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And it has... it's been a while since I posted a journal. My last one was incredibly long because a bunch of stuff happened; which is basically how I expect this one to turn out XD But it's all good stuff, kinda.

Anyway, most recently I got back from petsitting for Maya. Today, actually, was my last day there. XD And then the beginning of November I'll be on vacation from work because I have a convention to go to :3 NekoCon in Virginia. It's gunna be tons of fun hanging out with Paul and Hoshi! <3

But the real story begins at work, as always XD Work's been pretty normal. A couple weeks ago, 10/2 to be exact, I was "Cat woman" for the day, lol.

I was on lunch and had gone out onto the bungalo porch and saw this lady walking up and down the drive... pacing, really... with a cat carrier in her hand. After watching for a bit, it hit me. "Oh my god, I bet she lost her cat.." So I walked out to go see if I could help her. After asking if she needed any assistance, she told me that she did indeed lose her cat. The carrier had broken open as she was walking up with it. The cat was under one of the bushes, terrified now that it was outside. I tried to coax it out, but to no avail. Soon, Marie and Jake saw what was going on and came out to help me. Unforunately, the cat made a break for it and sprinted down the hill. It hit the fence line and stopped, crouching; still terrified. We asked the woman if she could come down the hill and try to pick the cat up, as he'd be more comfortable with her then he would with us. She managed to grab him, and I took him from her to carry him up to the building since he was squirming and the woman didn't want to scruff him (which really doesn't hurt the cat if done correctly).

As I was walking up to the building, I noticed a brown cat dart under our shed. I stopped for a moment, but shrugged it off, explaining to the woman, who'd seen him too, that he was probably one of the ferals that lives on the property. We have feral traps out for those cats so we can spay/neuter them and re-release them... but really there isn't anything you can do about a feral; they'll never let you get near to them.

So I helped the lady in, got her set up, and then went to clock back in from lunch (as I had successfully wasted my last 10 minutes). Getting back to work, I grabbed some cardboard I'd left in the Laundry Room and took it out to the dumpster near our garage. As I was tossing the cardboard in, I heard what seemed to be meowing. Turning around, there was the brown cat, still hiding under the shed. It took me a moment, but then it clicked that he was the same cat I'd seen before. I finished tossing out the cardboard and turned around all ".. You can't be a feral. If you were a feral, you wouldn't be talkin' to me..."

Jake happened to be in the garage getting the Food Cart ready for the kennel when he heard me talking. He came out and stood at the front of the garage, more or less just laughing since this was the second cat I'd encountered within the past 10 minutes.

I took my time approaching the cat, crouching and offering my hand to sniff, while talking in a low tone. He responded well, headbutting the bottom of the shed he was hiding under. He came out just a bit to sniff my hand, but it took me a couple tries before I managed to scritch his head. At that point, it was like he finally realized I wasn't going to hurt him, and I wanted to pet him. He came out very slowly, letting me pet his head and neck, and once I got to his shoulders, he had no choice but to walk out further so I could scratch his back. He talked to me the entire time, meowing and chirping and purring. I pet him for a few moments more just to keep him calm, and when he went to rub against my knee (as I was crouching), I scruffed him and swept him up before he could get away. He was relatively calm in my arms, of course his content meowing turned a little more frantic. Jake, of course, was laughing at me and calling me "Cat woman" XD

So I took the cat inside and brought him in as "Found at SPCA."

Really, there are only a few reasons cats, or any animal really, is dumped onto our property. Obviously they all stem from the fact that whoever owned them no longer wants them.

1.) The person is a jerk and doesn't want to pay the admissions fee (which is only $25 by the way).
2.) The person is a jerk and doesn't want to make an appointment to bring their pet in (which greatly helps us maintain a healthy environment where we aren't overcrowded and have to resort to euthanizing healthy animals).
3.) The person is ashamed/embarrassed they're ridding of their animal, and they don't want to be openly responsible for the abandonment of their animal.
4.) Any/all combinations of the above.

Either way, the owner of this cat was stupid and decided to abandon him instead of being responsible and bringing him in the correct way (through admissions).

And I don't want to hear that "maybe he was lost" because he wasn't. 90% of lost cats don't stray any further then their own backyard. It's instinct for them to hide when they're frightened, so once outside they'll normally hide in the bushes. The few that DO stray away from their home are 80% of the time found within 2 houses of their own home. It is HIGHLY UNLIKELY, and I'm talking like a 1% chance here, that this cat somehow got lost without a collar, microchip, or tattoo to identify him, and managed to make it onto our FENCED property (mind you, a frightened cat who's LOST is not going to go out of their way to climb a fence to get into an area... they'll walk the fence-line first).

