Runty & Stubbs - Release Night? EPIC FAIL.

After a lot of procrastinating and excuses and planning and trying to control what i can't control, i finally decided to release Runty and Stubbs last night.. About 2 weeks past their release deadline i think and almost a month since they were spayed.. maybe longer.. I had sort of imagined that they would dash out of the carrier and just run for their lives and freedom when i brought them outside. but they didn't.. so now we sort of have a problem..

these two are too feral and scared of people to be pets.. but at the same time they are not quite feral and independent enough for the outside world i think.. they haven't been outside since they were taken away from their mother.. these two are such a unique case. their siblings were tamed and became sweet adoptable kittens but runty and stubbs just couldn't get used to people no matter what we did. now they're fearful adults who grew up indoors. but because they grew up indoors they are scared of the outdoors. and the reason why they spent so much time indoors is because i was trying to socialize them but failed miserably. fuck fuck fuck. i've got indoor ferals. what the fuck am i going to do.

last night i wrapped my hands in a large towel and put them one by one into the carrier. of course they hated my handling them that's why i needed the towel to protect myself. once in the carrier they started hissing and spitting of course. i brought the carrier outside and placed it on the ledge in the driveway where i feed daisy mama cat everyday. that ledge is a little feeding station i guess and sometimes daisy mama's stray friends romeo and tybalt drop by for a meal too. its high enough that the dogs can't bother cats up there eating and there's a tree next to it for shade and a little shelter. anyway once on the ledge all a cat would have to do to leave my yard is jump through a gap in the wall. i placed the carrier in front of the gap. i put food and water at the carrier entrance. then i opened the door backed off and waited.. and waited.. and waited.. no one came out of the carrier.. the two raging balls of fur i expected never came flying out of the carrier.. after three hours (around 1am already) we decided to call it quits and bring them back in the house. once they were back in the house they were bitchy of course and untouchable.

what should i do now? just keep bringing them out in the carrier every night until one day they want to explore? or continue with the taming process that has produced no results for months?

Runty & Stubbs- 6 days past release deadline

okayyyyy so today is wednesday. i still haven't released Runty and Stubbs.. Its almost a week past my release deadline. What am i waiting for? I don't know. I just can't let go of them. I'm not emotionally attached to them.. I don't love them like pets.. they hate me anyway.. but i do feel responsible for them and I am still not comfortable with releasing them into the world. Where will they sleep? Where will they go when it rains? How will they know which houses to avoid? How will they know where dogs hang out? How will they know to come back to me everyday for food? What if they get separated? I don't want them to be alone and afraid. Will they know how to look for water sources? ARGHHHHH!!!!!

i suppose i'm still waiting for a miracle.. sometimes when they're eating they let me pet them a little.. of course after a little while they hiss and swipe at me angrily but like, if they let me touch them at all even for a second, does that mean there is even the tiniest possibility that they could one day be tamed? like in another year or so.. i don't know.. but of course i don't want to keep them in that cage for a whole year!! that's too awful. but what if there's a chance they could have a good cozy life if they could be tamed even if it takes long? or should i just release them asap because i'm being unrealistic? so many uncertainties.. damn damn damn

R & S still with me..

hola people!!
so i still haven't gotten around to releasing runty and stubbs.. its monday now.. i'm officially 4 days past my feral kitty release deadline. i don't know how to start!! what should i do? just bring them outside in the carrier and open the door? seems so abrupt..

Runty & Stubbs' upcoming release..

I think I will be releasing Runty and Stubbs this Thursday or Friday. They have recovered from their spay surgeries already. I don't feel good about it. I've never had to do this before. All previous fosters became tame and adoptable eventually. I know I can't control what they do once I have released them but I hope that even though they are still afraid of humans, they will know to come back to my house everyday for food. If anything happens to them while they're out there, I won't be able to forgive myself but I can't keep the terrified little kitties in my house anymore. It's too stressful for them, its been too long without any progress, and they don't want to be around people. this is one situation that i've got to let go of but its just so difficult to do so. i keep worrying that i'll find them dead in the neighborhood one day. omg why am i so bloody paranoid and neurotic.

Runty & Stubbs in recovery at home

So it turns out that at one point before the spay surgery, Runty managed to give the vets the slip.. It took like 5 people to get her back.. She had literally flung herself out of the carrier when they opened the door and shot off into hiding. Thank god they managed to get her back with towels and much military style planning.. She really is a wild one. You wouldn't think so if you just looked at her sweet pretty face though. She looks so precious.. All lies though.. all lies.. hahahahaha. Don't be deceived!

