THANKFUL Tuxie Tuesday

Dearest Capt'n Jack:

I have to send my heartfelt fanks for the fabulous surprise that you sent me. As you can see I was totally overwhelmed and filled with joy. I think that the best way I can show you my thanks is to invite you and Dante and Fagin over and we can all play with these new toys and I can share my new treats with everyone and then later on perhaps you and I can have some quiet time to share!

Purrs

your devoted lady love

Miss Boo

Mancat Monday

*woo hoo*

Lookie what I found!

Lillies on the Water

What a story!

From the Christian Science Monitor

A sanctuary that’s 600 cats’ meows
On a central California ranch, Lynea Lattanzio feeds and cares for feral and abandoned cats.

‘C’mon babies, let’s walk!” Lynea Lattanzio, a fit 50-something woman with curly brown hair, slides open her kitchen door and five, 10, 15 cats rush through the opening like water gushing out of a pressurized spigot.
“C’mon guys,” she calls out. “Let’s go for a walk!” The flock follows her down the steps.
Ms. Lattanzio, sure enough, is herding cats. But as she crosses the lawn and opens a gate, the subtleties of cat herding emerge. Individuals run in spurts and stops, in a manner distinct from sheep. A black cat, two tabbies, and a Siamese drop out of the procession. They’re replaced by three new cats that materialize from under a tree, eager to tag along for a minute as Lattanzio strolls down to the shady banks of the Kings River, 50 yards away.
Oxymoron or not, feline herding happens all the time here at The Cat House on the Kings, a 12-acre sanctuary for abandoned and feral cats in California’s Central Valley, near the farm town of Reedley. Over 600 cats live here along with Lattanzio, who dedicates her ranch-style home to the cause of keeping them alive and healthy in hopes of adoption.
Cats lounge in every room: on tile floors, countertops, cubbyholes that line the walls, and even in a high cabinet above the microwave. Just off the kitchen, a few sick animals convalesce in cages in the feline intensive-care unit. An enclosure outside houses cats with feline AIDS. And elsewhere on the grounds stand several sheds, fitted with cat doors and rows of feline bunk beds – and cooled, on this 99-degree afternoon, by ceiling fans or misters.
•••
“This was not in my life’s plan,” says Lattanzio, sitting at her kitchen table, a cat in her lap and several others under the table. She studied marketing and biology in college, and worked for years in real-estate development. But life is full of surprises.
Her path toward cat ranching began in 1992 as she searched for two Manx kittens for her father. She returned one day from the Humane Society with 15 kittens that she’d agreed, on impulse, to keep until someone adopted them. By the end of the year she’d fostered and adopted out 96 cats, and 150 more by the end of the following year.
“When you have [only] 100 cats, you still could get out,” she says. But arrivals outpaced departures, and by 1997 she’d reached a turning point. “I had 350, and I said, ‘Even if I quit now, they live 16 years, so I’d still have to be here.’ ” Lattanzio pauses, and asks, “Did you ever ask yourself what you were supposed to do with your life? I realized finally this was my calling.”
Some 16,000 cats have passed through The Cat House since then, most of them graduating to regular homes. Some of the 600 current residents have lived here for more than five years. Many have names. “I know my kitchen cats,” says Lattanzio, rising to point out fur balls curled on the floor. “This is Ms. Wiggles, this is Raisin, this is Cynthia, this is Bessy, this is Sunshine, this is Butch.”
“This is L.T.,” she adds, pointing at a cat with an angular crook in his tail, heading down the hallway. “See, his tail makes a left turn.”
The sheer number of felines provides a surprising window into the fundamental nature of catdom: Cats in large numbers assemble into social structures – a phenomenon most people would never expect.

