Critters Inc.

28/08/2024

About a year ago I made a post about manners and it seems it's time for another friendly reminder. 😊

Critters Inc. is operated by me (Megan) and my partner. That's it! We have no staff, no volunteers, and we ourselves do not get paid for this role. We both work our regular jobs outside the rescue in addition to all of the daily care and operations here at the rescue. It would be amazing to be superheros, but we are not. We do have to eat, sleep, and once in a blue moon, take a few quiet minutes to ourselves. We cannot take in or save every single animal we get contacted about and we cannot fulfill the needs or wishes of every single person who reaches out.

I have had people recently asking if I could send one of my "staff" over if I'm busy or that they had already talked to one of my "staff" about their issue. Friends, I am the only one you will ever talk to when you call, email, or Facebook message us.

With that being said....I am once again going to highlight the best ways to contact us for our various services.

🐶Adoptions - Email
👩🏼‍⚕️Spay/Neuter - Email
🐾Pet Food Pantry - Email
❓Non-Emergent animal issues - Voicemail
🚨Medical Emergencies - Text
👫Established Clients - Text
💰Donations - Voicemail

There has been a plethora lately of phone calls with no voicemail left. Furthermore I am again getting people who call dozens of times in a row, often without ever leaving a message and then they send a text. The texting has gotten out of control. Most businesses do not offer texting as a means of contact and we are one of them. You would not call your bank or grocery store dozens of times in a row or text them, so please don't do it to us.

I give permission for texts for my established clients. Outside of that, texting is for one and only one purpose and that is for MEDICAL EMERGENCIES, as is clearly stated on our voicemail. Yet, day after day I have people call, hang up with no voicemail left, and then send a text. 🤦🏼‍♀️

Please understand that there is a very good reason for this! First and foremost, I am one person with a whole lot of cases to keep track of. Emails can be grouped in folders and flagged for cases I am actively working on. Emails are extremely easy to organize and keep catalogued based on which one of our community programs they pertain to (pet pantry, spay/neuter, adoption, TNR). Texts and Facebook messages are next to impossible to keep track of or organized in any way.

Voicemails are best for general non-emergent rescue inquiries or questions because they are usually a quick phone call in response.

Why is texting just for emergencies?
Because I can receive a text no matter where I am. Whether I am at work, driving, at the vet, asleep, or on personal time...I will receive a text soon enough to tend to that emergency. Period. I do not want my phone buzzing with irrelevant messages all day long, drowning out a text that may come through for an animal who is about to lose its life.

Now.....let's talk about what does and doesn't consist of a medical emergency. 💁🏼‍♀️(Forgive the sarcasm, but these are all examples of real messages I have gotten recently).

📌Medical Emergencies???📌

-Animal hit by car. ✅ Yes!

-Orphan kittens with no food source. ✅ Yes!

-Animal in an unsafe location that puts their life in imminent danger (ex. in the road, the river, or stuck in something, etc.) ✅ Yes!

-Animal that is about to be euthanized by local vets or police departments. ✅ Yes!

-Animal in an advanced stage of starvation or with life-threatening illness or injuries. ✅ Yes!

-Stray dog showed up and you "don't want it". ❌ Nope!

-You sent an adoption application and haven't heard back yet. ❌ Nope!

-You suddenly decided to be an irresponsible pet owner and dump your untrained dog, your 10 year old cat, or your new litter of kittens/puppies on someone because you are moving, your child or other pets suddenly don't get along with it, or it needs "a better home", "room to run", or "someone with more time".
❌ Nope!

-You want to know how our spay/neuter program works. ❌ Nope!

-You see stray cats. They are not sick, injured, unfed, or in any danger but you "cannot keep them". ❌ Nope!

Get the idea? I apologize if animal rescue people get a bit visibly frustrated at times, but trust me when I tell you, you would not believe some of the things we deal with, and by we, I mean rescue people all over the country.

As I said, you wouldn't text your bank, your grocery store or your local florist at 2 am to tell them you saw a stray cat at the gas station (yes this happened recently), so please don't do it to us. 😁 Thank you!!!!

27/08/2024

Yesterday we were in Cheyenne to run a few errands and we met up with our friend and realtor Jeanine Perry. She had some food that her old dog didn't care for and we were glad to take it off her hands.

