On Thursday, we brought in 68 more cats to the PAWS-Chicago Spay/Neuter clinic to be fixed. 37 of these cats were "friendly ferals" while the other 31 were true ferals.

Super-volunteer Dedra helped me bring in the cats on Thursday morning (Thanks Dedra!) along with our President, Tammy. Because of the very large workload, PAWS was unable to do all of the cats on Thursday. They elected to do "only" the Friendly Ferals and held off the ferals until Friday. Tammy and Dedra both came back to PAWS to feed the ferals (which stayed overnight at PAWS) and helped me bring the friendly ferals back to Tammy's for recovery and distribution (Thanks again Dedra!).

Today, Friday, I picked up the ferals from PAWS and brought them back to Tammy's. One cat deserves a special note: This cat was very sick and beat-up and its caretaker was afraid it would not make it through surgery. But she trapped and sent it in anyway, hoping for the best. This cat turned out be in very bad shape - two tumors (one quite large), both ears messed up, infections in both eyes, teeth almost all gone (and the few remaining were in bad shape), etc., etc., etc. The cat was very thin, almost emaciated, and it was clear that it was not thriving outside. The PAWS vet spent an hour on just this one feral, fixing everything that could be fixed (and she was even spayed), but she told me that she feared for this cat - she didn't think it would have much have a chance to survive as part of an outside colony. However, PAWS offered to take this cat and make it one of their "Warehouse cats" - a small troupe of felines that live and roam their upstairs rooms, keeping down the mice (and teasing the dogs which are also temporarily housed up there). This is a godsend and we gratefully accepted. Tammy will be keeping the cat for several days to ensure that it recovers and begins regaining its strength. Once we think it's up to it, we'll then bring it back to PAWS to become part of their Warehouse cats. Thank you PAWS for all the work you did on this cat and giving it a chance to survive and then offering an environment where the cat should thrive!

Two of the friendlies were not done; one was already spayed and the other to ill for surgery. And one of the ferals was also not done; already neutered. This makes a total of 65 cats done on this trip. This brings our August total to 125, our yearly total to 723 and our overall total to 5,456.

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