The Dogs Come Out at Night

Part of my job requires me to go the airport once a month at night and return early in the morning.
The interesting thing, and somewhat sad, thing about the return trip is all of the dogs that I see on the street, as in literally on the street.

I'm not sure why but possibly because the streets are cooler in the evening and there isn't any traffic. Along with packs of dogs I see lots of dogs just sleeping by the curb.

I wish the government would do something about all of the stray dogs and cats but the fact is it's because of the culture.

There is an actual word for it, it escapes me, but basically every animal should be allowed to do its own thing. And here that would be creating litter after litter of puppies and kittens.

I'll try to make a video or take some pictures of the dogs at night.

Operation Spay and Neuter

The cats at Colpetty Market keep coming and coming. Chris recently discovered the siblings of the baby she has been nursing. They were just as small and in bad shape. There are two mother cats that are ready to have litters and two tom cats that are ready to take care of business and get the cycle going again.

So we were very happy to find out about a spay and neuter clinic sponsored by the overseas school here. The flyer said to round up as many stray cats and dogs and bring them for shots and to have them spayed and neutered.

We grabbed our two kennels and called a taxi and went to the market. Chris bought two plastic picnic baskets that she had seen people use for carriers (they were slotted all around).

We grabbed the two male tom cats and two female cats without any problem. Part one went without a hitch.

The clinic was at the other end of the city but we got there soon enough. Chris went to the registration table run by students from the school when I saw her come back shaking her head which I already knew what she was going to say. The vets had stopped taking pets a half hour earlier and they were not going to do any more surgeries. They did offer to give them shots (well, a shot). We received shot cards for them, got back in the taxi, returned to the market and released them.

Chris had made some phone calls and found a vet that perform the surgery on all four cats for less than $90. The cats will get much better treatment than the MASH clinic that we visited.

Update On My Dog Friend

I still haven't taken a picture of her, I should do that tomorrow. So lately I've been bringing her a portion of cat food with a Milk Bone biscuit as a treat. I know, why cat food, because we have pounds and pounds of it. She eats it up, I figured she would.

I had two ice cream containers that I would bring and fill up with water and hope that it was still there when I got off work, well the first one disappeared and sure enough the second one disappeared. You might think that someone cleaning the sidewalk took it, but believe me someone saw it and saw it as a viable container to use in his or her home. I guess I'll have to eat more ice cream then.

It's funny as I walk to work in the morning I know the two places that she hangs out at, next to guard shacks. If she's not at one, she's next to the other. I can see her looking at the people as they walk by and when she's see's me I can see her tail wagging.

Sadly when I pet her she tucks her tail and hangs her head, obviously very frightened. If I have my umbrella it frightens her that much more so. I hate to think what she's been through.

Note to self, take a picture!

Abby Gets Hurt

Ever hear the old saying, things can change in the blink of an eye?
I came home today and everything was going well, we talked about going out to eat. The cats were fussing with each other and I picked up Abby and started petting her. The next thing I know she scratched my wrist really hard, hard enough for me to yell "OWW" and she jumped out of my hands.

In that split second I knew that couldn't be good, she's a little kitten. I saw her land, it looked like a clumsy fall, but Chris saw what really happened, she landed on her head!

Abby went under the bed and Chris picked her up and put her on the bed. She tearfully said that there was something wrong with her. Initially I wasn't so sure, but it became painfully obvious something was wrong. She couldn't walk right, she was falling down, and she just didn't want to move.

I tried calling our vet but she was out of town. We called a few others and a taxi and when the tzi arrived we took a long trip through Colombo traffic across the city.

At one point Chris said that Abby wasn't moving, I was praying to God that the she was maybe just sleeping, thank God she was.

The veterinarian was busy with some dog owners but he got to look at Abby. He checked her eyes, rubbed her head and said that she would be all right. He gave her a shot of antibiotics and steroids and said to bring her back tomorrow. I think we were both a little skeptical as she just didn't look right.

We came home and let her stay in the carrier and continue to sleep.