She is the owner of Red Diamond Realty and we cannot say enough good things about her. She sold us our Critters Inc. property several years ago, getting us a wonderful price on our land, and has helped us out on several occasions since then. At closing, she not only gave us a giant gift basket of animal treats and toys but also made baskets for the title officers and all other personnel involved. I have never met a more honest, reliable, and straight-forward real estate professional. I would never recommend anyone else. She is licensed in 3 states and you will see her signs often in our area.

She is an avid animal lover and her own pets are all rescues. Whenever she comes to our area she leaves goodies by our gate and she always asks us what we need in terms of supplies for the animals whenever we talk to her. She is a down to earth lady that I would be happy to call a friend. Thank you Jeanine for your ongoing support and for the compassion towards animals that you exercise in your own life!

24/08/2024

This is that time of year when the crunch time begins. 😬

We have spent all spring and summer doing lots of TNR and spay/neuter. We have also taken in 27 animals just in the last couple months. I am so sorely behind (as usual) on posting clinic trips and other goings on. The last clinic day I managed to get posted was May 30th. Since then we had clinic days on 6/6, 6/20, 6/27, 7/3, 7/12, 7/18, and 8/15. I have another scheduled for this coming Thursday!

Kitten season generally runs from April through September. That means that this is the time of year when the second round of kittens are being born. Although the first round is always difficult because of the sheer multitude of kittens being born, the second round is always much more heartbreaking. They will be born around now and in 2 months when they are old enough to be without mom, we will be into winter. The momma cats use up the resources in their bodies for the spring litter and these second litters are usually much more frail and sickly. Because it will be getting colder soon, the kittens we take in from this second round are usually riddled with dehydration, severe upper respiratory illness, and starvation. We get far less calls about people finding litters because most die outside before they are even old enough to be discovered.

I don't know many people that enjoy the struggles that come with winter and I am one of them. Our Critters Inc. property is very flat and open and in winter we get brutal wind and cold with regular snow drifts, as do many people in this area. These next 2 months months will be very busy as we focus on the regular seasonal chores that have to get done before the snow flies. We have projects in limbo that need completed, we have to switch out all of the AC for heaters in the animal buildings, deep clean the Critters Inc. vehicles, organize our inventory and stock up on supplies, get all outdoor areas deep cleaned, and get the dogs acclimated to more inside time. Keeping the dogs exercised and entertained in winter can be one of the hardest things.

This is also the time of year when we have had a run on loss of life, generally with kittens although we have had some other recent losses as well. We come down off the busy kitten and spay/neuter season both exhausted and a bit beat up emotionally. So it is always expected that this is the time of year when everything bottlenecks in terms of being behind.

So, with that being said, I am going to rapid fire some posts just to get us caught up! I have people to thank, rescues to mention, clinic trips to post, and both some sad and happy goings on from here at the rescue over the summer.

I so very much appreciate each and every one of our supporters. Whether you donate, like and share our posts, or offer words of support, I cannot thank you enough. 🥰

(Below is handsome Bruno saying Good Morning!)

21/08/2024

Today is a sad one.

I was working through morning chores in between thunderstorms when I got a call from an 87 year old senior citizen in Wheatland. On Sunday, he had a baby bunny abandoned on his porch. He said he has tons of bunnies in his yard and that he "talks" to them regularly. He firmly believes the momma brought this babe up on his porch and left it, knowing that it would be safe with him.

Numerous neighbors and friends of his had told him to just put it in a box and stop feeding it so that it would die. I don't know what sort of moral compass those people navigate with but they should likely take some lessons in compassion. Furthermore, they are lucky they live in a state with no animal cruelty laws. Thankfully he did not listen to them. He tried to seek help from the local vets and they told him they wouldn't let him in the door with a wild rabbit due to possible disease. Thankfully, his daughter found us online and we were glad to be able to help.

He had noticed some balance and hind end issues with this bunny but having lost his wife of 68 years last May, he said he was getting attached to the little critter and was keeping him clean and fed. The unfortunate part is that this babe was fed cow's milk which is very bad for them and causes organ damage. I can't tell you how many calls we get from people that have found baby animals and they feed them cow's milk. Truthfully there are no animals that can safely be fed cow's milk except baby cows. Not puppies, not kittens, not bunnies, not any species so please don't.

