Happy New Year!
Damn it is 2009! and I am ever so grateful….
Although it started out awful, I spend New Years Eve puking my brains out and it was not even alcohol induced, what fun is that! I had the damn flu! Just now getting back to my normal self, if there is such a thing.
But things since the ring in of 2009 thing have already climaxed….. Leave it to me to get a new job in this horrible economy without even looking! A promotion even, with a fantastic agency, less costly benefits, a raise, and managing a group of people I know (for the most part) and already have established relationships, not to mention the impact that the program has on our community! I am so excited and terrified at the same time. (Being terrified only means that I am anxious to do a good job.) I am ever so grateful for having friends & acquaintances who believe that I am a capable, compassionate and confident leader; over the years I have been fortunate to experience many growth opportunities thanks to this network of individuals.
And Woody, the ever so adorable being below now resides with us. We adopted him just before Christmas from the Community Cat Connection, the shelter where I volunteer and sit on the board.
Woody has brought much love and odor into our lives, yes I said odor. He is assaultive with his affections, demanding and persistent. He loves to sit on my lap and knead, he usually goes for the boobs, I am after all his new mumma, but damn he has the biggest paws and claws of any cat I have ever owned. He also has some problems with gas, stinky, smelly, offensive toots. Have you ever met a cat that farts? We we now are owned by one. We are researching the cause and how we might be able to resolve the gas. Probably a food issue. It is on the checklist for his first vet visit with us. Oh and he doesn’t meow, he quacks like a duck, is 15lbs (huge) and drools when he gets excited.
Hence all his Nicknames: Duckman, Sirdroolsalot, stinky boy, the Tunaeater (say it like Arnold Schwarzenegger), Quackman, Sweaterman (he looks like he is wearing a sweater), the boobymonster….. and the list goes on and on and on….
Woody’s transition into our home is very slow, with the ever so dominant female Boo who rules the roost not yet accepting his presence. So for now he is set up in the finished basement with his own pad, toys, scratching post, beds and bathroom. We call it his bachelor pad. From all the reading I have done, slow transitions are the most successful transitions with hostile territorial first pets in the home. Woody comes upstairs and watches TV with us, snuggles in bed and wanders the house under our watchful eyes, but does not yet have full access to the house when we are not present and engaged in his supervision. Someday though, time, it will take time.
Anyway, Happy New Year to you and yours; 2009 the year of CHANGE, for me, for you, and hopefully for the whole country. It is going to be a good year for us all, I can feel it, can you?
Namaste
Oscar went to his Forever Loving Home today!
Congratulations Oscar!
Last night, at the end of my shift at the Community Cat Connection H and I said “goodbye” and “congratulations” to Oscar the cat. For today he went to his forever loving home.
All of us volunteers at the CCC will miss Oscar. He came into us after having endured some extremely traumatic conditions of severe abuse and won all of our hearts. (see earlier post) He is such a gentle and loving soul he will make his new “mom” very happy.
This is what I love about the volunteer work that I do at the shelter. Now, you think it would be sad to say goodbye to a cat or kitten that you have gotten “attached” to or “bonded” with, and I will not say that it is not a little tug at my heart. But it makes me thrilled to learn when I go in for my shift each week to discover that one or more have been adopted and gone home. That is what we are about, rescuing cats & kittens from bad environments (whether it be abandonment, surrender, abuse, neglect, or stray) and finding them PERMANENT homes to love, protect, nurture and respect for the remainder of their lives whether they be 10 weeks or 8 years. I thrive on the sense of hope that all of our cats, even the “old unadoptable” ones will someday go home.
I have learned in the short time at the shelter that for most people, the real cat people who know cats, when you walk into the CCC to “adopt a cat”, you do not pick out a cat because they are pretty or cute, truly, the cat choses to adopt you and deep in your heart both you and the cat know that you have found “the one”, your pet, your new “family”.
I love my work at the Community Cat Connection, yes even scooping the poop. I now am privileged to sit on the Board of Directors. As an all volunteer operated organization we are doing pretty good, we are developing business plans, working on sustainability and everyday we become a more stable respected organization. However, we are far from hiring staff, having an investment account, and a multi million dollar facility, but I have confidence that we will get there someday. It is an honor to work side by side with the humane, dedicated and loving team of CCC volunteers, the CCC Family.
But we cannot do it all alone! If you are able please consider contributing to our humble little shelter. Money is a good thing, but we also accept donations in the form of cat food, litter, toys, hand sanitizer, beds, bleach and laundry supplies, paper towels etc…… We are also selling Cookbooks and Calendars, they make great gifts (we even take Pay-Pal online). Community Cat Connection, Webster Massachusetts.
Your assistance would allow us to continue to help cats like Oscar find their home.
Please Vote for the Community Cat Connection!
We need your Vote! Spread the Word!
Your vote may help the Community Cat Connection to win $10,000.
We need the money to rehab our shelter so that we can continue to help the cats and kittens of our community who do not have voices of their own……
Oscar, who I blogged about in an earlier post (click here to read). He is a happy boy and doing well with us. His sad story will have a happy ending someday, hopefully soon.
One week old kittens abandoned by their feral mother. They were rescued by two women who plan to adopt them, but need our help keeping them alive until they are strong enough to eat on their own. A nursing mother cat in one of our foster homes is now caring lovingly for them.
Kiara, once a mother, now gorgeous rubinesque lover who just wants to cuddle in a home all of her own,( she doesn’t play well with other cats). She wishes she could go home with H, she loves him up every time he comes to the shelter for a visit.
