Mama Cat at the vet

This is Mama Cat at the vet. She's going to be in isolation until Monday.

At that time, they'll sedate her, bathe her, examine her, and test her for feline leukemia and AIDS. If she tests negative for feline leukemia and AIDS, they'll spay her while she's still sedated and keep her for a couple of days to recuperate. (If she tests positive, we'll have her euthanized, for her best interest and for the health and safety of other cats in the neighborhood, both pets and strays.)

If she is healthy, we'll release her in our yard. She's just too wild to rehabilitate. I was hoping this wouldn't be the case, but it is. If our neighbors don't want to feed her anymore because she's not raising kittens, Ed and I will be responsible for feeding her for the rest of her life. I don't like feeding "strays," but because we've made this choice for her, we need to make sure she stays fed. I don't expect we'll ever try to trap her again.

I'm relieved she's at the vet. They can take far better care of her than we can. I had a very difficult time putting food/water/litter in the box, and she knocked it over quite easily. I'll spare you the details, but let's just say she made a MESS in her crate in the 18 hours she was there.

As for the kittens, we've not seen a trace of them. It's rainy today, so we'll wait to try trapping them until tomorrow. Ed doubts we'll manage to get any of them, but if we do, we'll go through all this again.

I didn't think it was possible to have any more respect for people who do rescue as a full-time, yet extremely low-paying job, but I do. God bless 'em.