Articles by Kelley

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Bessie and her brother Georgie came to Rescuties from a local good Samaritan. We met in one of the vets offices we frequent (all too often!) and the owner explained that she had found a stray cat, who had a litter of kittens. She had already had the momcat spayed (yay!) but the kittens were in trouble. A neighborhood bully had already killed one and she was afraid more would die. We are full, always, but had to find a place for these guys. Another of our vets stepped up and offered space in his office for the kittens until they could be adopted. It took less than a week! (Actually they are on a foster to adopt placement until they are old enough to be spayed and neutered, but they are home!)

We’re always looking for great foster homes so we can save more animals. Also, if you know of a business in the Austin area who would allow us to use them as an offsite adoption location, please let us know!

You can reach us at rescuties@gmail.com

Although Georgie and Bessie are now safely in foster care, we are still accepting donations for their and the other kitties’ medical expenses.

thanks to the kind folks at our hosting provider.

Hopefully we will be back to blogging soon.

Our featured kitty from last week went home with his new mom! Look for a new featured kitty this week!

We had a busy weekend, taking a neighbor’s cat in to be spayed (this is not something normally within our scope, but the neighbor is in a wheelchair and has no transportation.

Scoured Austin for more treasures to sell on Ebay, check them out.

We now accept Google checkout. Google checkout is our preferred online payment processing service, as we do not have to pay any fees through 2009! Your *entire* donation will go to helping the kitties!

Tuffy is just about done with her meds, while Toodles goes to the vet tomorrow for a suspected urinary tract infection.

We’ll keep you posted!

Michelle and I went out treasure hunting to get things to sell on Ebay. We had a great time and found some fun and unique things (like the panther earrings pictured above).

To check out our listings, click here.

We then took some pictures of some new kitties that will be up for adoption. Be looking for them here and on our regular site!

We do have some kitties who like to help with taking pictures for Ebay listings, in case anyone needs any help with that::)

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After picking up the very generous donation from Suzanne last night (Thank you so much Suzanne - it is so heartwarming when people have a kitty pass away and are so generous as to donate the kitty’s belongings).

Here is a picture of one of our rescued kitties inspecting the new cat tree!

Rescuties has launched a fundraiser. All monies raised will go towards our kitties ongoing medical expenses.

For $5, less than the cost of a lunch out, you can make a significant difference in the life of a kitty in need. Larger donations are of course also appreciated!

First, I went to Wal-Mart and bought some Fancy Feast (I searched through the flavors to find one without wheat gluten) for Missy to see if it would make her more amenable to taking her Benazepril. She really does not like capsules (she’s fine about taking her chicken flavored Baytril) and I don’t want her getting upset and putting an additional load on her heart. I shook all the powder out of the capsule, added some Fortiflora, the contents of a CoQ10 capsule, and mixed it all into the Fancy Feast. She did eat it, but can’t eat a whole can at once. I just have to make sure the other cats don’t get ahold of what she leaves over since it has heart medication in it.

While I was there I couldn’t resist buying them a new toy - come to find out it cost a dime. I am going to go back to see if there are any left tomorrow.

When I got back, there was an email from a very nice lady whose beloved kitty just recently lost her struggle with renal failure and the lady wants to give us a large in-kind donation, including a cat tree, lots of food, some litter boxes, etc. Thanks so much!:)

One of the  great participants on the Feline Leukemia mailing list posted this resource, and we thought we’d pass it along.

It is a good idea to be aware of the normal health status of your pet, and what constitutes cause for concern.

Over at Veterinary Partner, they have a health checklist/physical exam form.  It is really important to know what constitutes “normal” for your cat (or dog) in order to be able to give your vet good information, especially in the event of an emergency.  We’re going to ask for permission to reprint it to provide to our fosters and adopters.

In general, not eating is a bad sign in cats.   Cats fed primarily or exclusively on dry food tend to remain in a state of low level dehydration, so it is really important for them to drink regularly.  Source:  www.catinfo.org - this site has great information on feeding cats optimally.

Brutus came to us as a 5 week old kitten from the local high kill pound.  His foster mom saved him and an 8 week old calico kitten we called Margerine (now named Margarita by her adopter).  Even though Brutus was younger, he was the one to tell Margarita everything was ok!

Brutus has now been neutered, had all his vaccinations and been combo tested, and is ready to go home to his new family!

To apply for Brutus or see our other adoptable kitties, please see our webpage.

Missy has been with us since she was 8 weeks old.  She came from the local high kill pound with her brother and sister.  Her brother was adopted long ago, and her sister, Toodles, is still with us.  (See Toodles’ webpage on our main site)

Someone went to get the kittens from the pound for me because I had a cat who had had a mastectomy and was having to get her dressing changed at the vet every day.  I still remember the first time we saw each other, Missy and I.  She knew I was her mom, and so did I!

Unfortunately, Missy has a congenital heart defect.  The particular defect she has is a complete endocardial cushion defect, which is rare in cats.  She sees the cardiologist at Texas A&M University, and only a few have been seen there.    Feline cardiology isn’t as advanced as human cardiology, or even canine cardiology, and surgical repair is not possible.  She takes heart meds every day and gets lots and lots and lots of love - we’re trying to pack a lifetime into a few years.

Missy is the queen of the house, and she knows it!  She likes to sit on my shoulder, be held upside down like a baby, and sleep on my head or curled around my neck.  She loves company, because of course they all come to see her.

Missy does not like medicine - she says yuck!  She does love kitty treats.  She is very smart and has a quizzical look that always makes me laugh.

She recently got upper respiratory infection and went to the vet.  She had her nasal passages flushed - the vet said she did really well and I did moderately well:).  She’s on antibiotics and feeling much better.

Every day she’s with us is a good day.  Love her so much.

It makes me understand why many people say “I just want a healthy kitten.”  Missy wasn’t diagnosed until about 6 months, though.  You just never know what might happen.   And I wouldn’t have missed loving Missy for anything.

Our Tuffy, who came to us from a shelter in Ohio, had to go to the vet Saturday. She was having a rather indelicate problem with her intestinal flora.

Tuffy was supposed to be a handicapped kitten. Her eye had never opened before she came to us and the shelter thought the eye had died and would need to be removed. Fortunately, when she got here she was treated and her eye is almost normal. She has a very slight loss of vision in it, perhaps 5%, and runs a slightly increased risk of developing glaucoma as she ages. Tuffy has a pet - a stuffed lion she adores.:)

The vet sold us some Diarsanyl
which we haven’t used before. I will say she doesn’t seem to like it, but we are hoping it works. If it does we will keep it in our medicine chest. We also got Panacur in granules and Fortiflora, which we mix up in canned food for her daily, and she doesn’t mind those at all.

This is the blog portion of the Rescuties Animal Rescue website. Our regular website is still at http://www.rescuties.org

I’ve had fun playing with this blog - expect a lot of updates and changes as the weeks and years progress - but I wanted to launch it now.

We’ll talk about cat rescue plenty later, but first I wanted to recommend something I’ve found inspirational. Those of you who haven’t heard of Randy Pausch, he is a former professor dying of pancreatic cancer. I figure if he can stay this optimistic and upbeat while dying, we can sure stay optimistic and upbeat while saving kitty lives!

Really random fact - he lives in my hometown (though I no longer live there.)