A new chapter in Walter's life

As you know the heavy rains we had this year, as well as last's, made the weeds grow exponentially and it was impossible for me to walk to the fence that separates mother's property from Walter's corral.  However, I was able to see him as I drove by his house every time I went to town.

I had not seen him for a while but that has happened before and he has always come back. After we had the property cleared we once again had a good view of his corral.  He shared that corral with another horse that his owner bought about two years ago.

I happen to see Walter's owner feeding the white horse so I made my way to our shared fence to talk to him. I asked him about Walter, he replied that he was no longer around. I was horrified and forced to ask if he had died.

I think he saw how affected I was and he quickly said...no, no, don't worry he is alive I sold him to another individual. I asked him if he sold him to an out-of-towner but he quickly replied that Walter was still in Del Rio.

I can only hope my little Walter has a better owner than the one he had. While I will miss him, I am happy for him as he starts this new chapter in his life. My only regret is that I did not get to say good-bye.

Am I becoming a Cat Lady ?

If it was not enough when Blanca (momma cat) showed up at mother's house got pregnant and had three offsprings ( Paquito, Rudy, and Nico) now I have four additional cats showing up daily demanding to be fed!

One of them is a kitten about three and a half months old who is precious and is orange and white. He has staked his claim in back of the little structure that houses the water heater and where Tammie (my ex-little stray dog), as well as Blanca, first brought their offspring to safeguard them from predators and the elements.

I also have the cats daddy, as well as another calico cat which has no tail and runs like a bunny and a grayish cat coming by daily now that they can see straight to the kitchen porch from the fence in the northern part of mother's property.

They are driving me nuts, in particular, Blanca and Paquito.  I can not go outside without both fighting to come in and now Nico and Rudy want to follow in their footsteps.  It would not be so bad if Blanca did not try to beat up her now full-grown offsprings because she has actually hurt them.

My nerves are shot...I can not handle all these cats...I find myself yelling at them all the time.  Every time I yell at them the lady neighbor across the street comes out to see what is going on.  Funny, I do not come out when her full-grown son and his wife get into shouting matches and the cops show up.....grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!

Living in the county sucks as Animal Control will not take stray cats or dogs or anything else unless you live within the Del Rio City limits.

Guarding the food

Blanca is still hobbling and it wasn't until today that I had my camera handy to take a picture of her injury.

I was busy cleaning the trunk of dad's old car when she along with her now grown cats decided to come over and act as supervisors :)

There are three stray cats who lay around the northern fence and now have a clear view of the kitchen porch. They know this is where I feed my boys on top of the old washing machine.

You can see a white ball in the far right by the fence.

The other night Nico was just sitting there watching one of them eat without doing anything about it. I dashed outside and ran him or her off.

This afternoon Blanca saw the same one eating and despite her bad leg took off after it. I had to make my way there as they were making these horrible sounds like they were going to fight.

When I got there the other cat took off and Blanca started sniffing around and then went to the adjacent lot after it even though I called her back.

Never a dull moment with four cats around.

In the hunt for a new pet carrier

I have been looking to purchase an additional pet carrier.  I saw one at Walmart that is both top as well as front loading but was rather small.  Checked out some that were made of canvas fabric but I think Paquito would shred it to pieces if I tried to place him in it.

I cleaned Blanca's wound with peroxide and applied 3 in 1 ointment which she quickly licked from her leg. I need to take her to the vet in Mexico but I have had a very busy schedule this week.

On another note even though Pollito has yet to clear the southern part of the property, the cats are loving having the run of the northern yard without getting lost in the brush and weeds.

Dollar Tree cat collars

The new collar I bought Nico only lasted him two days before he managed to take it off.  I walked around the two cleared lots but did not find it.  It is a good thing I only paid $1.00 for it. Too bad I never managed to take a picture of him sporting it as he looked quite dapper.

Saturday I made a trip to the Dollar Tree and bought three more as due to their poor quality they do not last long. The only reason I want them to wear one is for the bell to ring and serve as a warning for the birds to avoid becoming a snack.  It has not saved a few but hopefully, it has let others fly away.

Rudy's collar was almost in tatters so I put a new one on this afternoon.  I tried to take his picture but he was not cooperative so this is the best I could do...

It just dawned on me that he likes to stick his tongue out when I photograph him.

