Photo by Lisacat

This is Hooper, a 3 month old kitten who is one of 9 strays Mike and I trapped from our back yard over the course of the last week. Hooper somehow managed to break both bones in his right front leg, but this tough little guy still climbed fences and played around with his siblings for a couple of weeks until we could catch him and get him help.

That help was provided by some amazing friends: the BARC shelter in Williamsburg donated space in their warehouse to house the cats temporarily; the ASPCA provided us with spay/neuter services at no cost as part of their humane Trap-Neuter-Return program; and the medical professionals at City Critters got Hooper examined, x-rayed and patched up. Hooper is on the mend, with about two weeks of cage rest ahead of him before he can be neutered and returned home to his mom and siblings.

Mike and I plan to make a donation to help defray the costs of the care Hooper has received from these wonderful people. If you'd like to contribute, please feel free to contact me by email, or send funds by Pay Pal to jnblssm at yahoo dot com. You can also make a donation directly to City Critters at www.citycritters.org. Thank you.

"I think how we treat our animals reflects how we treat each other," he said. "And it's very important that we have a president who is mindful of the cruelty that is perpetrated on animals."

I was a little too frazzled to take many photos of our TNR adventures this weekend, but I did snap a few photos of Funny Face after we got her into a carrier and indoors. All in all we feel pretty good about our results: Funny Face, all three of The Littles plus one of Funny Face's newest litter were trapped and taken to BARC to be altered and ear-tipped. They'll hang out there for a few days to recover, then we'll bring them back to the yard.

Unfortunately, the remaining three kittens eluded us. They came by this morning and Mike put food out for them, and they seem to be doing fairly well without their mama around, but I do hope we have another opportunity to get them taken care of. One kitten is hopping around with an injured paw which concerns me as well, but the best we can do now is just keep an eye on them all.

Our sweet friend the Hoople was nowhere to be found during all of this, which is particularly heartbreaking. He was the first of the back yard kitties to show up when we moved in, and life on the streets is definitely beginning to take a toll. The last time he came by for food he had a huge bump under one of his eyes, and the eye itself was nearly swollen shut - I'm not sure if it was an injury or infection of some sort, but I had really hoped we could get him in not just to neuter him but to hopefully have his eye looked at. I think he's past the point of being adoptable, so getting him fixed is likely the best thing we can do for him and I'm sad that we missed this opportunity. I hope we have another chance to do right by him before we leave here.