Sunday, August 30, 2015



Blog 08/24/15 to 08/30/15  

Relocations and In Take
Our Cats after Release
Bad Calls/Emails:  Barn Cat Website Hacked
BMG (Bitch/Moan/Groan):  List of Organizations
OMG (Oh My God):  Rudy:  It’s an Old Injury

Relocations and In Take:   Placed 13 this week.  
3          Barn in Cleburne (Heidi, Toby, Little Girl)
3          Barn in Roanoke (Joe, Houston, Olivia)
4          Barn/Garage in Celina (Fric, Kolby, Lilly, Gilbert)
3          Barn in Farmersville (Primrose, Stripe, Cleo)

While I was out of town, the organization we support in Bonham did 15 spays/neuters – GREAT JOB – STOP THE BREEDING!  

Our Cats after Release:  
1.     Ennis – Placed Charlotte, a cat from an SPCA hoarder rescue, in this barn in Ennis.  She is doing GREAT – even letting the barn owner pick her up!  WOW!            

Bad Calls/EMAILS:  Barn Cat Website Hacked
YES – someone has hacked our website since April.  Why does anyone HACK a non-profit website?  We are not selling anything.  There is no personal info there.  I don’t get it.  Plus as we get “under the covers”, there are entries in FRENCH!  WHAT?  How our web resources will be spending many hours cleaning up this mess.  I apologize to anyone that sees the “This website may have been hacked” message if they use a Google browser.  It does not show up if you use FireFox…which is what I use.  A volunteer with the Humane Society of Lewisville noticed this and let us know.  Hope our guys can get it fixed soon.  We are getting into our BUSY SEASON and need those references.  BUMMER! 
           
BMG:  List of Organizations
When an individual goes to some local no-kill shelters and they cannot help the person, they hand out a list of other organizations to contact.  Those poor people start calling and get constant message boxes that say “We are full”.  That message never changes and often the groups never return any phone messages.  SO – that list thing is not the way to really FIND AN ADOPTION GROUP!  Other that the SPCA of Texas, Dog and Kitty City, Operations Kindness, and the DFW Humane Society, the other 200-400 adoptions groups in the DFW area do not have “shelters”.  They do foster homing which means that the animals are all in their homes during the week.  These groups are all volunteer and they rarely return phone messages.  But they all have to go somewhere to show their cats and dogs to get them adopted.  They all go to PetsMart and Petco locations each Saturday and Sunday.  THAT IS WHERE YOU FIND THEM!  You need to call all those stores within a reasonable driving distance, ask a store manager what groups go there each day on each weekend and what times they are there, then GO TO THE STORE when the group is there.  They cannot get away from you because you are standing in front of them, they have to be nice because you are in the store, and you can take the animal to show.  That is how you “Play the Game!” – not with a series of phone messages.
      
OMG:     Rudy:  It’s an Old Injury!
Received Rudy before I left on vacation.  Volunteers noticed that he was limping on a front foot.  So – took him to the vet, they knocked him out and took x-rays.  The foot/leg was broken some time back and it has healed incorrectly.  Now he will limp forever.  Looks like we have another permanent resident in the cat room.
 
Thanks for following the Barn Cats Blog.  See you all next week.      Peg

Saturday, August 1, 2015



Blog 07/27/15 to 08/02/15  

BLOG on Vacation August 3-23

Relocations and In Take
Our Cats after Release
July Closeout
Bad Calls/Emails:  Now It Is Worse
BMG (Bitch/Moan/Groan):  New Roof
OMG (Oh My God):  Reason We Do Not Order Litter On-Line
NEW VEHICLE -- FINALLY

Relocations and In Take:   Placed 2 this week.  
1                 Adoption Group (Slim)
1          Barn in Ennis (Kit Kat)

Our Cats after Release:  
1.     Dallas – June, Leslie, and Pete from Clifton were placed in this barn on the Dallas / Lancaster border.  There are sign they are around but the barn owners have not seen them but that is not unusual for the group of very feral cats.   
2.     Godley – Fluff, Miss Kitty, Gena, Mona, Molly, and Mama were all placed together in a workshop/barn combo in Godley.  All 6 have been spotted and 4 have let the barn owner’s wife pet them!   …but we did not see any. 
3.     Flower Mound – Beverly and Bob two cats from a hoarder went to this barn right in back of the house.  I saw one of the two when I picked up equipment but unsure which one – they look alike!          

July Closeout - We placed 39 in 5 North Texas counties:
            Collin              Denton            Young
            Dallas              Johnson

Bad Calls/EMAILS:  Now It Is Worse
Received a phone call (someone else with no computer) with cats in an area outside of any city.  Their particular county does not have any animal services offered.  Her cats are having more cats – no kidding!   I spoke with her in the spring but she did not take care of the sterilization and not there is just more – and there will be more and more and more.  I told her about a low cost spay/neuter clinic and discussed options for the kittens.  That is all I can do.  
           
BMG:  New Roof
One day at the end of May or beginning of June in a terrible rain storm, we got a roof leak down a wall in the cat room closet.  Nothing was damaged because all that is in there is a cat tree and beds for the elderly cats that live in that room.  So, I called my insurance and then a roofing company and started that process – SOMETHING ELSE TO DEAL WITH!  It was completed on Wednesday.  I took them longer because of the extreme heat.  They even had a cooler on top of my chimney – GOOD IDEA!   

      
OMG:  The Reason We Do Not Order Litter On-Line
All the years of Barn Cats (13 years) we have ordered 50 lb bags of Tidy Cat Litter from Sam’s Club every two weeks or so.  Now – THEY ARE NOT GOING TO CARRY IT ANY MORE!   BUMMER!  Plus, we need to stock up because I am leaving for 3 weeks.  Various folks have suggested “Just order it  on-line!”  So, I tried it out – ordered ten 40 lb bags from www.chewy.com.  Well, here in lies the problem:  It is delivered to my front door and we have to move it TWICE to get it to the back garage.  Take a look…



I could not even open the front door.   Plus, we now have 10 cardboard boxes to deal with – NOT A GOOD IDEA! 

NEW VEHICLE – FINALLY!
It was a 4-week struggle to get a new Ford Transit Connect but we finally have it.  Now I will need to get it wrapped with our former design retro-fitted for this vehicle.  It is a litter bigger with a lift-gate rather than the barn doors that were an obstacle with the former TC.  ALSO – it is better insulated so much less road noise. 




Thanks for following the Barn Cats Blog.  Blog will return on 8/30/15.      Peg