Blanca (momma cat) did not show up yesterday but she made an appearance this afternoon. She is still limping and has a wound in her left front leg. I went inside to find some disposable gloves and 3 in 1 Ointment but by the time I came back she had left. Will try to cure her next time she makes an appearance.

The cats reaction

I was worried about the cats' reaction when the heavy machinery moved in.  I could not bring all of them into the kitchen nor did I know when the man I hired would arrive.  I had intended to at least bring in Paquito as he rushes in when I am carrying the laundry or takes advantage of any opportunity to come into the house.

By the time I heard the tractor, it was too late and I could not find any of them as they had rushed to seek shelter who knows where.  After he left I went outside to look around at the now void of any vegetation northern part of the property.

I called out to them and was surprised that the first one to come out of hiding was Nico the scary cat!  Next was Rudy while Paquito made me really sweat it out as he would not respond to my calls.

Blanca (momma cat) had been missing for two days and she stayed missing until she showed up this afternoon extremely hungry.  Have no idea where she might have been.

Anyhow, it was funny to see their reaction to the new landscape and also to the large pile of brush and shrubbery he left in the back of the house.  They went around smelling everything and of course climbing the pile.

Is it any wonder why I love Paquito!

New collar for Nico

On a prior post, I was so happy that Nico had finally allowed me to pet him.  Well, after that he turned back to being a scary cat.  I had bought three collars for my boys but Nico had eluded me.

This morning he must have been very hungry because he ran toward his plate and I was able to corral him and put his new collar on without a struggle.  He looks so handsome but would not pose for pictures. Hopefully, I will be able to get some soon even if I have to use the zoom lens.

His brothers had no problem posing with theirs...

Rudy and Paquito (my One Eyed-Jack)

My boys turned 6 months old

My boys turned 6 months old on Monday...my kitties are officially cats now.

Nico, Paquito, and Rudy

Nico finally let me pet him!!!

It took almost six months but Nico finally let me pet him today.  I have no idea why he would always run away from me even though I never did anything to scare or frighten him.  On the contrary, up until six weeks I, believed him to be a "she" and I tried hard to gain his trust so I could take "her" to be fixed.

Both Paquito and Blanca walk with their tail up in the air so you could tell their sex.  Rudy and Nico do not.  It wasn't until I was feeding them and I used Paquito's leg to lift up Nico's tail so as not to frighten him and confirmed he was indeed a male.

He has such a pretty face he looks like a girl...I had named her Katya. Now that I had confirmed him to be a male, I decided to name him Nico after a Bexar County District Attorney who has a cool name...Nico LaHood.

I am so glad that Blanca had three boys so I won't have a maternity ward here but I still plan to neuter them.

Blanca has become a bad momma cat

I do not know what is wrong with Blanca.  She was a good mother from the get-go.  She nursed her kittens way beyond what most momma cats do.  However, two weeks before I had her fixed she turned on them and would hiss and claw at them if they came near her.

I figured this would cease after she was spayed but that has not been the case.  Paquito (my favorite of the litter) was the one most attached to her and she clawed him in the only good eye he has left and I had to rush him back to the vet a few weeks ago.

Paquito with his infected eye after his
mother clawed him

I thought we had come to a truce. Her three kittens (who are not kittens anymore) would stay in the back porch by the kitchen door and Blanca would be by the front of the house where I bring her in to feed her in the enclosed front porch.

It worked out for a while but if I came back late in the afternoon...which I do all the time...they would all be waiting for me in the front yard and then all hell would break loose. These darn cats are training ME instead of the other way around.

If I feed the kittens first, she gets mad and comes and eats their food and of course, hisses and claws at them. The other two have learned to avoid her but apparently, Paquito has not. The last thing I need is to have him lose his eye and be left for blind.

All my life I have had male cats (one at a time) never female except for one I adopted after the people that rented across the street moved and abandoned her.  I even had her fixed only to lose her after a car ran over her shortly afterward.

Walter is still not back in his stable.  I am wondering if they sold him or he passed on.

Walter Update - August 2018

I have not seen Walter all this week.  I can no longer walk up to our dividing fence line as the little path I used to use is totally grown over more so after last weeks rains.  I can only see him from the road as his corral faces a very busy street. There is a white horse that shares his corral and he is still there.  Maybe he is at the owner's nephew's house?

I need to change the header photo but most of my pictures are on my old laptop and I can not find the power cord for it.  Pedrito, I believe is dead and Dulcinea left with her owner after he divorced Walter's owner's daughter.

