THE GOOD, THE BAD and JEFFREY

I wrote this post several weeks ago and never published it.
I suppose the reason was because I was hoping for a more complete ending.
Well, I finally have one!
You will find an update at the end of the post
and I can finally hit the Publish button on this one! -

The GOOD:
The Humane Society brings in animals to our clinic that they find or who have been released to them, who need medical attention.
It happens all the time.
Right now there is a kitten who was impaled on a fence.
He suffered damage to the area around one of his eyes and wounds to his belly.
He's doing great now. All fixed up, the eye was saved and his wounds almost completely healed.
Sometimes these animals get patched up and then sent back to the Shelter where they have capable staff to care for them.
But as we all know, the shelters are always full so sometimes we just keep these animals until they are more fully healed and adoptable.
We also have another kitten, who is fast becoming a cat, who was paralyzed on her lower body.
Her owner had a stroke and fell on her.
After a lot of care, chiropractic and laser treatments and therapy work, she's regaining use of her hind legs.
Not full use but if you set her on the floor, she flies across the room!
They seem to think there's a very good chance of full recovery.
Both kittens have people interested in adopting them as soon as they are given the green light to go home.
That should be any day now.

Then, just the other day they brought in a little Pitbull.
The woman that cares for the animals medical needs at the Shelter is a friend of mine.
We've become friends through work and the fact that I've rescued several pets through the Shelter.
So she was coming out of an exam room as I was walking by.
This little guy was so small that I thought he was a puppy but he's in fact a year old.
Sadly he doesn't really have use of his legs.
Right away I noticed the weird twist on one of his front knees.
My friend assured me that he could still maneuver around quite well in spite of his limbs.
I couldn't stop myself and I scooped him up and held his soft squishy body against my chest.
He had such a dopey wrinkly face.
If you've never embraced a Pitbull, I should tell you that they feel wonderful.
It's a soft smooth warm feel.
So I had him snuggled up to me and
my friend said "Oh my God Cindi NO!" and laughed.
I told her not to worry, I'm not acquiring any more pets.
I set him down and looked at his legs and she told me how Doc said the one knee might need some work done on it, some surgery, but it was very hopeful.
I looked down at him again and picked him up and handed him to her.
"OK!" I said, "I know you'll find him a great home!"
and then I went back to my work area.

I was glad to know that they were going try to get him better and adoptable.
Of course I did have that brief thought about how I could get that garden cart I've been wanting and pull him around on it....
I told that to one of the vet techs who is a friend and she laughed and said she had been thinking about getting a kids wagon.
So, that's all the good things.

Then there's JEFFREY.

Jeffrey came in as a kitten with a hole in his belly.
A big one.
They weren't sure, but most likely a dog got a hold of him.
So Doc stitched him back up and gave his antibiotics and pain medication and the staff cared for him.
I'm not sure who named him Jeffrey but one day, that was his name.

He had such a BIG personality for such a little kitten.
During lunch hours and after the clinic closed, the techs would let him run around.
Apparently one night as they pulled a blanket out of a kennel, Jeffrey jumped on it for a ride.
So the girls pulled him around the lab area and laughed that he was on his magic carpet.
They said that Doc turned from his computer and watched and LAUGHED.
It wasn't much longer after that, that Jeffrey was ready to go back to the Shelter
but then Doc told the girls to call and let the Humane Society know that the bill was covered and we were going to keep Jeffrey!
So Jeffrey became the new clinic cat.
There is one cat up in the reception area, Cinderella, but she just sleeps on the counter all day and only wakes up for meals.
Jeffrey was EVERYWHERE
and when he would finally need a nap, he crawled into one of the file bins and snoozed.

He claimed it as his own so the girls made it his bed, complete with a name tag.

So many people played with him and loved on him and dressed him up.
For Veteran's Day:

and Thanksgiving:

Here he is, joining in for the staff meeting:

He could be a rowdy boy and quite the stinker.
A couple of the staff teased him though and I'm sure that added to his behavior of giving a scratch here and there and little bites.

Back in my area, I have a cat room.
In the cat room are my Kanga, and Doc's very elderly cat and another elderly girl and another cat that Doc didn't want to put down during an appointment for euthanasia and asked the owner to sign the cat over to the clinic instead, which the owners gladly did. Apparently that cat peed outside of the box and they were moving and didn't want that happening at the new place. (Although she has never done so since she's been in the cat room...)

THE BAD.
So Jeffrey could be annoying at times.
There were times when SOME people were working and I could see them getting mad, even angry at Jeffrey, so I'd pick him up and carry him back to the cat room with me.
Then at some point during the day, Doc would ask the techs where Jeffrey was and they'd come back and get him.
So it became a back and forth thing.