Anyway, I brought the cat in. Natalie was the one who did his intake. It was actually kind of funny, because when she asked me to describe him (he was already in a box at this point), and I told her he was a brown tabby, medium hair, her response was "Oh! I wonder if that's the cat everyone's been talking about. I've had like, 3 people come in here with animals and tell me that there's a brown cat outside playing in the grass." Once the intake was done, he was put in the back like every other cat, and I decided to stalk him to make sure he made it into the program and everything.

I vistited him the next day (Saturday) to make sure he was okay and everything, and found out he's the sweetest cat ever. He's just so trusting and loving. He immediately became my favorite, perhaps partially because I found him, but also because of his personality.

Two days later, I was in the nursery and he was still there; which was great because I got to spend some time with him. However, I noticed he didn't seem to be feeling too well. He had a slightly goopy eye, and had loose stool. I wrote up a medical alert on him, and someone came to look at him, but I suppose they didn't deem him sick enough to go into Iso cause he stayed in his cage in holding. The next day he went into surgery to be neutered, and I found out he was being moved straight from surgery to Isolation. Apparently he'd gotten much worse very quickly.

So for the next 2 weeks, he was sick. He'd been sneezing and started coughing towards the end of his stay. I felt terrible because here was this wonderful cat who had enough blind trust in me to call out to me and ask me to save him, and I tried... I did, I brought him into the shelter to be taken care of.. and now he's sick. :c I really felt bad for him. Even though he was sick though, and spent most of his time sleeping, he'd always get up for me <3 All I'd have to do is go up to his cage and call "Mr. Thomas!" And he'd poke his head up, meow, start to purr, stretch upwards into a stand, stretch out one paw, then the other, and then walk up to headbutt into my lips for a kiss. It's like his own personal ritual <3

So I begged and begged my grandma over those 2 weeks to let me have him. He went through 2 cycles of Doxy to treat the upper respiratory infection he had, and I knew if he went back into Iso, that'd be it. We treat sick animals, we do; but there comes a point that when an animal isn't responding to treatment, there really isn't anything we can do. It's not fair to let them stay sick and progressively get worse... if they don't respond to the medications we have, then they don't respond. We aren't a vet office and we don't have unlimited resources. The time and money we're spending on one sick animal who isn't thriving could be spend on a dozen other healthy animals that we could get adopted out.

And I realized this, and didn't want that to happen. All I could think of was Pasha, and how special that cat had been to me. I'd stalked him for 2 weeks just like this cat Thomas, and I really didn't want Thomas to come to the same end that Pasha had.

After begging and begging, my grandma finally said yet, and I adopted Thomas on 10/18 <3 and I swear to god he's the best cat ever! it's kinda funny too, cause Natalie did his intake, and he was also the adoption counselor who did my interview! XD

Now, my grandma's cats are declawed, and I don't want to do that to Thomas, so I bought him some Soft Paws (little caps you glue over their nails. Totally harmless to them, and perhaps a little uncomfortable at first but they get used to them just like woman to their own fake nails). So before bringing him home, I had Chris help me put the Soft Paws on him. He let Chris get one paw done, and then nipped XD He was all "Okay, I'm done with this." So we gave him a minute to chill out, and then did the other paw, much to his distain. It probably didn't help that Katie F. had a tour coming through and was all "Oh hey! If you want to see how the Soft Paws work, Chris and Amber are actually putting some on a cat right now!"... which caused about a dozen people to hover around us, petting Thomas, and talking to us while we tried to hurry up and get his Soft Paws on >.>

And then he got microchipped, which he hated. But seriously... if he ever gets outside and loses his collar... how many brown tabbys wind up at shelters? It's not going to help for me to go into a shelter and tell them I lost my brown tabby XD But when Mohan went to do the microchip, he had to stick poor Thomas twice! D: The microchip gun thingy has been jamming DX So he stuck Thomas the first time, but the chip didn't go in... so he had to do it again. Poor Thomas was literally burying his head into my arm to hide after the second one. He was just so done with everything.

And then he cried the whole way home... :/

So when I got him here, I figured he'd hide under the bed or something. It's typical for cats to do that in a new environment anyways; and here he was in a new house after being tormented by a dozen strangers, getting rubber caps glued to his nails, and getting jabbed with a bigass needled twice.