Cottontails are a permit species in WY and so after picking this little critter up, I immediately got on the phone to our licensed wildlife rehabber for bunnies. I sent her videos of the imbalance and hind end issues. Sadly, she reported back that these are all significant signs of shock. Many wildlife species experience actual metabolic changes in their body from the stress of being caught, handled, and exposed to our human world. This stress response is so severe that it causes organ failure and death, which is an unpleasantry no animal deserves. This babe will need to be humanely euthanized by our veterinarian, a decision that is never easy to make. 😥

20/08/2024

Sampson has had a rough start to the week!

Around 7 pm last night he had a grand mal seizure and it was a bad one. It took him many hours to recover and caught us very off guard. He has been with us several years and has been healthy so it is always concerning when these things happen without reason.

I stayed up with him all night and got him to the vet this afternoon. He snoozed the whole way. Dr. Lindsey did blood work, an exam, and gave us some rescue meds to have on hand in case he has another seizure. Unfortunately this is a wait and see type of situation, so fingers crossed that it was an isolated incident.

Back home we go, after a trip through the drive-thru for a good boy treat. He is a big mellow guy. 🐶

Speaking of vet trips, I have managed to get our vet bills paid down from over three thousand dollars to below seven hundred dollars. However, we do still have a balance and more importantly, we have a feed bill due tomorrow with a remaining balance of $2,270.39. This bill started at almost four thousand so we made some progress but this remaining balance will rollover and will accrue interest after tomorrow. I rarely if ever have to pay interest on anything because it is a waste of donor funds so I really hope we can get it paid off.

⭐Any help at all towards this bill would be greatly appreciated!!⭐

🔹PayPal- [email protected]
(Funds received immediately)

🔹CashApp- $CrittersInc
(Funds received immediately)

🔹Venmo- -Inc
(Funds received immediately)

🔹Facebook donations (Funds received every 45 days)

🔹Cash/Check straight to our Critters Inc. business checking account at any First State Bank location (Guernsey, Wheatland, Torrington, Casper)
Or
Mailed to PO Box 436, Guernsey WY 82214

12/08/2024

It's a Monday! 😵‍💫

I woke up tired, as many of us do on Mondays, and thought maybe I could doze for a few after tending to the basics. I was getting dogs let out and doing my morning head count and checks on all the critters. The phone rang before 7 and it was one of my senior clients who has been bottle raising 3 newborn kittens who were dumped on him by a local Wheatland rancher threatening to drown them when they let water loose in their irrigation pipes. Yet another angering story. One of the kittens has been failing the last few days so I guided my client through some care advice and then sat down in hopes of a few quiet minutes to snooze before starting morning chores.

Silly me. Not 5 minutes later the phone rang again. This time it was a call from Guernsey. Workers at a local transport company had found a kitten in their dumpster. They had gotten the kitten out and dug around in the trash to make sure there were no more.

The really scary thing about this is that the local trash company empties the dumpsters in Guernsey very first thing on Monday mornings. If this babe hadn't been spotted, she absolutely would have ended up in the trash compacter within a very small margin of time. Not good to think about.

I canceled my dreams of a morning snooze and headed into Guernsey. She had escaped the cardboard box she was in and was bouncing around in an employee's car, but after some negotiations I got her to come out from her hiding spot for some yummy canned food. She is already on her second can.

I gave her a quick once over. She is very thin and a bit dehydrated but other than dirty ears and a few cuts and scrapes, she appears uninjured. For how hungry she is I can understand why she was in the dumpster looking for scraps. Some kittens had been spotted a few hundred yards from there last week and we were never able to locate them so it could be that she is from that group.

She is 14 weeks old, and yes...she's a she, so she needs a name!

I am headed home with her now to get her set up in a cage and start morning chores, now later than usual. When Mondays start like this, it always gives me worry for what the rest of the week will hold! 😬

10/08/2024

A very belated post....

July 30th was Critters Inc. 5th birthday/anniversary. I had looked forward to the day and had planned a day-long fundraiser, a t-shirt sale, and hoped to celebrate the 5 years worth of animals that our community programs have helped.

Instead, I got up that day and took a photograph (below in comments) of a smoke plume I saw while getting the dogs tended to that morning. What would become a massive wildfire had broken out about 10 miles to the east of us. It would burn for the next 10 days, destroying almost 29,000 acres, devastating homes, barns, and outbuildings, and countless animal territories and presumably animal lives as well.

During those days I did not leave home. It was 100 degrees every day and with our flat, dry 40 acres I worried about the possibility of other fires. Two smaller fires did start, one in the distance to the north and one very close by to the south but luckily both were contained within hours.

