Adoptions: Mika, Angel & Snowball

For the Thanksgiving weekend, it seems appropriate to post on sanctuary news we always feel thankful for: the finding of a forever home for one or more of our residents. This month we've been able to bid farewell and good luck to three sanctuary cats.

Happy, high energy, other cat slapping Mika has now found a home where she can enjoy human company without having to smack her way through all the feline riffraff in the front courtyard to make sure she gets her fair share (i.e. all) of the love on offer.

The other adoption story has a personal connection for me, since after adopting mother and son duo Daphne and Leo, I always felt a little pang at having had to leave sister Angel behind. Now, not only has Angel found a home, but she was able to be placed with her friend and former housemate from her pre-sanctuary days, Snowball.

The last time I saw Angel before she went home, she was more animated and cheerful than I've ever seen her. She purred, she rubbed, she head butted and she danced. As much as I try to be wary of projecting human thoughts on a feline brain, I couldn't help wondering if she knew something was up - something good.

photo by Debbie

matatabi

The subject of today's post is not a who but a what: meet matatabi.

Matatabi (またたび), silvervine in English, is a plant native to east Asia. In Japan, it's popular for its entertaining, catnip-like effect on cats.

I'd heard about it but never seen it until my friends Vincent and Ayako brought a package of silvervine twigs back from a recent trip to Japan.

My cats liked it well enough, but the response was hardly electric. I was curious to see if I'd have any better luck with the cats at the sanctuary, so last night I came armed with one of these supposedly magic twigs. When I showed it to Karen, Doug and Ann, they looked unconvinced. It didn't help that the first few cats I tried presenting it to just gave me a look as if to say "Uh, yeah... it's a stick."

And then I had a taker...

Fred

And another...

Shylo

... and another. I soon ceased to doubt the power of the twig.
Interesting, though, how some cats found the scent incredibly appealing while others stuck to their original just-a-stick position.

Here are a few more cats who fell into the pro- camp:

Snowball

Angel

Diablo

Josie

Harry

Worried Harry looks a little too excited? Fear not. He went right back to his nap as soon as I took the matatabi away.

Instructions on usage from back of matatabi package

Lincoln

As for Lincoln, he dropped it of his own accord after suddenly discovering a case of the munchies.

PeeWee

A note on the use of cages

The c-word. This is a touchy one when looking at animal shelters.
I'm talking about cages.

I remember once as a child I begged my dad to take me to the local animal shelter to see the cats only to be faced with a bank of small, mewling cages. An especially desperate cat reaching through the bars to try and touch me led to my having to flee in tears. I still find it an upsetting episode.

Imagine how the cats felt.

A July piece in The Examiner on the San Francisco SPCA quotes Shelter Medicine Department director Dr. Jennifer Scarlett:

“Keeping large numbers of animals healthy and being mindful of each has always been an issue for me personally,” Scarlett said. “The traditional shelter environment in particular is extremely stressful for cats. They are small and so it’s easy to cram them into a small space. Unlike dogs, they don’t make a fuss, yet when you put them in a cage the size of an oven, they shut down. Also in a small space, cats are forced to exist right next to their litter boxes, which is contrary to their fastidious nature, not to mention, they unable to do normal cat things – stretch, walk, play and rest comfortably.”

Given that this is the sort of image that the word "cage" can evoke in relation to animal shelters, I've been reluctant to use it when talking about the RAPS sanctuary for fear of giving a wrong impression of the place. Perhaps I should explain.

The vast majority of the cats at the sanctuary are free to wander as they will around various parts of the complex.

If any of these cat should become ill, they are moved to a cage for observation and treatment, then let out again as soon as they are well enough.

Newcomers are given a cage to give them time to adjust to their new environment without having to deal with hundreds of other inhabitants at the same time. Cats like Rita especially need this kind of refuge. Young ferals are much more likely to become tame and friendly if they are placed somewhere they will be regularly exposed to humans. Take Lillix, for example.

When I first met my two, they were in a large cage with four other cats.

Why so crowded? They'd all been housemates before being surrendered and it allowed them to stay together.
The four were let out soon after I adopted Daphne and Leo, but Snowball has recently been returned to her old cage, which she now has all to herself, for a "time out" because she needed a break from all the other cats.

I spent some time with her in there after my shift this week and found her looking more relaxed than she's been in a while.

Next up: Aurora, cage dweller by choice!

Snowball

Daphne (aka Lacey), Leo and Angel had all been fostered in a home with three cats already in residence. When they all had to be brought to the shelter, they were allowed to stay together.

Snowball is a beautiful white longhair with blue eyes. I hear she has a slight limp, which she was born with, but it doesn't appear to bother her and it's easy to forget she even has it.

Snowball has a really nice personality to go with her good looks. In spite of this, I worry that she's unlikely to be adopted - for the simple reason that she's 9. She hardly seems like an old cat, but many if not most people think twice about taking in and getting attached to an animal already approaching 10. And yet I had a cat live to 22!

After I took Daphne and Leo home, the other four cats were released from their small enclosure to join the general population of the shelter. I try to find and check in on them whenever I'm there. Snowball's taken the transition with good grace, still napping in soft places and purring when roused. This in spite of indignities such as being thrown up on as she had been one time I came to see her or having a chunk of fur pulled out by some bad tempered cat on another. And she needs a good brush.

And yet when I took the picture above, it was almost impossible to get a focused shot because she wouldn't stop purring and trying to climb in my lap for a cuddle. Most of them came out like this:

Updated October 4, 2010: Wonderful news - Snowball and her good friend Angel have been adopted together!

Angel

Looking at Angel is the only easy way to tell that Leo and Daphne are blood relations. She's got a black and white version of her mom's long coat and a mostly straight version of her brother's short tail. She also shares with Leo a streak of white along her back like some random mistake of a brushstroke. Angel's is more pronounced and against the black fur it gives her an appearance reminiscent of Penelope Pussycat from the Pepé Le Pew cartoons.

Personality-wise, I find Angel a bit hard to figure. She can be very good at feigning indifference, as if she'd sized up the human world and found it all a bit lacking. Granted, when I met her she had recently been taken out of the only home she knew and was living with five other cats in an enclosure the size of a large shower stall... Despite food and water, soft things to sit on and the presence of the cats she grew up with, I guess it's hard to blame her for being unimpressed with the whole situation.

I was very pleased to hear she was adopted shortly after I took her mother and brother home. I was very surprised to hear yesterday that she was back at the sanctuary again. She was to be a companion for an older cat and apparently intimidated that cat so much that it just wasn't going to work out.

Angel appears to be taking all this in stride. I went to visit her and she totally ignored me, being very much engrossed in the business of lounging. Next time I passed by, though, she changed her mind and decided a bit of attention might not be so bad. She even deigned to meow.

Updated October 4, 2010: Wonderful news - Angel and her good friend Snowball have been adopted together!