About and hour later we heard crying and we run to the bedroom, there's Abby on the bed looking at us. We were both a little frightened, what did this mean? My guess, she's hungry or has to go potty.

We took her to her bedroom (Yes she has a bedroom) and she goes straight to her litter pan! We were very happy. I went and got her a pouch of cat food and she started eating. Next thing we know she's messing with our other cats again and joining us on the couch!

Tears of worry and tears of happiness. Lots of prayers answered. Thank you Lord!

Abby Update

It's official, she figured out that she could jump over her barricade, so we either find something higher or just let us join us, she has joined us.

She follows Chris everywhere and stays with her on the couch and when she does go around the apartment she doesn't stray far. I thought we would have to shut some doors when she was out as there are so many places she could hide, but she hasn't.

One funny thing about her is that she tends to hop almost like a kangaroo. Her back legs look longer than our other cats, maybe it's our imagination.

Our older cat Cricket has given her the paw once or twice so Abby knows to give her some distance, but Feral on the other hand hisses whenever she is nearby. Feral will eventually run away in disgust.

They all have their own spaces, Cricket has one bedroom, Feral like the laundry room and now Abby likes to sleep with us.

She still wakes us up at some ridiculous hour in the morning to eat. Ugh.

My Dog Friend

Street dogs. There are so many of them and I pass the same ones on my way to and from work. I've been carrying some doggie treats with me and giving it to them as I see them, and at first I thought that they weren't eating them, but now I notice that they have been waiting for me to walk away before they eat them.

One dog I always notice stays a block or two away from our apartment on the main road. She's a mutt, much like any of the other mutts on the street and has had a litter or two.

Well lately as I approach her she starts wagging her tail and gets up and starts hopping towards me. She was hit by a car and had a broken leg. I remember seeing her months ago before she had a broken leg. It's quite sad. I see many dogs around here the same way.

I scratch her head and her fur feels so course. I know it makes her happy just to get some attention.

I'm happy when I see her, but it makes me sad when I see her hopping towards me. I see the dog lady feeding her rice the other day and also had some water for her which is good.

I will try to get a picture of her soon.

So many animals in need here.

Kollupitya Market Kitten Update Redux

After reviewing some pictures I took of the cats yesterday I realized that the one orange kitten we thought was nearly dead was in fact alive. At least in the pictures its head was raised. It's most likely very sick though.

I'm not going to post the pictures as they are not pictures of three cute orange kittens, but three very sad kittens.

Kollupitya Market Kitten Update

Went to Kollupitya (Colpetty) Market with Chris for her usual feedings of the stray cats. Things have gone from sad to sadder there. Of the original four orange kittens one turned up missing the other week or so, nobody was sure what happened to it. The mother cat had moved them several time and most recently to a dark alley that ran behind the butchers stands. It's unfortunate but it could be anywhere or worse and you just have to move on. The three kittens have been moved to the front of the butchers stands and they don't look well. One is a runt, one has his or her eye swollen shut and one of them will most likely die soon. In fact Chris didn't touch it as I think she didn't want to know if it was already dead. The mother cat is pregnant again and she doesn't care about the kittens.

We found a whole new group of very feral kittens on the third floor with another pregnant mom. Not so feral that they wouldn't eat kibble, but they did hiss and spit at Chris.

Chris' favorite sibling kittens have been moving between their old hiding spot on the second floor to the fish mongers floor, but today we found the shy one on the stairs, one eye almost swollen shut and his or her sibling hiding in their old spot.

All in all a sad situation. Four pregnant cats and several tom cats that are more than ready to do it again. At least fifteen kittens all together (Not including pregnant mom cats and tom cats)

I know what your thinking. Get them spayed, get them neutered. Not so much a money problem as where to let them recover, that's the problem. If we had that solved we could do that and release them back at the market.

The company newsletter and bulletin board is full of kittens for adoption, to include a pregnant cat and one of her kittens from her last litter.