The same 30 cats mingle all day in Lattanzio’s kitchen – a stable colony, she says, that revolves around a male alpha cat named Boston. Other colonies of 10 to 100 cats hang out in the garage, the living room, the intensive-care unit, the plum orchard, and the trees by the river. And each night, a clique of 65 cats coalesces around Lattanzio’s bed.
The 600-plus cats have a surprisingly small impact on the atmosphere. One notices a faint odor upon arriving at The Cat House, but it quickly fades. Lattanzio converted the entire house from carpet to linoleum and tile years ago. Every day between 5 a.m. and noon, employees sweep and mop those floors clean of hair, and the litter boxes are cleared as well.
But even so, that bedroom colony has spurred Lattanzio to a new life decision: Critical mass has been reached, and someone has got to go.
•••
East Adams Road runs for miles past plum and apricot orchards before turning sharply, narrowing to a single bumpy lane, and dead-ending. The Cat House sits 100 yards away.
Last year, The Cat House took in 1,030 kittens from the Central California Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) in Fresno – “way beyond our capacity,” says Lattanzio, a decision that “broke me [financially]” – but that pales beside the 2,000 cats that Fresno County euthanizes each month.
Observers blame Central California’s animal problem on several factors: a farm environment where animals run free, an itinerant population of migrant workers who often cannot take pets when they move, and persistent myths that animals are healthier when not neutered or spayed.
The souring economy continues to push families and pets out of their homes, and that has produced a secondary wave of migrations – not economic or political refugees creeping across borders, but abandoned cats thrown over the Cat House fence in the dark of night by owners unable or unwilling to care for them.
Some years, up to 100 cats fly over Lattanzio’s fence. The newcomers may turn up the next morning in her kitchen or join an outdoor colony and go unnoticed for days. Lattanzio points to a black cat, with one eyelid sewn permanently shut, resting by a plum tree. “I don’t have [a] black cat with [a] surgically sutured eye,” she says. “I would know that I had one. That one’s dumped.”
All day Lattanzio wears a cordless telephone and headset. The phone rings constantly. She doles out referrals for free spaying or neutering, or suggestions on how to adopt out a litter. But she can’t take new cats right now: She repeats this to callers many times each day.
With monthly bills of $2,000 for cat food and $400 for litter, plus 12 employees who help with seven hours of cleaning and feeding per day, Lattanzio is strapped for cash. Although she receives donations from as far afield as Denmark and Australia, she has shouldered most of the expenses herself over the years.
The phenomenon of homes that double as animal shelters can be a mixed blessing. For one thing, they’re subject to personal circumstances to which public-run shelters are generally immune. The deaths of people in charge of home shelters have occasionally flooded nearby facilities with hundreds of displaced animals.
But in Central California, The Cat House on the Kings has become a mainstay. “Lynea is doing a wonderful thing,” says Kelly Joos of the Valley Animal Shelter in Fresno.
“They’re a great organization,” agrees Beth Caffrey of the Central California SPCA in Fresno. “They pull animals from our shelters all the time. We all work together.”
About 20 people or groups visit The Cat House each week – to adopt, browse, or seek veterinary care. Although not every cat here is a prime candidate for adoption, Lattanzio often sends the healthier, friendlier ones out to adoption fairs, or to shelters in the San Francisco Bay Area, where rates of abandoned and feral cats are lower, shelters and rescue groups have more room, and these feline refugees are more likely to find homes. There’s an element of deal-making to the process: Lattanzio strikes agreements with shelters that she’ll give them five litters of kittens – always popular on the adoption market – for every feral cat she takes away.
“I’m like a wholesaler,” she says.
•••
As night falls, The Cat House comes alive. Catatonic cats spring into action. A Halloweenish soundtrack of bumps and creaks ripples through the house, and each of Lattanzio’s 65 roommates seems to take a turn walking on her bed. Lattanzio doesn’t sleep as well as she’d like; hence, her recent decision.
“The whole thing is theirs,” she says. “The whole house. I’m giving it to them.” From now on, the house where Lattanzio has lived for 25 years will belong to the cats. Lattanzio is vacating the bedroom that she’s shared with 65 cats, and moving into a guest house on the grounds. The sanctuary’s work will continue, but Lattanzio will finally sleep in peace, accompanied only by Pookie-Boo, a petite Manx.
“I have one,” says Lattanzio, “only one out of 600 [cats], that I will take with me to the other house.”

Watching and Waiting

The view I see everyday when I drive up in my driveway.

Miss Boo waits and watches.

Finally Friday: REFLECTIONS

Momma was trying to be 'artistic'. She found me lying in the afternoon sun getting a nice suntan and then she noticed the my reflection in the window and she said it made her think of all our furfriends that are at the bridge. She said that the thought (and she has some funny thoughts) of that semi transparent image reminded her of those who crossed over to the Bridge. What do you think?

*****

It's time again for our weekly round up... need more kitty goodness check out these great places.

*****

Board the Friday Ark at the The Modulator (submit your post here)Weekend Cat Blogging
Bad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaos (submit your post here)The Carnival of the Cats(submit your post here)

Miz Pet

Please stop by and give Miz Pet a soft purr and a warm headbutt, she is needing all of our support....

Thankful

Gracie:

I have a lot to be thankful for. I was a formerly feral kitty and I was abandoned and left at Animal Care and Control. They let me stay on their front door step for a few days while I did my best to impress each and every bean that crossed my path. I pitfully meowed and got beans attention and then I would shower them with head butts and try to impress them with my sweet meows. I worked and worked and worked. But sadly it wasn't doing me any good. Then this lady bean and man bean came in looking for their lost kitty. They were very sad. They sat and watched me outside the front door and asked why I was being left outside. The ACC people said what the lady bean thought was a heartless thing when they said that they didn't want to bring me in because then I would have to go back into the cages with the other kitties. When the lady bean was taken back to look at the other cages she came out of the place with leaky eyes. Then she understood that it wasn't heartless to leave me outside. The man bean asked the lady bean did she want to take me home and in a squeaky voice she said "YES".... oh yeah she said YES and then I had my forever home. But I will never forget that I was once homeless and scared and formerly feral, and that now I have a lot to be very thankful for.

Wordless Wednesday

Tuxie Toosday

Abby:

Mom why do you take so many pictures?

Roscoe

We meant to put this up earlier but Momma had work she had to do...I don't know how she could let a little work get in her way. We miss you Roscoe but we are glad you are happy and playing flutterby with all the other wonderful kitties at the Bridge....

