Hey, Kids!

Here are some baby goats for your Saturday enjoyment.

Pygmy Goat Happy Dance II
goats gone crazy :) <3 how happy they are!!
Posted by Just Eat Real Food on Sunday, May 31, 2015

Now get yourself to Great Plains SPCA  and find a new fur-kid of your own during the Cabin Fever adoption special!

Scratch that

So we've talked about introducing a new cat to the family, about how important it is to spay or neuter your cat, and about FIV. There seems to be one obvious cat issue we haven't touched on. Hmm....I can't quite put my finger on it...

Oh right! Declawing.

Plan B

We had the day all planned out. Strutt with your Mutt in the morning, then spend a couple of hours with friends before stopping in at the Great Plains SPCA alumni celebration on the way home.

Mike Wazowski had other plans.

Other plans that included falling down in the kitchen yesterday and being unable to stand back up. Other plans that absolutely did not include eating anything at all. Other plans that left him unable to walk and not responding to petting or handling.

So I pulled him into my lap last night and dozed for a while sitting up. Then I lay down with him curled up against me, as is his habit, and my spouse watched over him while I managed a bit of sleep. Around 7 AM, we swapped. Honestly, I was surprised he made it through the night. 

This morning he was more aware and we managed to get some food into him. He's wobbly, but able to walk around a bit. And he's drinking. So we'll see. But he's definitely not stable enough that I would be willing to leave him on his own while we took the dogs out for the day.

Keep my poor, sick, one-eyed old man in your thoughts if you would. There's really not much else we can do for him beyond the meds and fluids he's already getting. We know he's living on borrowed time, but we're still not ready for that time to be up.

UPDATE 9/22: Mike seems to be back to his old self. And he's eating more. A LOT more. My goal is to get this guy back up to 8 lbs if possible (he was 7 lb 5 oz at his last vet appt). Pack in those calories, kitty!

Crisis Crossroads

Great Plains SPCA has grown by leaps and bounds in the past few years. Between opening a second location in Independence, Missouri, and increasing the number of pets served by 250%, their resources have become stretched rather thin.

Right now, GPSPCA is at a "Crisis Crossroads"

Without urgent financial support, local Kansas City pets will not receive the medical care and protection from abuse and neglect that they deserve. It's the last thing we want, but demand for our unique services is exceeding our financial resources.

From providing sliding-scale vet care to the public to outreach programs aimed at improving the lives of area seniors, students, and pets, Great Plains is a real asset to the Kansas City community. Not to mention the thousands of animals that come through the shelter and find new homes.

All donations through October 15, 2015, will be fully matched. This is an excellent time to make your money stretch twice as far and do twice as much to help pets in the Kansas City area. Please consider making a donation today.

THANK YOU
My most heartfelt thanks to those who have so generously contributed to my campaign:

The Gies Family

Camera Magic

The company I work for took on a new project this summer that quickly ate all of my time, so I went from churning out 8-12 cat videos/week to one or two per month...then to none. As things slowed down at the office, I found that my duties at the shelter had shifted enough that I wasn't able to get as much footage as I used to. With the increased demands of homeschooling a 5th grader, I honestly don't know that I'll ever be as prolific as I was last spring.

However, I was finally able to edit and upload some of the vids I had taken earlier this summer. I put up Samuel L. Catson's and he was adopted within a day or two. Last night I got Wade's uploaded and he found his forever home today. (I'd like to believe my work has magic powers, but I'm sure this was a coincidence.)

While I'm beyond thrilled that these cats found homes (seriously, over the moon), the timing makes me grit my teeth about the time spent editing their videos. I enjoy the work, but it does take a not-insignificant chunk of my day, and there are always other projects clamoring for those resources. We'll see, though...if Kali is adopted in the next few days, I may go with the magic claim. (update 9/21: Kali is still there...but I put up River's video last night and he went today. So maybe it's selective magic)

The real point of this post, however, is to celebrate a couple of things:

1) the breakage of the video drought. It's nice to be putting those little "Watch My Video!" bars on the bottom of photos again, and

2) that Wade's adopter, upon finding out his adoption fee was sponsored, paid it forward and sponsored the adoption fee of one of our September SCotM, Felix Thunder Paws!

Thanks, awesome adopter! You rock!

September Shelter Cat of the Month

Whew! August was an extremely busy month for us. While we didn't have the back-to-school madness a lot of people dealt with (because we homeschool for the full year & don't take a summer break), we did have post surgery stuff for the spouse, birthday party prep for the kid, our trip to see the Perseids, and a corporate volunteer day that required more up-front work than one would have expected. Or at least more than I expected.

Anyway - because of all of that and the minor stuff that still manages to steal away time, there weren't as many posts as I'd like last month. Which I'm using as a (pretty weak) excuse to cheat again and feature T W O cats this month. Also, the shelter has been super full and with all of the kittens, it's easy for these older guys to get overlooked.

Without further ado, I present to you Dr. Mew & Felix Thunder Paws!