Since Runty and Stubbs are both still so feral, the vet Dr S decided that it would be best if i took them home right after surgery, instead of having them spend the night at the clinic and be fully awake and recharged and evil the next day. So after work i went to pick them up. They were both awake but still very stoned so it was easy for me to gently lift their little bodies from the carriers and place them back inside their cage on a clean fluffy towel. That was the first time i have ever handled them and probably the last.. While they continued to enjoy their drug stupor i pet them, stroked their heads, rubbed their chins and they fell back asleep. That was so nice but so sad too because I knew it would end soon and sure enough, by this morning, they were fully alert and back to their bitchy ways. I admit i had hoped that maybe a little part of them would remember that I had been so gentle and loving with them while they were helpless. oh well... all part of animal rescue right.. *sigh*

Stubbs yesterday evening, still feeling woozy and stoned..

Stubbs this morning.. back on high alert.


Runty half stoned, half awake.. wedged herself between the cage bars and the litter box yesterday.

Runty this morning.. back to her wary, suspicious self.

Oh and in case any of you haven't guessed.. Runty's name is Runty because she was the runt of the litter.. Tiny compared to the rest and with a limp. Stubbs has a stubby tail.. yeah i know, veryyyyy original..

Runty & Stubbs' Big Spay Day

Sri Murni Condo's super feral felines Runty and Stubbs will be spayed today.. It took FOREVER to get both of them into the carrier this morning and by the time they were both in, I was drenched in sweat and super cranky and running late for work.. arghhh...

Let's all send them positive vibes and hope they will be calm during their overnight stay at the clinic and have a speedy recovery. Let's also hope that they are less aggressive after they are spayed. It would be much easier to look after them if I could go near them.

Regression

ok so runty & stubbs are being annoying again. since that day i managed to pet them, they have been keeping extra watchful eyes on me at all times. they even hiss at me when i bring them their meals. HMPF!!! i'm like "whatever psychos!! you are ruining your own chances of living comfortable, pampered lives in a safe environment!!".

I know they don't care and just want to get out of my home but i really worry about how they will adjust to life "out there". they'll be spayed and vaccinated before release of course, but still.. they have been regularly fed for months now. what if they can't fend for themselves? i will put food and water out for them in the same place that i leave food for daisy mama cat by my mailbox but how do i teach them to come back everyday and eat from there when they are scared of me? what if they just take off and never come back? i need to know they will come back for food once or twice a day like daisy does. i wish she could teach those two the routine.

Does this count as progress?

i touched runty and stubbs!! i was sneaky about it but i did make contact!! does that count as progress? or is it just impatience on my part? i don't know.. but whatever it is, i was like "YESSSS!!!!!!!!! I AM THE CAT WHISPERER!!" super yay! i may have done a little dance as well but i won't go into detail on that horrific sight.

runty was first.. ok maybe petting runty doesn't count because she was actually asleep.. i stuck one finger in the cage and stroked her head. when she woke up and quickly whirled around in terror i pretended i just happened to be there and hadn't done anything wrong. she glared at me suspiciously, outraged and convinced that i had touched her.. but being a cat, she couldn't verbally accuse me of anything :) oh and she can't prove anything hahahahahaa!!

petting stubbs totally does count!! it happened last night! she's been communicating with me lately, meowing and asking for food, making eye contact without hissing so i thought i'd take things a step further. i put my hand near her. she backed away at first but cautiously came back and sniffed my fingertips. no hissing. excellent. then i changed her water and fed her dinner. as she ate i gently stroked her back and head. she cringed but wasn't super scared or angry and continued eating. she gave me a look that said "umm.. what are you doing? i'm not really ready for this.." but at least she didn't lash out at me. later when she wasn't eating, i tried to pet her again and she dashed off... so i guess i'm just going to keep pairing meal times with more and more human contact until she's more comfortable.

By the way, the lady that adopted Link and Dora (stubbs and runty's siblings). says that they're doing very well and have settled in nicely. Their mother has also become tamer and knows how to tell my parents when she's hungry. the whole family is taken care of. more updates soon. i still haven't taken photos of runty and stubbs but i'll do that this weekend. they're super cute.

Runty & Stubbs

So... I've started to hope that i might be able to put Runty & Stubbs up for adoption. They've started showing some signs of improvement.. Well, Runty's not as vicious and scary as she used to be and Stubbs has started communicating with me. She's also showing signs of wanting to socialize with the other cats in the house. The other day, when i opened their cage to feed them, Stubbs even slipped out of the cage and brushed up against my arm before exploring. Runty of course, remained curled up in a tense ball of fear but at least she didn't hiss at me to the point of spitting.

