MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I've been so busy nursing myself & Artie because of respiratory infections, dispensing Annie's eye drops (yes, I'm still doing that chore), watching Orphée who is experiencing intermittent out-of-the-box urinary issues and (of course) preparing for Christmas and New Year's. Whew!!!

Keep your pets safe this holiday season - a quick read of this post from Christmases past will tell you what to check to ramp up the pet safety factor in your home.
http://8pawsand2tails.blogspot.com/2012/12/make-christmas-merry-safe-for-your-pets.html

So enjoy Christmas and New Year. Also, a belated Happy Hanukkah.

                                                      Courtesy of Webweaver

ADVENTURES IN BROOKLYN

I can't believe how much time has passed since my last post. My life has been crazy busy. A mother cat took up residence on our front porch with her brood of six kittens. The litter was approximately eight to twelve weeks old.

With six playful kittens on show daily my front porch quickly turned into a three-ring circus. People were detouring to our block as they went about their daily business in order to get a glimpse of the kittens. Some people were making it a point to bring their children to see the little ones.

Mom was still nursing so we left the furry family alone planning to TNR all including Mom when the kittens were weaned.  Eventually solid food became part of their food consumption along with their regular feedings from Mom.  The babies had mucous coming out of their eyes but with Mom on the defensive and the kittens wary of us I decided to add supplements to their food keeping a careful watch on their eye conditions. In no time their eye issues cleared up.  Mom also had discharge from one eye but she appeared fine otherwise.

This went on from late September to late October when the kittens were finally weaned. What happened next is a story for another post.

Very first kitten photo.

Mom keeping an eye on her brood.

Four of the kittens playing.

RACCOONS IN THE NEWS

August and September were crazy months giving us several news stories about raccoons. A Bronx beauty shop was broken into but the perp turned out to be a raccoon. The employee who opened the shop found wigs and pieces of ceiling scattered around the floor. At first she thought the furry interloper was a big cat. She called 911.

The cops responded with tranquilizer gun, catch pole and a cage stocked with marshmallows in tow. The raccoon was having none of it. The marshmallows weren't enticing enough, a dart from the tranquilizer gun failed to deliver its knockout dose and even though the catch pole worked, the door of the cage malfunctioned allowing the raccoon to escape leading the cops on a merry chase through the store. The long arm of the law finally snared the four legged bandit for a second time with the catch pole, wrangling him into the cage and securing the door with zip ties.

During the dog days of August a rabid raccoon was captured after fighting with some street cats in Bensonhurst at 78th Street and 16th Avenue. City officials issued a rabies alert with the City offering free rabies vaccines for pets after the incident. Apparently the Bensonhurst incident was the third one in Brooklyn this year. The others were at 51st Street and 17th Avenue and East Fourth Street and Avenue C.

The US Wildlife Services got in on the action by vaccinating raccoons with a new two-step process. Vaccine-laced treats are left out in green spaces for the raccoons to find and eat. Kind of like a cross between a vitamin and a candy tidbit, the vaccines are coated with a highly scented fishy smelling covering of vegetable fat, icing sugar and marshmallow flavoring. If a pet should eat one, the morsels are safe but too many might induce vomiting. Humans can break out in a rash if the vaccine gets into an open wound.

Step 2 is to trap the raccoons to check a blood sample to determine if the proportion of vaccine is effective. The plan is to pepper Brooklyn from Canarsie to Coney Island along with Prospect Park with the treat dispensers but no one would confirm if Bensonhurst and Boro Park where 2 of the 3 rabid raccoons were caught were included in that list.

                                  One of the usual suspects.                (courtesy Wikipedia)

THE CAT CAFE

Plans are in the works for a New York City Cat Cafe named Little Lions. The cafe will serve all types of teas and will be a place where New Yorkers who cannot keep a pet in their residence will have shelter cats to interact with. Anjellical Cats Rescue will supply the kitties.

Little Lions is the permanent result of a pop up cat cafe that was in operation for four days on the lower east side of Manhattan last spring. The idea was such a success with long lines of people waiting to get in that plans for opening a permanent cat cafe were hatched. Japan already has cat cafes and they are very popular. It's time New York has them too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_caf%C3%A9

Time for a cup of tea!                         (photo courtesy of News 4)