The worry every day not just about our animals, but those left behind by evacuees, and those in the path of the fire, wildlife included, was stressful to say the least. Thankfully the fires have finally ended, the rains have come, and the stress has settled back down into normal range.

🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹

🎈So here we are, very late to the party, but nonetheless, Happy 5th Birthday to Critters Inc! 🎂

❓How did Critters Inc. come to be?❓

I have worked in the animal welfare field since I was 15 years old. Born and raised in New York state, my rescue work started and was what I did for a living there. After attending college in Colorado and continuing my involvement in rescue work there, I found myself moved to Wyoming with my partner in 2009.

Our first day in Guernsey, we happened upon a stray dog and I decided I better call the local humane society to report the lost dog. After a quick search I discovered there is no humane society. Not only that...there are no animal control agencies, municipal shelters, or brick and mortar animal rescues for local animals anywhere in our county. To this day, if you find a lost animal and call dispatch, officers with zero animal welfare training will either tell you to leave the animal where you found it or take it to the "pound" which is a series of kennels in an unattended shanty of a building with no utilities. This completely blew mind. This was 2009. I had no idea places like this still existed in our country.

Word soon spread around town that I was an animal rescuer. Before I knew it, the town police officers were calling me for help with animals. People were showing up at both my home and my work with boxes of kittens. I was getting Facebook messages from complete strangers asking me for help. Years passed and during that time starting to help local animals, I was not only fostering dogs for a rescue out of Colorado, but also serving as a board member with a private rescue further south in Wyoming.

Because so few people could afford the local vets, I started offering free transport of large groups of animals to the spay/neuter clinics in Ft. Collins, CO. This became wildly popular in no time and I had wait lists miles long for people wanting help with spay/neuter both for their own pets and for the strays.

I had the knowledge and the experience to help. This had been my life's work and I was passionate about spay/neuter as the only means to an end for the overpopulation crisis. I was footing the bill for 90% of the animals I was transporting to the vet. Not to mention the daily care costs of the dozens of cats and kittens that I was taking in to find homes for. Before we knew it, my partner and I had spent over $55,000 of our own money on the animals in our local community. I needed to find a way to be able to start receiving donations and get some help.

We had outgrown our tiny house in town and chose to purchase one of the only plots of land available for sale at that time, a windy 40 acres between Guernsey and Wheatland. I hired law students from the University of Wyoming to write our articles of incorporation and by-laws and on July 30th, 2019 we became a nonprofit corporation officially licensed with the state. After completing the process with the IRS, we got our 501(c)3 nonprofit charitable organization status just 6 weeks later. We are also registered with Wyoming's Dept of Revenue as a tax-exempt organization.

Our new 40 acres was bare land. Over the next few years, as our own personal finances allowed, we brought in power lines and drilled our well. We erected "kitty cabins" and outdoor livestock and dog pens. We used free supplies when possible, at the cost of things not looking as pretty, but very functional for what the animals need. We continue to build and add more each year as our finances allow.

These past 5 years have seen hundreds of animals come and go, some that remain with us in sanctuary, and some that are holding a place in heaven. We have transported well over a thousand animals for spay/neuter since the beginning, and we have had almost a dozen wildlife species cross our paths as well.

Since day one my partner and I have operated the rescue without pay and we work multiple regular jobs each, outside of the rescue in order to cover the costs of the property where we and the animals live. We have no staff or volunteers but a few close friends who will run errands or help out with fundraisers for us when we need them to. My partner and I provide all of the daily care, cleaning cages, feeding, medicating, client communiations, ordering supplies, and scheduling/attending vet appointments. Yes, it's exhausting. It can be physically, financially, mentally, and emotionally draining work, but as I said, this is my life's work.

🎉Join me in a belated celebration of our last 5 years of animal rescue. We, as always, have a great deal of expenses to cover at the moment and I hope that each and every one of our followers can send us $5 in celebration of our 5th birthday. Less than the cost of a cup of coffee, a pack of ci******es, or a new shade of eye shadow, that $5 from each and every one of you does add up and helps us make a difference.🎁

Thank you to all of our supporters from the last 5 years! We couldn't have done it without you! 💚

📌 Venmo: -Inc

📌 CashApp: $CrittersInc

📌PayPal: [email protected]

📌Cash/ Check mailed to:

Critters Inc.
PO Box 436
Guernsey, WY 82214

📌Drop off to our business checking account at any First State Bank location. ( Guernsey, Wheatland, Torrington, Casper )

24/07/2024

Had to share some kitten antics. She is a stinker! She refuses to grow but her personality is never-ending. 😸 She and her 2 sisters will be up for adoption as soon as they are big enough and healthy enough to spay.