Bad Day For Abby

Well bad day for Chris. But let me back track. Our last assignment was in Uruguay. The Uruguayan's loved their pets, especially dogs. There was a vet on nearly every corner, with good service and ample pet supplies, so that was Uruguay.

Chris took Abby in for a check up as who knows what happened to her on the streets. She took her to the same animal hospital I took Cricket to. She explained what she wanted and they handed her some paperwork, she turned around and looked and they had already injected the kitten with something. No questions, no nothing just gave her a shot. On top of that they didn't check her out, just stuck her back in the carrier. Chris then reiterated what she wanted done and they told her they didn't have all of the necessary vaccine's, maybe a few weeks. She asked if they could tell her what gender she (?) was, nope.

When Chris got home the cat started coughing. She looked at the paperwork and saw that they gave her some sort of oral medication for worms, not a good thing for little kittens and she most likely breathed in some of the medication into her lungs.

The only good thing that came out of the visit they explained her eye problem is common amongst street animals and they gave her some eye drops. They didn't look at her eyes, just told her that with the information she provided.

I got quite the earful about Sri Lankan pet care when I got home. She found a Brit vet and is taking her there nex.

Kitty Rescue (Me!)

We were returning from a walk yesterday and took a wrong turn that made our walk a bit longer, it was a little past 6:00pm and was about dusk.

As we passed a dirt parking lot we could hear the unmistakable sound of a kitten crying at the top of its lungs. Chris stopped dead in her tracks and headed for the parking lot. It didn't take long to find it, It was all by itself under a car. Chris tried to grab it but it went further under the car. Someone came over and was able to grab the cat from the other side, he handed it to me and walked away, as in "Your problem now". I handed the kitten to Chris who wrapped in a towel. It kept crying and crying, It did not look well. One eye was encrusted shut and she was very skinny. What were we to do? We couldn't leave it there.

We took a trishaw home and it cried pretty much the entire way.

When we got home Chris went straight to work taking care of our little patient. She found a rubber squeeze bulb and made some broth from cat food and water and fed it to the kitten. Her little tongue couldn't lap it fast enough. She was very dehydrated. Then Chris washed her. I was out of the room when Chris called me very frantically. She thought that kitten was dying and it may very well have been. Its eyes were closed and not a peep was coming from it. Chris kept massaging it with her fingers and all of a sudden its eyes opened and it let out a little cry. It could just as well have been a real baby crying when it's born, we were so happy.

She also took a heating blanket and put it under a cat carrier and lined the cat carrier with a sheet.

Several times throughout the night she woke it up to give her more to drink, but she never urinated, and when it did she only urinated two drops, not good.

Today after giving it more to drink it finally urinated a normal amount for a small kitten.

Now we have no intention of keeping the kitten. One of our cats is already mad even though she hasn't seen it, she has heard it.

Pictures soon.

Expat Cats

My wife says that I don't blog often enough about the cats. I'm not exactly sure how many blog posts constitutes blogging enough about the cats, but here is one.

We have two cats that have traveled to Uruguay and went from outside cats to apartment cats, back to the U.S.A. for a taste of outdoor life again, then back into a pet kennel for the long trip here to Sri Lanka to be apartment cats again. Actually one of them was able to ride in the cabin to Frankfurt and even got a kitty boarding pass.

I'd say all in all they have accepted their fate well enough. Cricket, the older cat has always been more comfortable indoors so it's no big deal to her. Feral, as her name implies loves the outdoors.
The apartment has it's fair share of doors and mirrors and the master bathroom has all of that and a big window.

Feral is pretty sure that sooner or later if she stays in the master bathroom we are going to open one of the doors and there will be a big green lawn and trees. So she stays perched on the dresser in the bathroom (Oddly enough we have a full sized dresser in the bathroom) and waits for that moment.

They both want to pounce the crows that tease them from our balcony, they wait crouched down and ready to attack, but we can't let them attack them less they will use up all of their nine lives.

Pictured: Feral hiding under the table and Cricket looking at the crows.