on my desk. 

My friend Wendy brought Millicent sardines and cans of delicious fishy cat food to keep her eating, and Millicent loved it! She also enoyed a daily treat of Greek yogurt, and Gordon offered her his cereal bowl to lick every morning. On Sunday morning, he gave her a spoonful of his breakfast to eat before he had any himself.

Sardine juice on her nose.

I am still angry that Millicent's life was cut short... she deserved to have more time being loved by us. She was only three, and she was so content here. She had no desire to go outside; I think she was just glad to be safe and well fed, and had spent enough time roughing it in her previous life. She just loved to sit on a windowsill and watch the world go by.

Millicent liked to be petted but didn't much like being held. However, on Sunday morning, she let me pick her up and hold her against my chest as we went for a walk around the garden. I showed her the flowers and the Painted Lady butterflies, and gave her a little bit of catnip to sniff. She crossed her front paws and leaned into me, purring loudly as she always did. I told her how much Gordon and I loved her, and how lucky we were to have had her in our lives for the past year.

She was a sweetheart of a cat who asked nothing of us, caused no trouble, and got along with the dogs and all the other cats. I feel like she was an old soul, and a beautiful girl as well, with that one little smudge of grey on her forehead.

Millicent has the most peaceful death I've ever seen. She was ready to go. When the vet gave her the sedative, she closed her eyes and stuck our her little pink tongue, as she so often did. When he administered the final medications, she quietly left us.

Such a little kitty, such a big hole she left in our lives.

Good bye, Millicent. We will always miss you and never forget you and your sweet ways.

Friends for LIfe! walk and feline things

First off, we are once again doing the OSPCA Friends for Life! walk this year. It's on Saturday and I'm just halfway to my fundraising goal, so if you would like to support me by making a donation, here's the link to my page. Donations over $10 get a tax receipt from the OSPCA, and all funds I raise go to the Stormont, Dundas & Glengarry OSPCA, from where we have adopted SO many animals! Thank you for your help. :)

 Millicent is still with us, despite the massive tumour in her abdomen. However, I think her time is coming. She has been less happy the last few days and is having some trouble grooming herself. We are giving her all the love we can, plus my friend brings her delicious stinky cat food and also sardines, which Millicent adores! I am lucky to have such kind people in my life.

I give Millicent all kinds of soft beds and blankets to lie on but she always prefers hard surfaces... go figure!

She has been such an easy cat to have! Calm, affectionate, beautiful, doens't care about the dogs or the other cats.... just a very, very good girl. It is really hard to be losing her just a year after getting her, but I'm glad she made it to her "Gotcha" day on September 9.

Meanwhile, these little ones keep us smiling:

The OSPCA foster kitties are growine like weeds! This is Stella.

They are even starting to use the teeny-tiny litter box.

Maisie

Little Gordon, who will have his blind eye removed in about two weeks. He is doing great otherwise, and the eye is less swollen now which is great to see.  He's a real cutie. We are enjoying these foster kitties so much.

Meanwhile, I have adopted out three of the other seven foster cats!! Happy, Bashful and Dopey all have homes (and new names, thank God, lol!) Ramona (was Grumpy), Doc,  and Trixie (was Sleepy) and their mama Snow White are still here, but my friend in Minnesota wants to adopt Ramona and is planning a road trip, and a family is coming to see Snow White Sunday, so cross your fingers. They are truly lovely cats who all deserve wonderful homes.

Ramona and her brother Doc

Trixie, a little sweetheart

I wish I could keep them all!

Happy almost-Friday. Thank you for reading, and thank you for considering sponsoring my walk for the OSPCA. :)

Kitten-o-rama

I find this time of year difficult, as it marks the anniversary of my parents' deaths (they both died on the same day, five years apart), the death of a friend three days before my Dad went, and the passings of several pets. And of course we just lost Penny the goat, I found Jackie the duck dead in the coop last Thursday for no apparent reason, and Millicent the cat is currently living on borrowed time with a huge abdominal tumour. But hey, we've got kittens! Lots and lots of kittens, because I am now fostering a mama cat and her six 4-month old babies for Operation Spay + Neuter in Hawkesbury. And in a fit of insanity, I have taken on responsibility for adopting them all out. Someone is coming to see them today... cross your fingers. Some days I am convinced I have lost my mind.

Our friend Luc has built an amazing new foster kitty room in the back of the renovated granary (in the old carriage shed.) It's fantastic, and climate-controlled so I can use it all year round. The room has a window too. We just need to put another light in there so I can get better photos. :)

Luc is still adding shelving and other things for the cats to play on. 

