I gave away a kitty last night

Moro, a five-month-old black male domestic short hair, was given to a pet store clerk. Earlier in the day, I was buying some things there before running next door to the vet's to pick up my newly-neutered year-and-a-half-old black and white short hair, Buckie (Buccaneer). I asked the clerk as I was leaving if he was interested in a five-month-old cat, and he said he was. I brought Moro and his brothers, Pancho and Swashbuckler, in around closing time and gave the young man his choice, but made sure to tell him that Moro was the pick of the litter.

I'm going to miss Moro. Like his brothers, he is cute, adorable and impish. He seemed to be the brightest of the three. When I would go to the back room (the "nursery") to make sure all the cats there were fed and watered, he would come running out and make me chase him over the living room. Then, when he was tired, he'd stop and let me catch him. His brothers would also join in this game, but Moro was the first to venture out of the back room.

I am working on giving away Pancho and Swashbuckler as soon as possible. Three more kittens, Reynard, Bandit and Phoolan, will be three months old Christmas Day and I will try to give them away for the holidays.

If any one in my area is interested, please drop a PM. I live a few minutes west of Sacramento.

The clerk is an employee who probably doesn't make too much. But he was thrilled to have a cat.

Buckie is sitting on my lap as type this. He was one of four feral kittens I coaxed into the house last year. I've turned Jefazo out, who was being more of a nuisance than he was worth. Desperado doesn't get it, either. He keeps away from me even when I'm chasing him with an open can of tuna. He would have been turned out some time ago, but he's not that much trouble. He's next on the neutering list and then he will be released. Buckie was the first one to get it. He adopted me less than a month after coming into the house. He is fed and kept warm and all he has to do is kiss my ass and let me pet him. Spitfire, the lone female of that litter, was the last of the four to regularly hiss at me. The only time she does that now is after delivering a litter of kittens, which she has done twice: once in June and again in September. The June litter was six in number, but three of them died within a week of each other when they were about a month old. I took them to the vet and found that they were being sucked dry by fleas. The survivors were given baths two or three times a day for a month. The September litter had nine, and I didn't know a litter could have so many. Two died within days and three more followed before they were a month old. I lost another earlier this week. I don't get upset over the really small ones dying; Nature gave queens the ability to give birth to a half-dozen or so kittens about three times a year for several years in order for two of them to live long enough to reproduce themselves, thus keeping the population stable. However, the last one, a black female, was getting a little old not to care about.

Being an ardent anti-establishment romantic, I often give the cats anti-establishment or romantic names. Yes, Pancho is for Pancho Villa; Moro is Spanish for Moor; Swashbuckler, a son of Buccaneer, is self-explanitory. The seven-week old kittens are named for: Zorro, the fictitious highwayman and freedom fighter from Spanish California; Bandit is just an occupational name, like his father, Buccaneer; and Phoolan Devi, the late twentieth-century bandit queen of India (she is also a child of Buckie's).

In addition, Buckie and Spitfire also have four feral brothers and sisters who know where to get food. They are Flash Gordon, John Carter (after Edgar Rice Burroughs' explorer of Mars), Calico Jack (for a seventeenth-century pirate) and La Negra.

The mother/grandmother of all of the above was Pinta, a gray and white queen who was about three years old. The markings on her coat reminded me of a pinto pony. Pinta disappeared late this summer after introducing me to her last litter, which appears to have been born in March or April. I suppose she met some grusome end under a car, at the jaws of the neighbors' pit bull or perhaps getting trapped in a garbage can and taken to the dump.



Spitfire and her new litter, June 7, 2008
(As you see, she is wary of the guy with the camera around her brood)

She deserves to retire.

She'll get her shots in December, and we'll make a date for that then, when the Zorro, Bandit and Phoolan (all born September 25) will be big enough to go a day without their mommy.

You betcha she deserves to retire. So do I.

Surgeries are 100% free due to many donations of time and money.

Checking your profile, it is a little out of my way.

It looks like you can get some help over there.

I'm on disability, so I have to pinch my pennies.

My vet was not happy about that.

I'll take Spitfire to my vet to get spayed. She's welcome to stay here.

Desperado, who remains a committed feral, will get a budget neutering before he is released back to the wild.

Where can you neuter a rabbit for a decent price?
Budget is relly short.
Thanks.

It's a touchy subject with leporines.