Well, they’re an interesting group of people, that’s for sure. One of the women came in yesterday evening and gave the kittens and Smoky a vaccination. To say that the cats weren’t impressed is an understatement.
They weren’t ugly about it. There were no claws or teeth showing, but they showed their displeasure at this strange human pawing them by ignoring us for the rest of the evening. Cats’ prerogative, I suppose.
I did some research into the group, or tried to. What I found was a bit disconcerting. There’s nothing bad, per se, other than someone practicing vet medicine without a license. The woman, unnamed in the article, only gave advice to various people. I’m going to call the vet on Tuesday and see what he has to say about the group. The girls have done enough volunteer work to merit three neuter/spay trips (Bonnie, Clyde and Smoky) but I’ll feel better once I’ve talked to the vet about them.
The group is doing another display in September, apparently. We’ll see whether or not I manage to donate some time to get Sari, Joey and Salem fixed as well. From what I understand, there’s a ‘foster parent’ plan, where people take strays until they can find a new home. I’m not sure if I qualify for that. I know I won’t be able to afford the kibble for more animals than I already have. And there’s the small matter of litterboxes, city bylaws and the cats we already have. Not all of our ‘new’ strays were accepted at first, or they didn’t accept our cats. It took Cuddles several weeks to stop hissing at the kittens, and he’s only a visitor to the house. The older cats still don’t accept Prince, the Alpha tom of the neighbourhood.
At the very least, I’m going to offer my time and expertise for a web site for them. With only one or two entries and no site currently up, it’s not good publicity for them. There are other Alley Cat Allies groups, but this one’s not part of them. I wonder why. I’ll have to investigate that a bit more, too. So long as they don’t want a 90’s site, I’m okay with that. No music, no ‘cute’ things, just updated information and cats up for adoption and the adoption process. I may put a few of my ideas up on my site.
I’ve finally found my clipart collection, so I’ll have something to work with. If all else fails, I can use some of the images of Schroeder and company. I’d like to be able to get pictures of the cats that they have, but without a scanner or access to a digital camera, it’s going to be hard. We’ll see what happens in September.