I have Snow White, who is a 2-yo black cat with a lovely personality, plus her three black kittens, plus three tabby kittens she adopted and nursed after their mother was killed. The kittens are named Doc, Grumpy, Bashful, Happy, Sleepy and Dopey... after six of the seven dwarves. They came named... I'm not convinced the names suit the personalities, except for Happy, who is always VERY happy!

You too can own your own House Panther! 

Happy is a sweet female who is constantly purring and looking for cuddles.

Checking out the tires!

Our young friend Harry made this fantastic scratching post himself. It is the best! All the kittens love it.

Pretty Happy. :)

This little gal is slightly more reserved but she soon comes around! Her markings are so pretty.

The handsome cuddly boy tabby! Sweetheart of a kitten.

Lord of the scratching post!

As of last week, all the kittens and their mama are now neutered, vaccinated, dewormed, de-flea-ed, and microchipped, and I am asking an adoption fee to cover some of that, as I paid for all of them out of my own pocket (but they did go to a low-cost spay/neuter clinic, which helped a lot!)

If you are interested in a kitten, you can let me know. :)

Meanwhile, I am also still fostering lovely Nina and three tiny babies. These guys will go back to the OSPCA to be adopted out when they are ready...

I adore this cat. If I didn't have 17, I would keep her. She is beautiful, sweet, affectionate, and an amazing Mama. I think she will be very easy to adopt out. I would love if it I could find her a home before she goes back to the OSPCA, so that they could just handle the formalities and Nina wouldn't have to spend much time in the shelter.

This little dude is breaking our hearts though....

All the kittens had upper respiratory infections, and this little guy developed an ulcerated eye. I have been spending a lot of time at the vet with him (for which the OSPCA pays. I hear a lot of misinformation floating around about the OSPCA. Some people have said to my face that they are only in it for the money! It makes me angry. Everyone at our local SD&G OSPCA is extremely caring (not to mention underpaid.)  None of them WANT to euthanize animals. And they are going to extraordinary lengths to help this tiny kitten.

Right now his right eye is very swollen and protruding from its socket. On Friday the vet made special serum eye drops from Nina's blood, and we have been putting them in the little guy's eye every two hours in an attempt to stop it from drying out. I don't know if the eye can be saved, but if we can even delay surgery to remove it, it would be better for him.

My friend Sharron, who is here almost every day doing wonderful things for all the fosters (I could not do this without her help!) has named this little Tuxie "Gordon." The human Gordon worked a few 12-hour days last week, including Friday, but he was up in the middle of the night Friday going out to put drops in Little Gordon's eyes. This morning he is giving me a break and taking the crew to their 9:30 vet appointment.

And here is...

...Maisie! Whose eyes look good. All the kittens are currently on antibiotics and antibiotic eye drops and ointment. I have a very complicated medication chart for each kitten!

And this is Stella! We were afraid she might not make it when she arrived last Saturday, as she was very weak and infested with fleas (the OSPCA staff gave all the kittens baths to remove the fleas, and treated Mama.) But Stella has rebounded and is now the feistiest of them all! She deserved a strong name. :)

I am REALLY enjoying this kitten fostering.

Even the super-early medication sessions in my pajamas.. this is little Maisie.

Meanwhile, I am having another fundraiser on September 30!

Info on my website, too: http://www.beemeadowfarm.com/events/

Gotta go give eyedrops to a tiny baby now... :)

On a brighter note...

Photo by Deborah Wilson of Deborah Wilson Photography

Here's a break from all the sad blog posts! I have started fostering kittens for the Stormont, Dundas & Glengarry OSPCA and also Operation Spay & Neuter in Hawkesbury, Ontario. I am only able to do this because I have some great friends and volunteers who help with the kittens, especially my amazing, cat-whisperer friend Sharron who was here almost daily for this lot...

Yes, for two weeks I fostered these EIGHT kittens from one litter! And it was so much fun. I got them when they were six weeks old. I sent them back to the shelter last week and they have ALL been adopted! 

I'm pretty sure they were the most well-socialized kittens ever!

They met men, women, little kids, big kids, teenagers, and even saw my dogs.

There were seven fluffy ones and one short hair. Six tabbies, and one grey and one black. Four girls an four boys. :)

It was so much fun, I am doing it again... right now I have a mama cat and her three week-old babies, and I also just took in a mama and her six 3-1/2-month old babies! But more on that later.... you can only take so many adorable kitten photos in one day. :)

Certainly these little cuties are all helping bring a smile to our faces after losing Penny, and while we deal with terminally-ill Millicent (who, touch wood, is quite stable at the moment, but that could change at any time.)

Hope you are all having a nice Labo(u)r Day weekend!