I let him out into my computer room (where he's being isolated because he's sick and I don't want him getting my grandma's 2 cats sick), and he sniffed around the whole room. Found his food, found his litter box, found his new bed, and then decided to play with Zeke's mouse who was a leftover from his last feeding. XD It was in a big plastic container thing where it's currently living, and he was having a blast trying to figure out how to get to it. When he was done, he came right over to me. <3

He didn't hide at all. He ate his dry food just fine, and drank from his new dish. He even used the litter box, which is a new litter box with a different brand of litter that he's not used to. When sitting at the computer, he'll jump right up in my lap when asked to. He just settled in right away, unlike the majority of cats.

I'd already bought him a collar, but I decided I'd let him have a few days to adjust to his new home before making him wear it... since I was sure I'd have to introduce it to him slowly (perhaps putting it on him to monitor him while he wore it, and then taking it off when I wasn't around). But I decided that, hey, since he's being so good and seems to calm, I'll just fit it... not leave it on him, just get it to where it fits. So I adjusted it a few times, and then snapped it on to make sure it fit well, and it did. And he just walked away. XD

I was like ".. Hey, don't you want me to take it off?"

Nope. XD He was just fine. He hasn't scratched at the collar, he hasn't rolled around and tried to get it off... he munched on his food with it on, took a nap with it on... I just decided to leave it on him XD I mean, if he wasn't going to pay it any mind, why not? A few days later, and he's still got it on! XD It even has a bell and 2 tags, the way I set it up. I figured the tags, at least, would bother him. But nope, not in the least.

Seriously. Thomas is perfect. I can't find a better word for him. He's affectionate, but not overly so to where he needs to be up in your face. He likes to talk, but he's not obnoxious about it at all (like my step-mom's cat, Toby >.> ). He eats fine, despite being sick, and he's oh-so handsome ;D

He's still sneezing, and he's got a terrible cough; but I have a vet appointment on Thursday morning for him <3 So we'll see if we can get him on some medication other then Doxy since he doesn't seem to respond too well to that. Until then, he'll just have to deal, since I gave him his last dose of Doxy this morning. :/

But I love him <3 I'd like to be able to say that I "couldn't have chosen a better cat", but seriously.. I didn't pick him.. he picked me. He chose me out of every person that walked by that Friday and saw him... he chose ME to come and save him; and I did <3 And I know he's very thankful for that, and I love him to pieces for having that faith in me that I'd be good to him and would love him the way that I do. I seriously couldn't have asked for a better cat

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100 Theme Challenge:

1. Introduction - Brain Storming
2. Love - Brain Storming
3. Light
4. Dark
5. Seeking Solace - [link]
6. Break Away - [link]
7. Heaven - [link]
8. Innocence - [link]
9. Drive - [link]
10. Breathe Again
11. Memory - [link]
12. Insanity
13. Misfortune - [link]
14. Smile - [link]
15. Silence
16. Questioning
17. Blood
18. Rainbow
19. Gray
20. Fortitude - [link]
21. Vacation - [link]
22. Mother Nature
23. Cat
24. No Time
25. Trouble Lurking
26. Tears
27. Foreign
28. Sorrow
29. Happiness
30. Under the Rain
31. Flowers - [link]
32. Night
33. Expectations - [link]
34. Stars
35. Hold My Hand - [link]
36. Precious Treasure - [link]
37. Eyes
38. Abandoned
39. Dreams
40. Rated
41. Teamwork - [link]
42. Standing Still
43. Dying - [link]
44. Two Roads
45. Illusion
46. Family
47. Creation
48. Childhood - [link]
49. Stripes - [link]
50. Breaking the Rules - [link]
51. Sport
52. Deep in Thought
53. Keeping a Secret - Brain Storming
54. Tower
55. Waiting
56. Danger Ahead
57. Sacrifice - Brain Storming
58. Kick in the Head
59. No Way Out
60. Rejection
61. Fairy Tale
62. Magic
63. Do Not Disturb
64. Multitasking
65. Horror - [link]
66. Traps
67. Playing the Melody - [link]
68. Hero
69. Annoyance
70. 67%
71. Obsession
72. Mischief Managed
73. I Can't
74. Are You Challenging Me? - [link]
75. Mirror
76. Broken Pieces
77. Test
78. Drink
79. Starvation
80. Words
81. Pen and Paper
82. Can You Hear Me? - [link]
83. Heal
84. Out Cold
85. Spiral
86. Seeing Red
87. Food
88. Pain - [link]
89. Through the Fire - [link]
90. Triangle
91. Drowning
92. All That I Have - [link]
93. Give Up
94. Last Hope - Sketching
95. Advertisement
96. In the Storm
97. Safety First
98. Puzzle
99. Solitude
100. Relaxation - [link]

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My Tunetistic Project: [link]

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OTHER STUFFZ: