Feral Fixers brought 33 cats to the PAWS-Chicago Spay/Neuter clinic to be fixed today. 17 of these cats were ferals while the remaining 16 were 'friendly ferals'.
Super-volunteer Charli helped me pick up the cats from Tammy's this morning and take them to PAWS (Thanks Charli!) while super-volunteers Rita & Judy helped me pick up the cats from PAWS this afternoon and take them back to Tammy's. Thanks Rita! Thanks Judy! And (the other) super-volunteer Judy was, as always, at Tammy's this morning and this evening to help out with everything. Thanks Judy!
One of the ferals, Ulysses, was an interesting case. Ulysses is a big yellow Tabby and Tammy had hopes that he might be friendly. However, he absolutely refused to eat anything in the three days he has been in a trap - not good! He also appeared very beat up, with abcesses and something funky with his eye. So we asked the Vets at PAWS to take a special look at Ulysses and let us know their opinion of him. We also had him tested for FIV/FeLV. Unfortunately, he tested positive for FIV, but the PAWS vets told us that, despite his appearance, Ulysses is a healthy cat. He had lots of muscle mass, the abcesses/wounds he had were old and had healed as had his ulcerated eye. They cleaned up his wounds to make them a bit more presentable and gave him a shot of Convenia and said that he should do fine. So, we have high hopes for Ulysses...
One of the Friendlies wound up not getting surgery. He had been ill (URI, I think) and had been on doxycycline for 10 days before we brought him to PAWS. The examining Vet (Dr. Cirillo) looked at him and told me that she did not recommend surgery as a) he was still slightly symptomatic with URI and b) was under 2 pounds. These two factors made him a risky candidate for surgery. But rather than just flat-out reject him, Dr. Cirillo asked me if this was one of those "yes, please do it, we'll never get another chance with this cat" types of cases or not. Checking with Tammy, I found that we could bring him back in a week or two with no problems. PAWS actions with both Ulysses and the URI-friendly are typical of the way they treat every cat individually and with care - we love you PAWS!
So, 32 cats were fixed today (17 males and 15 females). This brings our July total to 84, our yearly total to 543 and our overall total to 5,276.