Some good news to warm your heart on a cold night
How about some good news to warm your heart on this freezing cold night?
The little tabby and white cat, found outside in Grant MN, an obvious former house pet, begging to come inside, is now warm and safe, inside with foster Liz who picked her up this afternoon! She will care for the cat until next week, when foster Susan will take over as Liz is going out of town for the holidays. At that time, we will do a vet work up on her- she is a mature adult, and Liz is worried that she appears to have a tumor? in her abdomen. Too soon to tell anything. Right now we just want her to relax, eat and rest after her ordeal.
Thank you to everyone for your concern, prayers shares and comments, and to many of you, for the offers of help to take her into your home or business to keep this little sad, cold cat safe. Tonight, she is inside, warm and safe and has plenty of food to eat.
Home for the holidays! It's hard to believe Rue, the cat in the first frame, pictured at animal control after being thrown out of a 12th story balcony, is the same cat playing with the interactive toy= but it is! The story of the year at Home for Life is Rue, a true miracle who defied the odds, cruelty, and official indifference to embody the power of resilience and kindness Rue- who will always represent the truth that the most powerful thing we can do as individuals is to care! Read Rue's moving story, the subject of our end of year appeal here: https://www.homeforlife.org/node/1109
We hope everyone had a great holiday weekend! Our dogs and cats, mostly stayed indoors, cozy and warm, and our cats in the North cattery enjoyed some Kitty TV on their new flat screen! That's Mickey who is quite enthralled by the activity of the squirrels on screen. Before o ur handyman got the tv up on the wall, it was sitting on the floor and the cats kept looking under and behind it to find the squirrels, birds and mice ..... who would imagine they would love tv so much!
Koko loves his toys!
Koko demonstrating his focus and intelligence and love of toys, while his new friends look on: also seen Rocket, the hound dog with a coat on, and Cloudy our Eskie taking it all in from the comfort of his hammock, Dan in the blue coat and Koko's best friend, and Teddy the poodle mix
They're so fluffy! Meet Jeremiah the husky!
This post is about our new young husky, Jeremiah, and also by reference, Honeybee our Chowchow.
Jeremiah was found as a stray in Owatonna MN. and was brought to animal control, where he was never claimed. From there he went to PCHSRochester and had been there 2 months. They described him as a "typical sassy husky" but in the last week, his behavior took a turn, and he had started becoming reactive every time he had to come in from outside and go back to his kennel. indoors.
We had recently been working with PCHSRochester on an exchange involving cats: our orange tabby mother cat and her fluffy kitten have gone to their shelter to find loving homes, while we agreed to take a bonded pair Kiro and Bootsy, two neutered male cats, who are both leukemia positive and who have had to be caged for many weeks as like so many responsive rescues Paws and Claws has been extremely full. We will be introducing Kiro and Bootsy, as well as two orange tabby boys from a Bismarck North Dakota rescue, Furry Friends Rockin' Rescue, Inc. - Bismarck Mandan both FIV+, in a later post.
But Paws and Claws had asked us to also help them with Jeremiah, hoping he would be happier in a more spacious setting where he could be outside as much as he liked. By the time they had contacted us, he had bitten 3 of their volunteers and staff, so adopting or even a foster home were out of the question.
We felt bad for Jeremiah, who had been ok for months, but seemed to just have some kind of breakdown, a crisis involving shelter stress, as if he just couldn't take being confined and indoors anymore.
As you can see, Jeremiah still has a lot of puppy in him! We have not found that he is a bite risk, but has alot of characteristics of a pup and wants to mouth. He will get over that as he settles. There is no indication he will bite or protest bite. He is very slender and very hungry and protective of his dog food. Easily handled: we give hjm privacy and protection so he can take his time and savor h
We have a new update and video of our little black and white pregnant cat from Farmington MN who gave birth and then made it into a foster home as the weather became colder, She had been living outside, about to give birth, and in fact did have her kittens before we were able to get her inside and with a foster a few days later. For that background, see this video: https://www.facebook.com/homeforlifeorg/videos/550003457893329
our latest news is the remarkable progress of the kittens who now have opened their eyes and at about 3 weeks old are starting to walk around and explore the big wide world. Thanks to their dedicated foster Cheryl and Kitty Revolution, these kittens will never know the hardship their mother did, trying to survive outside and even giving birth with the prospect of raising her kittens outside, homeless. The kittens and their mom will be transferring to Kitty Revolution and their foster to continue to grow and thrive, then wean at which time they will all be looking for loving homes of their own. It looks like we have one black and white kitten who looks like Mom, as well as 2 little tortoise shells and two more black and white babies besides. They look healthy and happy! a great relief to see them safe and warm after their tough start in life. ,
Sunday afternoon, our foster and volunteer, Cheryl, picked up the little black and white mother cat, who gave birth to five little kittens on Thursday! She looks so happy to be safely indoors and very proud of her little family. A thousand thank yous to foster Cheryl for taking them in and keeping them safe- these newborn kittens, not even a week old, and their loving mother cat! We are working on rescue for immediate intake for the 4 older kittens, the tigers and the black one, and their mother. The prospective adoption for the little black kitten fell through. One of our supporters will be taking in one of the little tiger kittens tomorrow, if all goes well. The weather is warm now, but will turn cold again later this week. Our goal is to have them inside and safe by then!
Thank you again to everyone for your ideas, messages and shares to get these cats safely inside before Halloween and cold weather returns.
The back story on this colony out of Farmington, MN which occupied a lot of our week: https://www.facebook.com/homeforlifeorg/posts/959937069505987
Pet Portraits for the color by numbers crowd
A tricky situation resolved this week when we found a place for our unruly teenager dog Haruki, who is from Afghanistan. He is a complicated case in that he was badly injured as a puppy, found with kicked in ribs which caused a pneumothorax that almost ended his life. He pulled thru but was fragile in the aftermath. He came to the United States in that big airlift that was done of the shelter dogs in May and was a medical case. We had him in foster, and then he was evaluated by surgeons and veterinarians to determine what further procedures might be warranted. But as Haruki was moving well and breathing without complication, the consensus was to let him be and observe him for any problems down the road. Meanwhile, no one told Haruki that he was delicate, and he was a rowdy teenage dog full of fun, and sometimes trouble. He could be obnoxious and overbearing with other dogs, not knowing his boundaries- just like a typical teenage boy. Yet he is of a slight build and still vulnerable with the crushed side of his chest, now healed. We have tried him with several groups. Haruki is very food aggressive at this stage. He tended to want to chase down like prey some of the smaller dogs of the first group he was with- some tough athletic small dogs who like big dogs. In the next group we tried, Haruki would bark aggressively in the gentle, older dogs faces, and was at times aggressive to the female dog in the group of three dogs. They didn't need that. They all seemed to be jockeying for position rather than interacting and playing together in a positive way.
Next we tried a group of younger dogs, who were strong and playful, but couldn't be bulled But now in this group, it was like the documentary " Scared Straight". Haruki who like a teenage boy would bully kids smaller than himself, and be rude to older people, was still too small and young to be thrown in with a bunch of strong men, even to straighten him out. Poor Haruki was terrified and the younger, but large
