Watching the news just now, there was a really touching conversation between a child and his father following the attacks in Paris - see here  The father said something along the lines of 'they have guns but we have flowers, and the flowers and the candles will protect us'. It is a time of terrible world events for which solutions seem hard to find. 

it is so good to be able to fix some suffering on a very micro non-human level. 

Tortipizza was anaesthetised and examined yesterday. It turns out she had some rotten teeth and these have been extracted. This is actually really good news as (a) her ability to eat should improve a lot as the pain of these teeth and gums subsides and (b) it suggests she may not necessarily have the nasty cat viruses we feared. If the vet had found inflammation and ulcers, but no obvious tooth problem, this would have indicated she could have FELV or FIV. Neither is treatable.

We had a feeling it was something 'physical' like this, as apart from the mouth problem she seemed in quite good shape, unlike Silver Shadow a few years ago who had a mouth problem but was also in very bad shape physically, seeming to be quite weak and bedraggled, and having lost weight. 

So this morning we let Tortipizza go, making sure she had eaten some soft food, and as always happens when you release a feral cat, she went off like a shot from the cage as soon as I raised the door. 

As we are now back in London we can only hope she is getting some macaroni for dinner! The neighbours will try to ensure she does.

Isn't it great that some things can be easily fixed?

A very satisfying round of cat business.

Success on a few fronts. We took the little butterfly cat and her sister, TortiMiniMe, to be neutered yesterday and all went well. When we released them this morning (their mum Jessica was waiting outside the house at 6 am) they shot off, but both turned up later for food, much to our delight, and they look really well, and not as if they have just had the weirdest 36 hours of their short lives! There's a great feeling of satisfaction with this. They will likely live longer and happier lives, only needing to worry about getting food for themselves - in addition to not producing any kittens.
 
The other thing that has surprised us is that we did finally manage to catch Tortipizza who has the mouth problem. She is currently sitting quietly in a cage in our darkened bathroom awaiting her appointment tomorrow morning with the vet, who will sedate her and examine her mouth. She was making the most horrible yowling noises earlier, to the point where we were feeling terrible that she was so distressed. But it is the right thing to do, and we're hopeful her problem is something surgery can fix, and she can live a much longer life and never have to be in a cage again. If we could communicate I think she'd agree on that point.

​We face constant dilemmas about doing this stuff. We question ourselves all the time, and I have to remind myself that I did not go looking for a Spanish village with feral cats. I imagined using binoculars to watch buzzards and seeing the odd hedgehog, boar or deer (all this happens!). I did not for a minute consider we'd be running some kind of cat hospital, and I really wish there weren't any feral cats here, or that there were perhaps 5 neutered and healthy adults who were warm and dry and well-fed! I share these anxieties with the neighbours as well, but more about that later.
 
The reality is that there are many feral cats here, and we have some opportunity to help (and maybe reach that goal of there being a few healthy adults) so I think we must.  But intervening comes with much soul searching.

We are only here for a few more days, and want to accomplish a lot with the cats. First we want to take two of the young females to the vet to be sterilised, as well as finally getting Tortipizza checked out. Plus we want to set up some warm places for the cats to sleep in the abandoned houses nearby.


The two young females are around 5 months old and should be spayed soon  (Butterfly Cat here is one). As we are not going to be around to organise this until probably the new year, they would then be 7 months old and likely to be pregnant. I have been reading up on the various feral cat advice sites (there are loads and seem to be mainly from the US) and they agree that 5 months is not too young, some even say spaying can be done at 4 months or younger. Of course this is different to the accepted wisdom about domestic cats where the advice is usually to spay at 6 months. But that situation is where you may have control over the cat, or the cat might have the protection of a home or humans. In the case of ferals they have no protection at all. For more on this see www.feralcats.com/feral-kittens 

So we stopped off to talk to the local vet today and agreed to bring in these two this week.  We will also speak with him about Tortipizza. She can't eat dry food as she has a problem with her mouth. She eats the tinned food that we give her and the macaroni that the neighbours provide, if she can get to it before the others. So we really need to find out if there is something going on with her teeth or jaw that surgery could fix. I tried several times to catch her last time we were here but she is very wary of the traps (having had that experience once around 5 years ago when she was neutered!). She has a long memory that one, and is a smart cookie. If only we could explain that we want to help her! I am hoping a 'delicious' paste treat, called 'Gimpet' (sounds and smells disgusting) I have brought with me will do the trick to get her into a trap.

Finally, we want to set up two plastic boxes I bought, as houses for the winter. I bought some large polystyrene boxes a few years ago which were purpose built for feral cats, with cat flap size doors and two chambers inside. We put them on bricks so they are off the floor, in one of the abandoned houses. We have no idea if they have been used. They are still there and if you lift the lid there appear to be signs of activity, grit and bits of leaf but no obvious fur. Who knows?  I read today that cats whose ears are turned over on the tips could have had frostbite. We have a few of these here, the tail-less cat for example. I thought it was genetic but perhaps it was frostbite! This underlines the importance of warm shelters during the winter. The plan for the new plastic boxes, which are 'blanket box' size, is to cut catflap shape holes in either end and line with a few tight fitting layers of cardboard. We're hoping this will give some insulation. I am sure they curl up in a big heap for warmth, and quite a few cats will fit in these. Adam is not convinced they'll use them, and I hope to prove him wrong! Eventually I would like to build a proper outside shelter based on a shed design, but we haven't managed that yet.

Well, here we are again in early November. It's a special time of year where you get gloriously warm days, but some mornings are misty, like this morning. It has something to do with San Martin and San Miguel apparently! See here 

Cats-wise, the usual suspects have been around and some newcomers as well. This handsome boy could be responsible for some kittens methinks! Here are some pics, and we will write more later.

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