Purrs

Abby,Boo,Ping,Jinx and Gracie Grace

Ping: Mancat Monday

Ping:

Always make your Mom clean out the litter box first thing in the morning.

Then use it.

And watch her pull her hair out.

Now That's A Look, If I Ever Saw One

Evil Introoder

Did Victor come and pay us a visit?

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Need more kitties goodness?

Check these out!
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Board the Friday Ark at the The Modulator (submit your post here)
Weekend Cat Blogging is hosted by Amar & Luna at CatSynth
Bad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaosis hosted by Miz Mog and Kitties(submit your post here)
The Carnival of the Catstakes place at Friends Furever(submit your post here) Ree-purrted by Sophia

Avast Me Hearties

Boo ---- avast me hearties! Yer dutiful lady invites ye t' lend yer ear t' her words o' de day: IT'S the annual TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY! Arrrrr ye it 'tis.

So come on ye poxy dogs an join in with us an sail an not be no lily livered landlubber. To the Black Furball it's tis mateys!! So strap on a parrot and grab a spot of rum and aye yes hark me words now let's find the Fiddler's Green. Yo-ho-ho!

Your Pirate Name Is...

Dirty Busty Bertha

What's Your Pirate Name?

Abby

Your Pirate Name Is...

Arch-Pirate Neck Snapper Nellie

What's Your Pirate Name?

Ping

Your Pirate Name Is...

Mad Sultan of Timor

What's Your Pirate Name?

Gracie

Your Pirate Name Is...

Captain Ladyfingers

What's Your Pirate Name?

Jinx

Your Pirate Name Is...

Lieutenant-Colonel Beard of Maggots

What's Your Pirate Name?

Guard Cat

***

The kitties aren't use to me taking a bath. Our master bathroom only has a shower so baths have been something I don't normally do and to be honest I haven't use the bathtub because I couldn't fit into it. But *smile* I now "FIT".

* woo hoo*

So the past few days I have been using the tub for a soaking bath. None of the kitties know what to make of this. They are all quite curious and Jinx of all the kitties has been the one with the most intense interest. Yesterday he jumped up on the side of the tub and proceed to go along the back area and eased on up to where the soap dish is and I could tell he had put himself into a corner, so I tried to give him some leverage so he could turn around and get off the rim of the tub. Well as you can surmise, he slipped and into the tub he went.

*Splish splash*

He wasn't in long, just long enough to get four paws and a tail wet and zoom out. It was hilarous!
And just like in the above picture, Abby sat at the base of the tub and guarded me. Me being in the tub upset her, she meowed and meowed and paced back and forth until she felt I was OK. She is my teeny tiny protector.

Jinx was fine, just a wee bit surprised to find that the stuff inside the tub wasn't solid and he couldn't stand up on top of it.

Wordless Wednesday

Miss Boo's Box

Boo: A true gem
***

This morning we had an evil introoder alert. Both Ping and Jinx were in the front window and what appeared but an amardillo.

*sigh*

I know I've mentioned my disdain for amardillos.

They tear up the yard something fierce.

***

I guess this set Mr. Jinx into a playful mood because he was chasing everyone around. He even decided to pounce on the Abba Dabba. She did not take kindly to this and gave him the ol' MEOW. After she thought about it for good measure she went after him and chased him all around the house. All I could see were blurry images of bodies going from room to room. Boo came out of the hall bathroom to see what was going on and that upset Miss Abby and she gave Boo a stern talking to. I had to keep picking up Abby to protect Boo. Finally I talked Boo into going back into the bedroom for some much needed peace.

***

*woo HOO*

Mancat Monday

An Angel Earns Her Wings

Rest well sweet Pixie.

Easy Like Sunday Morning

Miss Abba takes a strong interest...what does she see?

Miss Boo Being Silly

3 Faces of Abby

The MISS Abba Dabba

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We are sending all our purrs to everyone being impacted by Hurricane Ike.

Stay safe and many blessings.

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Need more kitties?

Board the Friday Ark at The Modulator (submit your post here)Weekend Cat Blogging is hosted by Breadchick and LB at The Sour Dough(see the week’s host to enter your WCB post in the comments for the weekend roundup)Bad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaos will take place with Mr Tigger at The M-CatsOptional Theme: Kittycats and Fall(submit your post here)The Carnival of the Catsgoes on air Sunday evening with Rocky at Artsy Catsy(submit your post here)

Awards from our good furfriends Beau Beau

I ♥ Your Cats award created by PurrPrints!from Isabella and Angel

Beau Beau and Angie and PBJ gave us these two awards. We think they is the cat's meow!

We would like to give these awards to:

Adan and Lego: these two brothers are wonderful and entertaining, even if Lego is a bit of a headache to Adan.

Mickey: Mickey is a fantastic black panther and he is always so thoughtful

Jack: is another handsome black panther... check him out ladieskitties!

Georgia: is a lovely senior kitty (she is over 20!) you go Georgia!

and finally

Beezer: Beezer is Ping's Brother from another Mother!

Gingers rule!!