Pumpkin...

On day 3 of our rescue I found Pumpkin. He is a beautiful 10 week old orange and white male with long hair and bright blue eyes. I had seen Pumpkin a few times before on the property, but I had never been able to get close to him. However, on this day I was walking the property to look for new litters of kittens and almost stepped on him. I expected him to jump up and run away from me thinking he had been sleeping and I had just startled him awake, but he just lay there and looked at me. His eyes were filled with pain. He couldn't get up and walk away from me. His belly was huge. About the size of a large grapefruit. Much too big for his frame to handle so his skeletal structure tried to accomidate it by splaying his ribs and warping his hips. We assumed he had worms and was perhaps dehydrated as there hadn't been any access to water for him until just the a couple of days before.

I scooped him up and brought him back to my mother's house. She gave him a bath and we picked as many of his fleas off as we could. Like the others, he was covered in them. We gave him some deworming medication and hoped that would cure him. He still had an appetite, but it soon became clear that his belly wasn't that big just because of the worms. He couldn't go to the bathroom. He was constipated from dehydration. In spite of this he would purr when we held him and had the most amazing and happy attitude in spite of his condition. He would lay on his back on the floor and play with the other smaller kittens. He also helped in their care by keeping faces clean after they had their bottles. This of course made us all the more determined to help him to live. You would have to meet Pumpkin in person to truly appreciate how special this guy is.

Over the next 24 hours we watched him carefully to see if he had a bowel movement hoping the worming medication would help to push things through him. We made his food very soupy because he didn't seem to understand that he needed to drink. NO LUCK. We called North Country Animal League to ask for help for him. All we got from that was "he would need to be seen by a vet". Of course if we had the resources all these guys would have seen a vet by this time. My mother, Michele, went to the Franklin County Humane Society (we are in Lamoille County, keep in mind) and Rusty consulted with their vet who suggested mineral oil and baby liquid enema. This did the trick! He started to go the next day and little by little his tummy started to go down. He will always have hip issues as he hops like a little bunny when he runs, but this only adds to his charm. Thank you Rusty, your help literally saved this beautiful little souls life. He may never be chosen for adoption as he is a special needs kitty, but he will always have a home with us if this is the case.

UPDATE.....09/24/2009- I am VERY happy to report that Pumpkin has made a FULL recovery!!!! Dr. Nate from Qi Veternary Clinic on Shelburne Road in S Burlington donated his services after hearing about Pumpkin.... He practices traditonal as well as Chinese medicine. He treated Pumpkin (as well as some other kittens with minor health issues) with some herbs. He also donated 20 DOSES OF REVOLUTION!enough to treat all the cats and kittens we had in our care. Pumpkin showed a difference in his "leaky butt" problem within 3 days and within a week was completly better..... not only that since his stomach went down his legs and hips straightened out and he is completly healthy and AVAILABLE FOR ADOPTION!!!! If you think you could provide him a WONDERFUL home and are in search of a WONDERFUL addition for your family, consider Pumpkin. THANK YOU DR. NATE!!!! THERE TRULY ARE WONDERFUL CARING PEOPLE OUT THERE!!!

Puffin...

The next was our first full day with all of the kitties. Each had to be given meds daily to clear up their eyes, clear up respiratory infections, and the older kittens desperately needed to be wormed. We gave each kitten a bath with regular Dawn dish detergent and spent about 10-15 minutes per kitten picking fleas off of them after their bath. I can not describe to you how covered in fleas these poor kittens were.

My mother, Michele, her husband, Kevin, and I were bottle feeding around the clock. We were floundering to try and sychronize our schedules to make sure someone could be with the kittens at least every couple of hours. All but four of them were on bottles and couldn't even go to the bathroom on their own yet.

The last kitten we gave a bath too that evening was Puffin. Puffin was my favorite. She was about 8 weeks old and I had every intention of keeping her. She was one of the most beautiful kittens I had ever seen. She had long black hair with flecks of orange, gray, and white. She was weak and somewhat lethargic (had been since we took her from the property). When I dipped Puffin into the sink for her bath the water immediately turned a red/orange color from all of the dried blood on her skin (a result of hundreds of flea bites). She was very weak and we imagine now that she was severely enemic from all of the parasites she was carrying (worms and who knows what else inside her and all of the fleas sucking the life out of her from the outside).

After her bath we picked as many fleas off of her as we could but it was almost impossible to see them on her because her hair was so dark the fleas could easily hide from us. We wrapped her in a towel and laid her down to rest while she dried off. My mother and I did a round of bottles with the younger kittens and then turned our attention back to her. When we picked her up we noticed that she was suddenly much more weak than she had been before and was basically unable to even hold her head up. We knew she was dying. She was having a hard time regulating her body temperature and seemed very cold. My mother told me to lay down with her inside my shirt so that she could absorb the warmth from my skin.