Some days he was up front and some days in the back with me.
Then finally the day came when the girls who loved him, would come back and pick him up and carry him to their area and he'd immediately ran back to my cat room door.
Rumor had it that some others would get so mad at him that he just didn't want to be up there anymore.

Truth be told, he was very rowdy in the cat room too.
I'd come in many times to messes he made.

But how can you get mad? He was just a young cat full of pent up energy.

I would have to cover the paper instruction sheets that hung outside the cages and kennel name tags with packing tape as a sort of lamination because he would climb the cages and rip them into pieces.
Other times he'd climb up and reach into the cages and steal food.
He was very crafty.

Then he started jumping on the old cats, trying to wrestle with them and they would get angry and a cat fight would break out.

Finally one day when Doc came through the cat room I asked him if we could find Jeffrey a home.
He went over to pet Jeffrey and Jeffrey let him for a moment,
and then tried to grab his hand and get mouthy.
Doc laughed at Jeffrey and  then sighed and said that, Yes. that would be alright since he just got into trouble when he was upfront.
We had a home in mind for him but then that home fell through because
they had four cats already and the husband said that was enough.

Then just recently, a family decided they wanted to adopt a cat.
The wife/mom is a friend of one of my workers so my worker told her to come in and see our cats.
The Mom came in and looked at the eye kitten,
and the partially paralyzed kitten and
a pastel calico cat that we also have and who is very laid back and
at Jeffrey.
The family has three boys and two rowdy cats and old dog.
After the visit, the wife told my worker that she was interested in the eye kitten
and that was who they would like to adopt.
So we got the paper work ready.

I felt sad because every day when I'd pull up to work in the morning, before anyone else was there,
I'd see Jeffrey's little face in the window.
Just looking out.

I would make me want to cry, to think of him growing up in a single room.
I even thought about bringing him home, and only because my big cats would stand up to him and hopefully play.
But then I worried about my older little tiny dogs
and of course about the fact that I don't want to adopt anymore.

The GOOD and JEFFREY.
Then I got a phone call.
It was from my worker and her friend the wife had called her.
Apparently her boys told her that they didn't want to adopt the kitten!
They knew that other people had wanted that kitten too but they were worried about Jeffrey!
They didn't know who else would adopt him.
They told their mother that they wanted "The Naughty Cat!"
The husband had said the Toys R Us Giraffe mascot was named Jeffrey
and he said "We need to adopt the Toys R Us cat!"
So the mom apologized for not requesting Jeffrey from the start and asked if they could adopt him instead.

Yesterday the mom dropped the boys off at school and drove directly over to get Jeffrey.
She said the boys had been asking for Jeffrey so she came in to get him.
We walked into the cat room and Jeffrey was up in the cat tree.
The mom set her cat carrier down on the floor and opened the door.
As she stood up,  we both turned to Jeffrey.
He was on the cat tree in front of the window and he jumped off the tree and ran across the room and right into the carrier!
We both looked at each other and laughed.
"I guess he's ready to go!"

I reminded her if it didn't work out, she should bring him back to us.
She agreed but didn't foresee a problem.

That's the agreement we always have.
If a pet doesn't work out, they can always bring them back...
I have another story,
for another day about that agreement and what happened with a different cat.

I hope it works out, but I have a GOOD feeling it will.

UPDATE -

Jeffrey has fit in perfectly.

Here he is with his new brother/buddy George.

I love a happy ending.

ANONYMOUS comment, LYING and being INCREDIBLY SAD.

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Anyone who monitors comments before publishing them probably has a lot of comments in their email from Anonymous.

It's kinda frightening how you can Google something and then you get some weird link in an email.

Not too long ago I Googled Tramadol. I actually just wanted to know that I was spelling it right.

(Tramadol is a pain medication used for dogs and I was sharing texts with someone and wanted to make sure of the spelling).

So, I've been getting strange anonymous comments on past posts in regards to Tramadol. I never click on them, I don't want a virus on my computer,
but sometimes the title of a particular post that I wrote, makes me want to go back and read it and see what I was writing about.

This morning the post that the comment linked to was:

http://oldblackcatboo.blogspot.com/2011/09/its-been-ugly-week.html

So I click on it and saw that it was from THREE years ago.

.............after reading it I thought, what the Hell is the matter with me?

Let me explain.

Thursday I was called into The Office.

Closed doors.

and told that apparently several people had said that I had looked at someone's paycheck and gone around the clinic and told everyone this person's wage.

I was in shock.

WTF? I mean Seriously.

Its always an effort for me to be "social" to some of these women and now this?

I did not do this thing, I was in shock and I quickly stated the I swore on Blue's life that it was not true.

ANYONE that knows me, knows that he is my most precious.

The fact that I could be fired over such a thing, made me sick.

and I do love my job.

