Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Shelter VisitS

  Things are fairly quiet at the shelter right now. Kitten season is over and there are empty cages. Dancer was  pretty speakative, he is living in a ground floor condo and was lively when I was there, chirping and chortling. He is still having occasional seizures, sadly, and his urine is too dark. I hope he will get out of the shelter and be able to have some kind of a good life. Remember, he has been in the shelter since he was a young kitten. If any of you out there know how I can get enough money to build a sanctuary, let me know. The organization I work with (The Rozzie May Animal Alliance) really wants to do it. We can probably get land, bought or donated. I would like to have a place where cats like Dancer, who don't have good chances of being adopted, could have a decent life with room to roam and people to spend time with them. This would be a different set up from a shelter, with long term living arrangements for the felines.


Speaking of cats whose adoption chances aren't great, this is Abby, who has been returned. I hate to see cats coming back. Personally, I like cats with attitude, it shows they have pride and self respect. Every cat is an individual and if you want a relationship with them you have to understand them. A cat is not a dog! Abby can come to my sanctuary too.


There is one little room with six orange cats in it, all very scared, since they were rescued from a hoarding situation. Even though I would love to have more cats, it is better to understand how they get along and how they can get stressed if there are too many in a living place. Just like people! So all six of these beautiful cats have those big scared eyes. This is Tootsie.


It is a challenge as a photographer to go into a room (with pink walls) and try to get a decent photo of a frightened cat. You can't really do them justice, you just have to try to get something that shows their beauty and help them get adopted over Petfinder. Her name is Juniper.


This little girl cat should get adopted pretty quickly. Her chances are good. Sweet Josephine.


And another scared cheese kitty named Saffron. (I'm just mad about Saffron) If you know who sang that song then you are my age.


And another. Sage.


The biggest challenge for me is getting decent photos of the black cats. The light isn't good, the cats are in motion and I am not a good enough photographer to deal with it well. I just bought some books on photography and I am going to work at it and maybe redo all my black cat portraits. This one came out the best that day at 1/60 shutter speed. ISO 1600 and f5.6. It did not look good in my camera but looked better when I got it in the computer. I end up using a high ISO because of the lighting but I try to go lower in the shelter when it will work. This is Odessa and she has wonderful soft fur that doesn't translate to this photo.


Another from the cheese group, named Curry.


And Tonka. Boy, if you want a nice big cat this boy is a twenty pounder and its not fat. With personality to boot.


And my favorite and the one in my I'd take you home in a second list. Victor is a kitten, he and his mom were found wild and he is thinking about how he is going to deal with this new situation. Look at those eyes. There is a feline person there.