I did and it helped her some. I laid on the floor with her on my chest inside my shirt for a couple of hours. I could feel fleas running around on my stomach. I endured a lot of flea bites that evening. She laid there and just looked at me. I know she was feeling loved for the first time and I could tell that she was taking great comfort in not going through her death alone. She fought so hard to stay alive. She lay there just trying to breathe. We kept hoping she would pull through but we knew it was basically inevitable that she was going to pass away soon. We comforted her all the way to her last breath. It was so sad when we knew she had passed on, but we were grateful for the fact that she was no longer suffering and that she died with us knowing she was loved instead of passing away alone and cold on the property she came from as many others had.

The Round Up...

Chris and I jumped the gun a little bit on the round up of the kittens. The only night we could both be there to "catch kittens" happened to be the only night that animal control could not be there. We couldn't wait another week because there were sick kittens that would die within that week.

So after dinner one night Chris and I met at the property face to face for the first time. We really didn't have legal permission to be there removing kittens, but we decided the lives of those kittens were worth the risk. We got out of our vehicles and walked to the RV. Underneath it were 5 small kittens (about 3-4 weeks old). They lay sleeping in an old moldy box that had been there for quite some time. We immediately scooped them up and started back toward our cars to put them in a crate.

As my luck tends to run, when we were walking down the driveway with our hands full of kittens, the property owners pulled into the driveway. Chris and I stood there looking like guilty children with our hands in the cookie jar.

I looked at the man in the car and quickly said "Can we please have your kittens?". He looked at Chris and I for a minute and said nothing. I quickly went on to say that my mother and I were starting a nonprofit shelter (a little white lie at the time that is actually coming to be true now!) and we would love to help them place all of the kittens in nice forever homes. He relaxed a little when he realized that we were not there to start trouble for him as many other concerned citizens have. He gave us permission right then and there to take all of the kittens we could catch off of his property.

He introduced himself and went on to tell us that he had never even had a cat in his life until many years ago when a couple of cats showed up around his property. They were around for a few days and didn't seem to have any intention of going away. They were very thin and it seemed like they had no place to go so he bought some cat food and starting leaving food out for them. He did not consider them pets. He did not let them into his home. He simply wanted to make sure that they didn't go hungry. From there I imagine they multiplied, as cats tend to do, and that began the decades of uncontrolled reproduction. He also told us that because people started seeing numerous cats there some got the idea that they could dump their own unwanted felines on the property. So not only were they reproducing, but other cats were joining the colony.

Things got out of hand quickly with all of these cats continuing to grow in numbers. The property owners did not have much money and what little they did have was going to cat food when they could manage it. These cats never became their pets over all of these years. They are still not invited into the home (RV). To this day the cats and kittens do not even get very close to them, unless it is feeding time, at which point they will come somewhat closer than they normally would.

The property owners could not afford to spay/neuter all of these cats, but they were definitely overwhelmed. Several calls were made by concerned citizens over the years to animal control and local law enforcement as well as area shelters, but nothing really ever came of it. Some citizens even stopped over to threaten the property owners with animal cruelty law suits. All of these citizens meant well in that they obviously did care about the well being of the cats, but despite the many attempts by many people (including the property owners themselves) to reach out for help... help never arrived. Shelters told people to call animal control. Animal control would be called and animal control would then call shelters for help, but every time the response was the same in that they [the numerous shelters] couldn't do anything to help them because they were already at capacity. There were just so many cats that no one would take the bat and step up to the plate.

That evening Chris and I brought 8 small kittens (about 3-4 weeks old) and 4 older kittens (about 7-8 weeks old) to my mother, Michele's, home. They were set up in large dog crates. Chris brought deworming medication, food, formula, and antibiotics donated by the Franklin County Humane Society and we set to work. All of the kittens had crust over their eyelids. One of them had so much crustiness on its eyelids that they were sealed shut and very swollen. We used warm water and a cloth to gentley remove the crust and help it to open its eyes. Pools of pus came spurting out when the lids finally parted. The pressure on that poor babies eyes must have been painful. At first we couldn't even find her eyeballs in all of that pus. Others had respiratory infections. The older kittens had basically the same problems but were also very weak from dehydration as they were no longer nursing from their mothers and had no access to water. They were too little to follow the momma cats to the nearby brook for a drink. Their bellies were very distended from worms and parasites as well as constipation (also a result of dehydration). They were all, of course, covered in fleas.

The Next Day...

I woke up the next day with every intention of saving every single one of those cats and kittens. My mother was on the same page as our family has always been huge on rescuing animals, but we had never encountered a rescue this big and we were not sure where to start. I did bring water to the property for the kittens that morning and have been making sure they always have water since.

The first call I made was to North Country Animal League. I explained to the receptionist that I was not sure who I needed to speak with and went on to tell her about the situation. She did seem genuinely concerned and told me that I needed to contact the animal control officer for the town of Cambridge. I looked him up. His name was Dave Jones. I called and left a message with his wife. From there I called the Chittenden County Humane Society because I wanted to get as much help as I could with this situation. They basically just told me to call animal control as well. I then made a call to the Franklin County Humane Society hoping they would say anything other than to call animal control.