At the very least, it might be possible for Stubbs to be socialized enough to be adopted? Maybe we'll find someone kind and loving enough to like Stubbs and also be willing to adopt her feral sister? I really don't wanna just spay and release them. That is absolutely the last resort.

Goodbye Gia

Its monday afternoon now. I brought my camera to work today thinking that i could visit Gia at the clinic and take some photos of her before heading home. Well that's not going to happen. The only thing i'll be doing at the clinic today is settling the bill. Gia is dead. She passed away this morning. Dr L called me a couple of hours of ago and told me. When my mobile rang and i saw it was the clinic calling, i had this stupid hope that they were going to tell me that she was awake and alert and asking for food. Well that was hopeful and stupid. Why would she have woken up today when she hasn't shown any sign of waking up since saturday?

I only have the photos i took of her friday night. She was facing away from me. I didn't want to disturb her slumber so I have no photos of her little face. If i knew she wasn't going to make it anyway I would've tried harder to get good shots. Sorry Gia. I suck.

I guess it was just too little too late for this poor baby. She was too weak. Could we have done better? Is there anything I should have done that first night I brought her home? What did I miss? Maybe I should've tried to get more food and more water into her. She was only 400 grams and 2 months old.. Luna and Rajah are also 2 months old, and they weigh almost 1 kilogram each. Argh i can't think about this right now. I will have two more fosters by the end of the day. The last two of the Sri Murni Ferals.. Stubbs and Runty.

3 cats spayed this week!!

What's that sound? Do you hear that? No? It's the sound of my bank account balance rapidly moving towards ZERO! HAHAHAHAHAHA!! And that was my deranged laughter at the current state of my finances. What else can i do but laugh when i wanna go shopping soooo badly but can't coz of the animals? I really have to stop going to malls.. There's soooo much fabulous stuff i'm dying to wear!! I could just die.

Anyways this week the sri murni condo feral mother cat, luckytoes midnight, and snowy were all spayed. Mother cat is still at the vet. We're boarding her there for a few days coz we don't know what to do with her while she recovers. She's super wild and we can't release her nor keep her at home. Luckytoes and Snowy are home though, i picked them up yesterday morning and they're fine. Luckytoes was back to her naughty mischievious self the minute i let her out of her carrier. She doesn't seem to notice that she's had surgery. I had to stop her from trying to wrestle with her friends and jumping up on shelves. Snowy's ok too though a little more subdued. I'm keeping her away from her kittens Luna and Rajah because I don't want them to try to nurse. Anyway they're doing great on canned food now.

Once everyone has recovered they will leave us. The mother cat will return to my parents' condo compound where she will be released and fed by my brother and parents. She will not be rehomed. She's not pet material. Snowy will go with her son Rajah to a family in Putrajaya this coming chinese new year weekend. Luckytoes Midnight will go to a home in Titiwangsa and be friends with a cat that is so bored he has been plucking out his own fur in tufts.

Oh and.. mother cat's litter of four kittens? the two tamer ones Link and Dora have been adopted.. The two insanely feral ones, Stubbs and Runty are still at my parents' place..

Catching feral kitties at Sri Murni - Part 2

a little progress report on this feral family.. my brother managed to trap the third kitten on sunday and the fourth kitten on monday. he used the pet carrier, smelly fish as bait, and his super stealth ninja moves for both. these two kittens are the super feral of the litter.. with the last one being the more extreme of the two. like beyond feral.. THE MOST FERAL AND SCARY WILD EVER!! i'm like afraid of her.. she's that bad. she has the sweetest little face but don't be fooled, she will eat you for breakfast. humans are the enemy and must be destroyed. don't even go near her. she wants to rip your face off then make toys out of the skin.

yesterday evening my mum and i trapped the mother cat in the humane cat trap and immediately rushed to the vet. oh man did that make me feel bad... mother cat was soooo distraught in the trap.. she pissed herself.. and she was crying and crying. when she heard that trapdoor shut she knew she was in for something not too peachy.. we had to wait when we arrived a the clinic coz dr j was with a patient. mother cat could smell other animals and hear strange voices and this upset her further. when it was our turn we hoisted her up on the examination table, cat-trap and all.. then it was a total bitch getting her out of it. she was not happy about hands grabbing at her and towels being draped over her. once she was out of the trap she went BERSERK and just took off dashing around frantically in the examination room. that was bad. she was so panicky the poor thing.

i wish we could've explained to her that we were trying to make her life easier in the long-run so she wouldn't have to struggle to feed herself and babies anymore. finally after several attempts dr j and his assistant managed to get her into a carrier and we decided it would be best to just transfer her to a cage immediately and leave her alone overnight. her spay surgery is scheduled for this morning.. she might even be in surgery right now. i'll go visit her after work, not like she wants to see me but anyway...

oh and her 4 kittens? 3 of them are still shit scared of us. we can pet one and he'll play with us when we hold wand toys. so far very little progress is being made in taming the rest..

