Tuesday, July 24, 2012

What a Night - Looking for the Siblings

Last night we awoke to an ear splitting chorus of kitten mews and  yelping.  Our new little friend was outside in his carrier, isolated from the other cats because of his ringworm, awaiting his morning visit with George and Christina, our vets.  We have no idea who started the heavy metal chorus, but apparently this kitten has two, perhaps three or more, very tiny vocal siblings wandering the neighborhood looking for their mom.

The one with the teeth

It was so loud I was sure our neighbors would come out to complain. 

We could hear one of the kittens getting farther and farther down the road with his cries.  Another sounded like it was across the road.  As we went searching and unintentionally made noise with our big clumsy feet, they would become deathly quiet.  At one point, when we returned, we found one had made it to our yard, maybe because he was attracted to the mewing of his sibling in the carrier, and he had gone up under my car, somewhere in the engine or wheel well.


Kitten #2 was under here somewhere


We got food and a trap and pulled the crated sibling up close to the car.  We sat for ages.  Finally, how, we don't know, the sibling disappeared and we could then hear him at the maisonettes next door.  We have been trying to capture him/her ever since.  He is now the only one we can hear aside from our biting fighter in the crate.


We sat for ages

Tonight, we were creeping around the maisonettes with a flashlight totally trespassing, and we saw the sibling, and got it to eat some food, but we could not catch it.  It has wedged itself between two wooden fences.  Our best bet now is to gain its trust with food and keep going back hoping it will come to us.

Nik thinks he knows who the mother might have been.  He has not seen her since yesterday morning.  She lived around the maisonettes.  Obviously something has happened to her, or she would be with her young kittens and they wouldn't have scattered like this. I believe he has a picture of her, but right now he is getting some much needed sleep. 

As we sat outside last night with Sylvia and Amber, we had a visit from Sundance.  Today we had a visit from Big Van.

Sylvia kept us company last night and has been following us to the maisonettes


Right now I will leave you with  more  pictures of the kitten from yesterday.  We are able to handle him now.  A day with our vets, George and Christina,  seems to have done the trick, as he was handled all day.  Now he is rather docile and cries whenever we leave the side of his carrier.






2 comments:

  1. I've been reading all these posts and thinking about the wonderful work you are doing in the most difficult circumstances, and how dispiriting it is to lose a cat like Zsa Zsa or have to give up some cats to shelters. We need lots and lots of people to do more with animals. Your descriptions of the the situation in Cyprus with inadequate speed controls and lack of respect for the laws as a commmonplace among the people -it's like Spain. People generally are "lawless" in that you can see clearly that they do not respect the law. There was no democracy in Spain for most of its history and they've had it for the last 30-odd years. Well, I guess you can't change a culture overnight. Meantime, it's bad news for animals. We've got a biggish outfit over here (Malaga province) called Triple A who are a sanctuary : they do not "euthanise" animals and look after and try to re-home about 250 cats and dogs - but the scale of the problem is just immense. I just think that what is needed is lots and lots of people running small projects. Collectively, they could cover the ground. In the meantime ... we do what we can and you guys are angels of mercy indeed...

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  2. Thank you so much for your comment, Arjun. I agree with you, I think that is the best solution - lots of people, as you say, running small projects. The best reason, and there are many, is that it keeps the reality of the problem front and center, and most of all, it keeps it personal. If they are YOUR animals, coming from YOUR village, and they are YOUR responsibility, it changes everything. The worst thing I think we can do is hand them over to the government and expect compassion. That is just asking for indifference. Even asking for government money is an express ticket for corruption - I am thinking of the foster care program in America for children - there are people who just take the children for the money and that is just bad news. Asking money from the Church - now that is a different matter - and I think they should fork some over. I know the Church here owns a ton of land that is just sitting there. Perhaps the Catholic Church does as well in Spain. It's a thought. But the more I think about it, whatever we do I think we should keep it private, personal, and charitable, and avoid it becoming civic in the political sense.

    As for the lawlessness here - phew - it is really something else - on the one hand, the people of Cyprus have retained a measure of common sense that is commendable regarding certain matters, which I can no longer say about the United States, where all common sense appears to have vanished. On the other hand, when you can't even ask people to form an ordered cue without them protesting, "Freedom!" then that is ridiculous, and that is what we have here.

    Arjun, thank you again, so much, for your comment and everything.

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