I sent Belinda pix of some of Laura's cats last night and she put them up on my website. Please check them out - maybe there will be one that touches your heart or reminds you of a kitty you once had - if so, let me know. So far, Daffodil (tuxedo) and her 5-month-old kittens Lily (gorgeous calico) and the "other calico" (not sure what Laura named her but will check) have tested Elisa positive, as has the female spotted tabby and white twin who looks like an Ocicat (she has a twin brother who is so cute in pictures - he has not yet been tested). I put someone who wanted a calico kitten in touch with Laura, and she got two of them - Daffodil's twins. When this lady took them to her vet's and they tested positive, she called Laura but Laura didn't get back with her immediately and in the meantime the vet supposedly told her they were very sick and positive cats had to be indoors (she did not want indoor cats, although she does do all the vet care), and at his urging she told him to go ahead and put them to sleep. It is very sad, as Laura would have taken them back - one day they were playing with leaves in the woods in the autumn sunshine, the next day dead. Laura is a poet and has just had a book of poems about these cats, The Year of the Cat, published. It has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. She wrote an especially touching poem about her last day with the two kittens who were euthanized. The only negative so far is Buttercup. She is Daffodil's sister, so we are guessing she either has a better immune system or she's had leuk and thrown it off. Buttercup left one of her kittens on the porch when it was only about 6 weeks old (i.e. before it was big enough to wander off from mom and nurse on the other mom cats, as some of the other kittens did later). Laura took her in, and she's tested negative twice.
I'm trying to get Laura to consider some type of fenced-in area - either an enclosure or privacy fencing with the Cat-Fence-In-System or equivalent, but she can't do anything at the moment because she can't even afford the full cost to test and fix all the cats, and we feel all her resources need to go to fixing the females (all but two of the fourteen are girls) so that no more positives are born. We purchased tests from another larger rescue organization here in Columbia, SC at $9.30 each (Idexx give this discount to rescues but you have to buy 30 at a time and we couldn't afford to do that all at once, so struck a deal with the other rescue to get 15 to start with) and a vet tech friend is drawing the blood without charge. We hope to test a few more next week. The kittens are all around 5-6 months old; Daffodil and Buttercup are a year old. Pansy - the tabby and white not named on page 3 of the pix, is their mother, and she's two years old. She's the mother of the Oci-look twins, one of whom tested positive, but we haven't yet tested Pansy. It will be interesting to see whether she is positive or not. All the kitties seem to be healthy at present. We will fix them all. If anyone can take even just one, it would help Laura a lot, and they will probably live longer if indoors. -- _______________________________________________ Search for businesses by name, location, or phone number. -Lycos Yellow Pages http://r.lycos.com/r/yp_emailfooter/http://yellowpages.lycos.com/default.asp?SRC=lycos10