Catching feral kitties at Sri Murni Condominiums

It's saturday afternoon and usually i like to spend my weekends doing nothing. Instead, my brother and I have been trying to catch 5 cats that our parents have been feeding outside their apartment. Our parents live in a low-rise block of condominiums surrounded by lush jungle on the outskirts of the city. It's quiet here and that's why they like it. Monkeys are a common sight here and sometimes you might see a monitor lizard or a snake. But of course the most common animal here is the ubiquitous stray cat. My brother adopted one of the cats from the compound last year. He's a chubby grey tabby that we named Grumps because he used to hiss at us everytime we fed him in the parking lot. He eventually became my brother's indoor pet because he got his ass whooped by this other much bigger male cat. After the fight he was very easy for my brother to catch because of his injuries. He was patched up at the vet, neutered, and became an affectionate house cat. Grumps isn't grumpy anymore.

So, lately my parents have been feeding another of the compound cats. A female that we just call The Mother Cat. She moved into the area behind my mum's kitchen where the washing machine and dryer are. That area is shaded but outdoor and leads out into the apartment compound's gardens that are shared by all the residents. Mother Cat is super feral and so are her four little ones. Although my rents have been feeding them all for more than 2 months, they remain wary and distrusting of humans. Until now, Mother Cat will swipe at them with her paws when they feed her. She'll hiss, bite, growl, spit and even charge like a raging bull. Its funny coz she'll meow for food with the sweetest little voice then try to rip your fingers off when you bring her chow.

Anyway problem now is the neighbors have started to complain about this family of feral felines. They say the kittens play in front of their windows (for some reason, this is a big problem) and poop in the garden. They claim to be able to smell the poop that's in the gardens. Go figure. Some people are just anal and hate animals. These people have been complaining to the condo's management about the HUGE mess caused by 4 kittens. You'd think we had king kong taking dumps out there... Then yesterday my mother said she saw the evil animal-hating neighbors try to catch the mother cat and her kittens. Well, we can't have kitties falling into the wrong hands!! feral or not, they almost feel like our cats i guess. So earlier today my brother and I drove to SPCA Selangor to borrow the humane cat trap. Its like a large rat trap and I've never used one before.. J, my friend who works there, explained how we should use it but by the time we got home I forgot. Also, it occured to us that it would be difficult, maybe even dangerous to try to catch them with the trap, simply because there are 5 of them in total. Catching one cat would be no problem, becaue it would have to be all the way inside the cage to trigger the door to shut. But what if two go in? And one of them hits the trigger while the other isn't all the way in yet? The door could shut on its body or tail.. Dilemma, dilemma..

My brother and i ended up trying to lure them all into my mum's kitchen and then shutting the door. Maybe not the best idea in hindsight. We put two plates of smelly canned cat food inside the kitchen (normally they're fed outside coz they won't come in) and waited... and waited... Eventually everyone was in but when my brother tried to shut the door they all immediately dashed out. We opened the door again and put the plates further inside the kitchen and my brother positioned himself closer to the door. This time we managed to get the mother cat and her two bolder, less scaredy-cat kittens. The mother cat totally freaked out and literally climbed the walls trying to claw her way out of the kitchen. In her panic, she peed all over the floor. Well, it was too much for her so i opened the door for her again and let her go. Poor girl. I was hoping she'd be able to calm down. We managed to get her kittens to go into a cat carrier and we transferred them to an unused bathroom with food, water, and litter. That's the best we can do for now.

Luckily when i looked outside, the mother cat was still there though the two super timid kittens were gone. We were afraid they might never come back. But after a while they returned, looking for food. We left a plate of kibble outside for them and then we went away. I think they've had enough today and they're not going to fall for our tricks again so soon. We absolutely have to catch them though. We need to tame them too. Mother cat needs to be spayed otherwise she will just keep coming back with new litters. I don't know how we are going to handle that. She is so wild. If we can socialize the kittens, at least they can be put up for adoption.. Otherwise its TNR for all of them i guess..

The two kittens we caught are still crying for their mother. I feel so bad. But its the only way to protect them from harm. Hopefully their siblings will be joining them soon.

Is it kitten season or something?

So my mum just called me and told me that a mama cat is living in her laundry area behind the washing machine and air con compressor with her four tiny kittens. Mama's a tortie, two kittens are torties, one kitten's black and white, and the last one is white with marmalade patches.. oh boy. apparently mama cat is super duper feral. i better investigate..