I said to her that while I hadn't done this crime, I did know this person's wage because "Jane Doe" had come back to my work area for the specific reason to let me know that she had looked at the check on purpose and then said the wage.

So, without going into major detail, she was confronted again and AGAIN said she had heard it from ME.

Then apparently these OTHER people when asked again, said they had heard nothing from me but just from HER

and SHE had said I told her.

OK. Now I'm going to sound mean but I don't care.

This "Jane Doe" is a loud selfish little troll of a person that has no friends.

Everyone just puts up with her.

She is always repeating stories and embellishing them, inserting herself into them and making herself the hero.

Everything is always about HER.

When my one friend, a co-worker lost her little old dog and was so upset, she interrupted to say she knew exactly how she felt

because when HER dog had been sick and blah, blah blah.

Yeah, her dog had been sick and THEN got well and my friend's dog had DIED.

This same "Jane Doe" had also yelled across the clinic a very offense remark to my niece that was not true.

Supposedly she was talked to about that but there was never any apparent action taken and no apology.

So, because I am incredibly STUPID, I still talked to her and was kind to her.

Maybe it's because I always feel sorry for the Underdog?  or that I just try to consider the source and move past it.

But now I've had my integrity questioned and one thing I am NOT, is a liar.

I even stated such. In fact there have been times in my life where I got myself into trouble because I wouldn't lie.

So I was then asked if I was willing to do a meeting with "Jane Doe",  this woman, who I been a friend to

and the Doctor would moderate us.

I said "Gladly!".

The next day we meet and before we had begun "Jane Doe" said she wanted to first apologize to me

and then turned to tell the Doctor she was sorry she had lied to her.

We were kinda stunned that she finally admitted to it.

The Doctor was surprised as she had anticipated an ugly argument.

But I said that I was very hurt and that she had lost my trust.

To make a long story short, she was talking and laughing later in the afternoon.

and me?

I'm sorry but I don't believe in forgiving and forgetting.

I don't believe that I need to "forgive" for my own piece of mind and let it go.

This is a woman who loved on my Blue and who said if anything ever happened to me,

she would fix up her spare room for him to live in and now THIS?

She could have gotten me fired for her lie.

I have put up with a lot at this job, people who think I have it SO easy.

Yeah, I'd like to see them do my job day in and day out in all kinds of weather, dealing with dog poop stomped all over the kennel bars on the door and over the walls in the mornings and sometimes aggressive dogs and dogs who have so some many special needs.

I do this job week after week. Year after year and

These people grumble about the occasional dirty cage they must clean!

I have a lot of clients tell me that they only come and leave their pets because of me.

That if I wasn't there, they would find someone else.....and it's because I do TRULY love their animals.

I worry that if they go somewhere else, they won't be cared for properly.

and Of course I do have some wonderful days.

Days when I'm so happy being outside and caring for favored boarders.

To me, that's a balance but to others that's all they see and think it's easy.

This has hit me HARD.

It's weakened my spirit and made me question everything.

My life, my job, my future, where I live, everything.

And yet life goes on and that Troll walks around laughing her loud offensive laugh.

I can't leave this job

I have too much debt and I need the back-up of vet care for all my pets.

And... I have put so much time and energy into this.

I've gone from the old kennel at the old location where I dragged hoses up a hill

and had water buckets that would freeze and I was working in my winter coat.

Now at this new building, the work set up is so much better.

And I could be SO happy if I was just left alone.

On top of this, I turned 57 last week.

FIFTY-SEVEN. A friend of mine exclaimed that it's almost 60!

She kept saying that she couldn't believe I was so old and

told me I should be thankful that I didn't look it....

(I have some great friends don't I! )

and I don't feel like what I think 57 would be

but my life is certainly not as I had thought it would be at this point.

I didn't think I would be picking up dog poop with a knife in my back.

Yeah...lots to think about and figure out.

Sadly, nothing that could be done immediately.

I feel like a prisoner  digging a tunnel out with a spoon....

And several of my pets are very old.

Rosie is in sad shape...she's 15 and I don't want to think about that,

much less talk about it.

I guess maybe when most of them are gone

and I don't have to worry about caring financially for so many....

God, isn't that nice? That I have to think about them DYING to be free of this crap.

I'm so sad.

I could be happy doing what I do and doing things I love when I get home but,

to think that there was the possibility of people just thinking this about me and not being able to defend myself.

To lose my livelihood or have the Doctors just believe her and question my character and look down on me.

And then...I read the post that Anonymous left a comment on

from 3 years ago and remember that I was dealing with such mean hatefulness back then.

Truly, what the Hell is wrong with me?

I need to stop being complacent and figure this out.

But I'm NOT forgiving.

I'm not a Pollyanna or a Liar.

and to say I Forgive her would be a Lie.

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