Since I last wrote, a few things have happened!
August 3rd: I went to check on Princess near the massage place at the market, and there she was. She wasn’t alone. There was another black cat with her. One I had seen before. Unsterilised, and looking like he might have a skin disease. I decided to take her to the hospital, as she was due to go the next day to be sterilised on the 5th, and I thought, what if she starts being in heat? I couldn’t see her kitten initially, but as I was about to leave, she came out of her hiding place, and I was determined to get her too. It took me a while, and I almost ran out of treats, but I got her after some efforts and a lot of sweat.
I drove them both to the hospital on my scooter. I decided to call the kitten Baby, because I just couldn’t think of a name!
Baby tested negative for all gastro infections, FeLV and FIV. Which was such a relief!
I decided to leave her at the hospital with her mother, as she’s way too small to be alone on the street.
August 4th: I saw the beautiful black dog again. No collar, no human with him.
I put an ad online, and there were actually people willing to give him a home. But I haven’t seen him since, so maybe he’s someone’s dog or he’s been taken by someone. If I see him again, the plan is to take him to the hospital to check if he’s chipped. And if not, there’s a lady who wants him and who’s willing to come from Khao Lak to pick him up.
August 5th: I took a cat to get an abortion. I mentioned her before. Turned out she was already sterilised and just quite fat. Probably sick as well, but as it was a sterilisation team, they didn’t run any tests. They vaccinated, dewormed, and treated her for parasites though, which is good. I’ll try to take her to the hospital one day to see if we can get some meds for her leaking eyes.
That day, Princess got spayed. She was still pretty groggy when I visited her.
Also on that day, I started chatting with a lovely Thai woman who is trying to find a home for a dog I met a few weeks ago, who had been dumped by someone in my neighbourhood. His name is Big, and the poor dog was abandoned by yet another foreigner who left the country. I used to think we shouldn’t judge people without knowing their story, but I now understand why rescuers are so pissed off. Every day, there’s someone trying to rehome their cat or their dog in the animal groups, and abandoned animals keep showing up all over the island. And maybe there are people who really are going through something beyond their control. But most of these people are just irresponsible assholes who decided to adopt a pet because they thought it would be fun, and dump it as soon as it becomes inconvenient. And the people who care, like me and some others, are left with the heavy task of trying to help these poor animals who don’t understand where and why their humans went. Some keep waiting and hoping where they were dumped. It is heartbreaking.
August 6th: Panda’s blood test results were better but still not good enough to get him vaccinated and/or sterilised, so they suggested a hormonal treatment plan, to which I agreed of course, as it has helped Garfield a lot.
August 7th: I noticed Princess had diarrhea when I was visiting, so I immediately informed the vet. They tested her for infections and she was positive to coronavirus. They isolated her immediately and started meds. Baby tested negative, but doc recommended to give her a supplement to support her immune system.
I freaked out at first, but after reading about it online, I realised it would probably be fine after a few days.
Since then, we’ve been careful when visiting them, as I didn’t want to contaminate the FeLV cats with corona. Doctor recommended to visit the FeLV cats first with a jacket, and then take off the jacket when visiting the corona and maybe corona cats. A week later, everything is fine! Princess tested negative for coronavirus yesterday, but positive for giardia, which is an intestinal parasite. I’m not worried about that one, as we’ve had cats who had it before. Usually kittens. We were advised to separate them, but it wasn’t always completely possible and it never was a big problem. They always got rid of it.
Baby is negative for everything and received her FeLV vaccine on Monday.
Garfield can be discharged, but we don’t have a home for him, so we keep him at the hospital for now, but I’m hopeful we’ll find a kind soul to look after him.
Panda’s blood test results were much better on August 13th. Vet said they showed significant improvement. So they vaccinated him on that day. If everything keeps looking good, he’ll be neutered next week. And then, hopefully, we’ll find him a home too.
Both Garfield and Panda are cuddly nose bumpers. So sweet and loving. They love it when we visit. We’ve been going every day. Michael starts work again on Monday, and he won’t be able to go anymore during the week, so I’ll have to see if I can go every day. Probably not on Tuesdays, but I will try on other days. I think Princess and Baby should get a family easily enough, so after this month, it should get less busy.
Oh, and also, I have a pigeon now. Broken wing, will never fly again, if I free it, it’ll be dead in no time. So, I’m keeping it and need to learn how to care for a pigeon…
I paid what was due for the four cats on Monday: 23,362 baht, which is about £520. Michael made a spreadsheet to help me keep track of expenses and donations. We have spent 96,038 baht to help at least 14 strays since we started the fundraiser, which is about £2,143, and we still have about £1,520 available. We received £3,659 in donations, so that sounds about right. The exchange rate fluctuates.
Here are the invoices, on which I added some notes, as they didn’t clearly indicated what was already paid. I don’t want to confuse them too much by asking to not include what was already paid. It took a while for them to understand exactly what I wanted when I asked for detailed invoices, so I’m happy enough with that, and I can add some notes so it’s all clear. What’s in the notes has been previously shared on this blog.