15/07/2024

Rescue is hard. Plain and simple.

Fundraising is hard. Dealing with difficult human beings is hard. The physically demanding work of cleaning cages, walking dogs, hauling supplies, etc. is hard. Watching people breed animals or buy animals from breeders is very hard. Most of all, watching critters go to heaven is probably the hardest.

Our former shelter veterinarian, Dr. Millie, used to say to me all the time....." No one on earth was meant to raise kittens except momma cats".

She is exactly right.

As rescuers, we take them in, we doctor them, feed them, check on them constantly, and spend sleepless nights worrying. They can be in bad shape when we get them and they steadily improve, or sometimes they come to us thriving and slide downhill as they age. Often there is no rhyme or reason to it.

This morning started off with the passing of an older kitten who had been acting well but not growing at all. She stopped eating and got lethargic yesterday and even with medical care, she passed away in my arms this morning. The last 2 weeks we lost 2 newborns and one 4 week old the week before that.

We have taken in 21 kittens in the last 2 months and we have lost 4. Maddie's Fund reports that veterinary studies show 15-40% of orphaned kittens will pass away before 12 weeks of age, even with care, so the odds are not in the favor of rescues.

The pictures below illustrate the amazing and startling disparity that we often see.

_____________________________________________________

The first picture shows 2 kittens from a litter of 3, aged 8 weeks. The larger kitten is the odd one out as the other 2 are both the size of the smaller kitten. Same color, same gender, same upringing and they are over 1.5 lbs different in weight and numerous inches different in length.

The second picture again shows 2 kittens, same litter, same gender, same upbringing. There are 6 in this litter and they are 10 weeks old. In this case, the small one is the odd one out, as the other 5 are all the size of the larger kitten.

Genetics, inbreeding, congenital anomalies, personality, etc all take their toll on the ability of a kitten to thrive.

All members of both of these litters are alive and doing well, but as they grow, we may be met with unpleasantries.

So, again I say....rescue is hard no matter what species we're dealing with. Much love to all my fellow rescuers who keep fighting the good fight every single day. 💚

14/07/2024

Say hello to Iris!

This girl might be one of the sweetest kittens we have met. She loves attention and snuggles and has a calm demeanor.

As you can see, she came to us with some significant eye issues which, at this point, have blinded her. She has so much inflammation in her 3rd eyelid and it is essentially adhered to the globe of her eye. We have been treating the inflammation and pain, as well as any underlying infection. This photo was taken the day after she came to us as a stray. It has been a month now and we are seeing some improvement. Rather than subject her to anesthesia twice, we will do any necessary procedures on her eyes next month when she is spayed. We believe we can restore at least some level of vision for this babe.

If you would like to adopt Iris or any of the other kittens we have for adoption, please find our adoption application at the bottom of our homepage.

www.crittersinc.org

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Iris has a special request. She and the other 10 kittens we currently have, all of whom are from the Fort Laramie TNR Project, have struggled with learning to eat solid food and persistant diarrhea. We have finally found 2 things that they can and will eat that doesn't make them sick. ⬇️

Fancy Feast Canned Kitten Food
Ge**er Chicken Baby Food

Both of these items and more can be found at the link below on our updated Amazon wish list. We are nearly out of both items here so anyone willing to order some for us today, we would really appreciate it!

⭐ Wish List- https://a.co/6Uk8JO8 ⭐

13/07/2024

These 3 playful kitten brothers enjoying a snooze yesterday after their neuter surgery. They were a comical bunch and went right back to playing as soon as they woke up.

Yesterday was another spay/neuter day and I have still 4 clinic days to get posted plus lots of other things!

Unfortunately we have reached that point in the year when our bills are high and our account is low. Between vet bills, fuel bills, and our food bill for the shelter animals, we need to pay off almost $6000 before we move forward with our programs. With that being said, I will be taking a pause on clinic days after the first week of August so that we can get finances caught up.

July is our anniversary month which unfortunately brings renewal fees for a plethora of things including our licenses, website, domain, insurance, and certain other registrations.