Blanca is fixed

I want to thank my readers on my Terlingua Dreams blog for their advice and suggestions as to how to get Blanca to go into her pet carrier.  I watched countless videos on YouTube but I was still apprehensive about being able to carry it out on my own.

The Veterinary Clinic in Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila - México has a long waiting list for spay/neuters and Blanca was on a two-week wait so I had time to gain her trust. She is not afraid of me, when she first came to the house she would follow me around everywhere and I almost fell on various occasions. After her litter was born she was too busy to follow me but still comes and rubs herself on my leg and tennis shoes.

Decided to use this to my advantage and began petting her on the head. She seemed to like it and did not try to scratch me.  Most of the videos I watched were of neighborhood stray cats and the use of pet traps. One lady caught two the night before and in her video mentioned the importance of not giving them food before surgery and of draping their cages with a tarp or towel to soothe them.

The kitchen is in the back of the house and I can close the door to keep her from the living area and most importantly my mother who is allergic to pet dander.  I started letting her in to feed her while I put on soft music and talked to her in a soothing voice.

I debated whether or not to trap her the night before but decided against it.  I barely slept that night thinking she might not show up in the morning or if she would freak out when I tried to get her in the carrier.

The morning of the surgery I hid the pet carrier after I had turned it on its side.  I gave her two little treats as I draped a pair of old flannel pants around her body and made sure to hold her hind legs while I lowered her in without any issues. Oh yeah...I wore leather work gloves just in case, but thankfully she did not scratch me.

I placed her in the back seat of my car but did not want to drape a towel over the pet carrier as it was a warm morning.  She did cry for a while and then she pooped!!!!! So obviously she had something to eat either last night or in the morning. 

The vet took her out of the carrier and then placed her in a cage and I came home with a stinky mess.  The line to cross was very short and rather than one officer they had three plus the guy who handles the dog.  They asked me what I had to declare and asked me to pop open the trunk.  Before I did, I warned them that my cat had just pooped...they did not seem phased, so watched with glee as they opened it, caught a whiff stepped away and rapidly closed it...jajajajaja....it was funny :)

I picked her up in the afternoon with a now clean carrier.  There were so many people there and it took about an hour for them to call me in and give me instructions on her care.  She is a stray what part of that do they not understand?

On one of the videos, it shows that stray or feral cats have a little notch made on their ear by the vet so that you can tell if they have been spayed or neutered.  This particular vet tattoos a black mark on her stomach but agreed to also make a notch on her ear.

Blanca has bad luck, in all the years that I have taken critters to México they have never asked me for my pets medical records and today they did.  Lucky for her she also got her rabies and other shots today and was allowed into the USA :)

Blanca may be a keeper

About two weeks ago I went out to the backyard via the kitchen door when I saw something that made me freeze on my tracks.  There was this baby snake...upon further inspection from a respectable distance...it was dead!

I do not know if this snake was in mother's property or if Blanca brought it from another location.  What I am certain of is that she killed it.  She just may be a keeper after all even though it might involve forking out money to have her fixed.

Her kittens are sure growing up fast.  They are mischievous and get into everything but at the moment do not follow me around like she does.

Her name is Blanca

Got tired of calling the stray cat...the white cat...so decided to name her Blanca.  Blanca is the feminine of the color white in Spanish which is Blanco.

Blanca and her kittens have taken over the covered patio by the kitchen.  Oh yeah, forgot to mention she has three kittens.  A white one that looks just like her, a black one and a striped black and gray one.  I have no idea what their gender is.

Blanca is such a good mother, she is always nursing or tending to her litter. Though she has not gotten over following me everywhere even leaving them when she is nursing them to do so.

I took pictures but I can not upload them from this computer.  Will try to do so from my old Windows 7 laptop later on.

First kitten sighting

The white cat has been spending a lot of time on the patio by the kitchen.  That tells me that her kittens must be close by that she can keep an eye on them.

This morning I kept on hearing a small cat meows went outside and saw a little white cat that is the spitting image of her.  Then momma cat came out from behind the wooden structure that houses the water heater.

I could hear some more meows but I did not see the others.  I was washing dishes when I noticed the cat was coming back to the porch with something black in her mouth.  Thought...there she goes again eating mice...as she got closer it was evident that it was another kitten.  That answers the question of who the father of her litter is...the black cat who comes to eat the flour tortillas I can not eat.

Anyone want to adopt a kitty?