The receptionist at Franklin County immediately took down an official report of the goings on at the property in Cambridge. She pointed out that because it was Cambridge that it would fall into North Country Animal League's hands as it was Lamoille County and really was NCAL's territory. I went home that night and waited to hear back from Dave Jones (animal control).

I did not hear from Dave that night but I did get a phone call from Chris Nilsen. Chris is from the Franklin County Humane Society and she had been sent out that night to check out the situation first hand on the property. She was as horrified as I was about what was going on there. She took pictures to document the situation and even took one of the kittens home that night. The kitten she took home was by far the weakest and most sick of the bunch. I had nicknamed her Shiloh and was so concerned about her myself, but I couldn't bring her home because I had cats of my own and didn't want to expose them to whatever diseases that Shiloh was potentially carrying.

She took over care of Shiloh and immediately started her on antibiotics, wormed her, and washed the crusty infection from her eyes. Shiloh probably would have died within a day or two if Chris had not chosen to take her. To this day Shiloh is healthy and happy and still residing with Chris until she is found a forever home.

Chris was very serious about rescuing the kittens from the property and helped me to make a game plan. One of the first things she said was that we would need to find someone with a barn or a place that we could keep these kittens while we took care of them because the local shelters were all at capacity and there were so many that needed help. I told her my mother and I would be more than happy to take care of all of these kittens and that not only did my mother have a barn, but she also had a couple of spare rooms off of her house that were originally sort of like an apartment and not in use at the time.

That took care of the space issue, but there were other hurdles to get over. We still had not obtained legal permission to remove the kittens and then there was the issue of money. These kittens were going to need medications, food, crates, kitty litter, and flea removal. My mother and I have animals of our own and not a lot to spare. Chris suggested that we call North Country Animal League because it was their territory, and explain to them that we were not asking for space in their shelter or for help in taking care of these kittens... all we would need was help with the above named supplies.

Meanwhile, there wasn't much time to wait for an answer from NCAL because the very next morning another kitten lay dead in the driveway. I wasn't going to let it happen to anymore. My mother was completely on board and ready to take in some rescued babies.

I called Dave Jones again and caught him at home. I identified myself to him and told him that I was calling about the propery in Cambridge that was full of cats and kittens. He immediately cut me off and said "I know all about that property. I have been dealing with it for years. There is nothing I can do. There is not enough space in shelters and there is no where else to put them." I was a little taken aback at how quick he was to say there was nothing he could do when his job is to deal with situations like this. I went on to tell him that we did have a place to put them and that we intended to try to partner with NCAL for support. He said that was fine and when did we want to go and get the kittens. He was willing to go in with us and asked if I wanted a health control officer there as well. I am not sure why we would have needed one, but I said sure that would be fine. I didn't care what it took. I just wanted to save those babies.

Why We Started...

Every day on my way home I pass a home (actually, it's an RV, but an older couple live there year round) that always has several cats hanging out in the driveway. The property is not a very nice one and there are two very old rotted out trailers next to the RV on the same piece of proptery. Every year around this time many kittens appear. My daughters and I always slow down to view the kittens from the road on our way by.

A couple of weeks ago on my way home from work I was sad to notice one of the cats had been hit by a car and lay dead on the side of the road. This happens from time to time as you can imagine with as many cats as there are around that property. There are probably around 30 adult cats there.

The next day, again on my way home from work, I saw a small black lump at the end of the driveway (almost in the road) that looked like a very small dead kitten. I stopped to take a closer look only to discover that this very tiny kitten was not dead at all. It was only about a day or two old. I didn't see a momma cat around and I was afraid that this kitten may have belonged to the cat that had died the evening before... so I scooped it up and walked around the property (the property owners were not home at the time) to see if there were any other teeny tiny babies out of place. I didn't find anymore tiny ones that day, but I did discover MANY more older kittens running around.

If I had to guess I would say there were at least 40 kittens running around the property at that time. Many of them were sick. Some could barely walk and their eyes were crusted shut. Others lungs rattled when they tried to take in a breath. Their bellies were distended from worms and other parasites, but the rest of their bodies were just skin and bones. Literally, all you could feel when you touched these kittens was bones. There were even a couple of dead kittens around the area in various stages of decay. I was shocked at the conditions they were living in. I couldn't believe anyone could sit back and watch this happening in their driveway.

I checked to see if they had any food, and they did have some dry cat food laid out under the RV. I did not see any water bowls, though. I walked around the RV and discovered that the RV was not hooked up to any water line and realized that these people probably didn't have running water. The older cats could get water from a nearby brook, but it was too far for the kittens to walk to so they did not have any access to water.

I took the teeny tiny kitten that I had originally stopped for because if I had left it there it would have died.

My mother, Michele, arrived at my house soon after I had gotten home with the kitten. She volunteered to take it home and bottle feed it because she would be able to take it with her to work during the day. This would be necessary as kittens that small need to be fed every couple of hours through out the day.