If you can spare an extra $5 or $10 this month to help us out, we appreciate it. I personally always cover the cost of our vehicle, mortgage, and utilities for housing and transport of the shelter animals so your donations will never go to those things. Your donations go straight to vet bills, food bills, fuel, and the occasional odd purchase or office supply needs.

Thank you to all who donate!

CashApp- $CrittersInc

Venmo- -Inc

PayPal- [email protected]

Cash/Check to PO Box 436 Guernsey, Wy 82214
Or
Drop off at any First State Bank location (Guernsey, Wheatland, Torrington, Casper)

09/07/2024

Are you following our Fort Laramie TNR Project? 😸

I will be adding a bunch more updates and photos to the fundraiser page today.

Huge thanks to Donna Jankewicz and her husband who have made this beautiful donation jar for us. It can be found at the F. L. A. G. Restaurant there in town.

02/07/2024

Here is yesterday's post, a day late and a dollar short but....

🎆 Happy July! 🎆

Although July brings fireworks which are a not good thing for animals, July does bring a few good things our way.

🎁July 10th is WyoGives day. Although we do not register as an official WyoGives charity because you have to pay to do so, it is nonetheless a state-wide day of giving and we love to see people donating to nonprofits, even if it's not to ours!

🎂July 30th is Critters Inc.'s birthday and this year we celebrate our 5 year anniversary as an official licensed nonprofit with the state of Wyoming.

July is much-needed vacation month for our vet team so we will have a few less clinic days which hopefully gives us a bit of a break as well.

July also marks the half way point in our year so we can start calculating what we need to accomplish for the second half.

July 10th is also Wyoming's statehood birthday!

On that note....this grumpy face belongs to one of the zillion kittens we have here at Critters Inc right now and yesterday was bath day. I will be getting them all listed on our Petfinder page asap as some will be old enough for adoption as early as next week.

Hoping this month brings us all good things! 🤗

01/07/2024

$5 New Member Shopping Bonus! Join now, when you make your first purchase within 30 days, we'll give you an extra $5 bonus for Critters Inc. https://www.iGive.com/CrittersInc/?p=19992&jltest=1

Shopping at any of 1779 stores like Travelocity, Macy's, Overstock, and many more, means a donation to your favorite cause.

28/06/2024

Meet Oscar the Grouch!

In my last post about our May 30th clinic trip, I mentioned that amongst the animals was a tom cat who had been treated for a plethora of issues in addition to being neutered.

This older guy was trapped unintentionally south of Lingle while I was trying to get ahold of a single stray female that had shown up at a local ranch. Low and behold, we did not catch the female but it turned out to be a hidden blessing that we caught this guy instead.

He had the usual poor attitude that most toms have when trapped and gave us quite an attitude while trying to get him to fall asleep, hence his name.

Upon sedation and exam we uncovered some obvious faults. Number one...he was dirty. I mean really, really dirty. He needed a day at the spa worse than anyone. Issue #2...ticks...and lots of them. One had even crawled down inside his ear and caused him so much discomfort that he had scratched the back side of his ear all the way down through the fur and skin and into the subcutaneous layers. Issue #3...his broken teeth. We pulled a few that were loose and rotten but clearly this guy's diet and dental health have been lacking. Although we see dental problems in cats regularly, some are much worse than others. He had lots of scars from years outdoors and lord knows how many previous injuries.

We were nearly done with his exam when we spotted some swelling in his front leg and when we squeezed it started to ooze. Dr. Lindsey's great intuition told her the leg definitely didn't feel right and she ordered x-rays. One picture and what a picture it was. This poor guy's front leg had been shattered under the skin and it was recent. This was a first for me. I have regularly trapped cats in Wyoming with BBs in their skin from having been shot at with pellet guns. This was no BB. Whoever shot Oscar used a real gun and was obviously trying to kill him. The pain this guy must have been in walking around with a shattered limb for weeks is incomprehensible.

He is here with us at Critters Inc and his grouchiness has improved daily. He now greets us at the front of the cage every morning when we bring his canned food and tries to bat at us with his paws through the bars. He received daily pain management and no more ticks lodged in his ear canal or on his body. The bath is forthcoming now that we have made friends with him. He does use his leg but arthritis is going to be a very real scenario for him with all the bone fragments so amputation of that limb down the road is likely. In the meantime, he is here and safe.

Yet another day when the universe amazes me. This guy somehow found our trap out in the middle of nowhere and by doing so, found help for himself. Welcome to the good life Oscar.