And Woody, he is my new “favorite”. He is labeled a feral, came in last weekend on a TNR (Trap Neuter Release). Most of think he is a stray though, he is way too friendly to be a wild cat. He has really taken a beating living outdoors, came in covered with fleas, ticks and many healing wounds from fights. Though he is BIG, solid and on the outside appears to be a real tough manly cat, he is a teddy bear and a love bug that melts into your arms when you hold him. (You gotta be strong though, he’s a big dude)
To learn more about the Community Cat Connection and what we do click here.
Thank You for your vote!
Meet Oscar
He only has Eight Lives left
I do not know where to start. Oscar has such a horrible story. I know I will sob if I try to document it all. The short of it is that Oscar was beaten with a shovel, and thrown away in a plastic garbage bag with the trash. He is healing from a broken jaw and skull fracture. When he came into the shelter he was infested with fleas and mites and covered in his own feces. The “powers that be” only know how & why he survived. We at the Community Cat Connection are privileged to be his temporary guardians until he is well enough to move into a permanent forever loving home.
Our volunteer family is tight knit and we communicate with each other through e-mail constantly. Everyone who has met Oscar has been “touched” by him. I met Oscar tonight. I went in to the shelter on my day off just to meet him. He is indeed an amazing cat! Despite all the horrible abuse he is nothing less than a love bug. As you approach the cage he starts to purr (loudly), he head butts your hand seeking attention and then (sigh) sadly cries when you shut the cage. All he wants is love and attention. He is such a good boy!
I could take this opportunity to go off on a rant about the deranged, sadistic and mentally ill in-human individuals who abuse & kill helpless animals such as Oscar, but I won’t. I would rather spend my time channeling positive energy.
Oscar was brought into our shelter by an innocent third party. I do not know her name, but I praise her courage and spirit for caring enough about Oscar to drive from a neighboring state to our little shelter, the only one she could find that was willing to take him in. She would not accept our waiver and paid the shelter’s “surrender fee” of $35. This person is a saint and I personally thank her where-ever she is out there in the world.
Oscar is a survivor. We all have lessons we can learn from him about unconditional love, trust, hope, strength, courage and survival. I do feel “touched” and privileged for having met him and I look forward to my shift on Thursday to see him again.
I am thankful for our wonderful shelter the Community Cat Connection and our family of dedicated loving volunteers. As small & humble as we are, if we were not in operation, Oscar would still be in peril (another part of the story I would rather omit) and he would not be in a safe nurturing, loving environment.
Oscar is around 6 years old, and despite his frail appearance he is a large cat. He could certainly stand to put on a bit of weight. Oscar goes to our Vet tomorrow for a full work up including combo test (Feline HIV & Leukemia). As one volunteer so aptly put it…..
To quote Ernest Menaul: “The cat has too much spirit to have no heart”.…Oscar obviously has a lot of spirit, and I hope his eight remaining lives are spent in the comfortable and loving home he deserves…
Keep Oscar in your thoughts and send him as much positive healing energy as you can. I will let you know when he is ready to move into a forever loving home (that is if us volunteers let him go to one other than family…. I have a feeling we might fight over him).
The Community Cat Connection now has a pay-pal account. Please donate if you want to help support us in caring for cats like Oscar until they are placed with forever loving homes.
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Compelled to Serve
I confess, I am a crazy cat lady at heart….
I packed up some of the cat paraphernalia I had all around the apartment, cat food, new litter, treats, bowls, etc…. I found a local cat shelter that will gladly take donations of any kind – the Community Cat Connection “CCC” in Webster, Massachusetts. When I dropped these items off they said that they will even take Hocus’ crate, beds & litter pan (I plan on scrubbing them clean this weekend).
I spent a considerable amount of time at the CCC. It is non-profit, completely run on private donations and totally volunteer driven. There are cats & kittens running around and sleeping everywhere in the place…. rescued kittens so young that they still need to be bottle-fed, ferrals that are being spayed/neutered and rehabilitated, abused and neglected cats & kittens, all shapes-colors and sizes. When they are at capacity they even accept cats & kittens who are then fostered in volunteers’ homes until they can be adopted…. She told me some really awful stories about the reasons behind some of their arriving at the shelter and to balance it out some amazing success stories about others who have moved on to “forever loving homes”.
I am still struggling with the emptiness of the apartment. I had yet another breakdown when I got home last night. It seems every time I walk through that damn door I lose it. The apartment is just so incredibly empty now without my friend.
Now I know what you all are thinking and NO I did not come home with a cat or a kitten.
I am still too raw. Hocus cannot just be “replaced” by another life. I need to give myself some time to grieve and adapt. I am in no position at the moment to make the huge commitment to an animal that was traumatized.
But I can still get my kitty fix….I am going to be a Volunteer for the CCC. I have a set of professional skills that can benefit the organization (grant writing, fundraising, volunteer recruitment & coordination, event planning, public speaking), I am Level I Reiki and cats especially love Reiki especially when they are not feeling well, and most importantly scooping poop does not phase me one bit.
I have a philanthropic soul and have been searching for a volunteer activity that would be not only helpful to an organization, but also be fulfilling and fun. For the past couple of years I have been doing regular volunteer work for a few different organizations, but all of them have felt like a chore or penance each time I have to go to my assignment. The other day at the CCC I felt very at home when I walked through the door and instantly knew I wanted to help them out more than just the donation of supplies. The organization benefits, the kitties benefit and I benefit. It appears to be a win-win-win situation.
<<Note, I am all proud of myself too, I embedded the link to the shelter in the photo, just click on the photo below and it will take you to their website. happy geek dance>>
