Conference misery::feline

    Re: .0
    
    I realize probably no one in this Notes files gets to that area, but
    just in case, here's a more accurate description of Sertze from her
    photo.  Maria at the North Central Animal Shelter is keeping an eye
    out in case she is turned in, and knows how to reach me and my
    friend's father.  Sertze seems to be a solid medium to dark grey
    bodied and faced (I can only see her face, chest, and part of her left
    side in the photo) domestic shorthair with a white chest.  The
    grey has
    some darker shadings, but I can't tell if this is real or just the
    photo lighting.  Also possible but uncertain is a white right front
    paw and a white upper lip area.  Her nose "leather" (the no-fur part)
    looks very dark grey or black.  Her eyes show up as light yellow,
    but could be light green, etc.  She's a year and 5 months old.
    
    I don't know of anyone nearby who would look for Sertze, so I'm
    sending a letter into the blue to the apartment manager (if there
    is such a person), any other ideas are welcome, plus good thoughts and
    prayers, thanks.
    

    Karen...
    
    My prayers are with Sertze and her human...hopefully soon
    they both can be re-united.   I'm sure Sertze is in panic
    mode and is very nervous about what had happened.  Hopefully
    her hunger will bring her out of her hiding spot so and
    somebody in the area will look out for her.
    
    Is it possible to put an Ad in the local newspaper??  Or
    possible to call vets in the area just in case someone
    does find her and brings her to the vets.
    
    Keep us posted...
    
    Sandy M
    

    I reached a neighbor yesterday and found that he and his wife have
    already been periodically checking around for Sertze and the stray
    outdoor cats my friend was feeding, so I have my fingers crossed
    that they will find her.  I also left a message with someone I
    know at the large vet hospital nearby.  The ad in the paper is a good
    idea, thanks.
                            

    Update on looking for Sertze...  I have ads in the two newspapers,
    and have located a very nice lady, Lila, from a local animal welfare
    group "TLC" there who went to the neighborhood yesterday evening with
    one  of the other volunteers and found a neighbor who thinks she saw
    Sertze. 
    
    Lila was going back this morning to see if she could locate Sertze and
    is planning on swooping up the feral cat colony in the area so
    that her group can have them altered and find homes for them.  So, some
    good will come of this, anyway.  I've been sweating it since 8 a.m.,
    hoping I would get an "I've found Sertze" phone call :-(  Well, Lila
    said she was on vacation for the next two weeks, and would keep
    looking, a God-send.  Keep the good thoughts and prayers coming,
    everyone, thanks.
    
    By the way, if you ever need to have a snapshot copied for something
    like this, I took Sertze's to Larry Aikins(sp?) Photo Center, which
    I believe is a chain.  They copy them two ways;  the way that
    does not produce a negative but instead uses a computer to munge the
    image gives results much, much better than the make-a-negative
    way, results virtually identical to the original snapshot.
    

    How is Sertze's Mom doing?
    
    janetb.
    keeping fingers & toes crossed for finding Sertze!

    I'm praying for both Sirtze and her Mom. Good luck finding her.

    Thanks...  Sertze's Mom is not as bad as we had first thought, but
    pretty bad.  Her eyes are okay, and she will have full use of her
    body.  She was off the equipment helping her breathe for several
    hours the last time I talked to her Dad, which was Thursday night,
    but she still wasn't able to talk.  So, she will be functioning, but
    has a long road ahead and the normal result of third degree burns
    to cope with.  I know she must be/will be terribly distraught
    about her kitties (Poppy dead, Sertze missing.)  It's very frustrating,
    but we are hampered in trying to find Sertze by the fact that the
    neighborhood is very bad. When Lila and teh other woman from the
    animal rescue group went in there, they managed to rescue a mother
    cat and three kittens who had been living wild, and a big, black cat,
    but didn't see Sertze.  Then they were threatened by drug dealers
    and so won't be going back.
    
    Lila thinks she can arrange for another volunteer who is used
    to dealing with bad areas to go in, and one of my friend's male friends
    has volunteered to go back as protection, plus I said I'd fly down
    and help if necessary (I can't leave Sweetie for very long, because
    of his needing insulin shots.)  We're waiting to get this coordinated
    plus I've been trying unsuccessfully so far to reach the building
    manager to get permission to have access to shut off areas.
    
    Meanwhile, Lila says the big black cat is unadoptable because he's
    very wild, so she's planning on releasing him back there after
    the vet checks to be sure he's neutered, but my friend's friend is
    convinced this cat is a stray pet, because he just showed up
    recently, is owned by no one local that they know of, and was
    acting like a pet before he was trapped.  So, now I'm trying to
    find his owner.  All this long distance, plus the LA Times completely
    lost the ad they were supposed to be running...
    
    
    

    Just to make this all worse, it appears that the fire was set
    deliberately, and, as far as I can piece it together, was aimed at
    my friend because one of the drug dealers thought she had reported
    him to the police.
    
    Sorry to type in all this horrible stuff.
    

    Gosh, this situation sounds horrible. I remember how distraught I was
    when my house was broken into and Argus, 5 cats got out and Argus was
    missing for 4 days. 
    
    We are sending good thots to Sirtze and her human.
    
    Deb and THE FIRM

    Well, there's good news about the big black cat, which I'm 
    copying from some email I just sent to Johanna's male friend
    who is helping out;  I know all these good thoughts are helping:
    
    Well, there's some good news about the big black cat.  I called the
    vet hospital to speak to the vet to be sure they would keep the big
    black cat until we might find it's owner.  And the lady that answered
    the phone said she was shocked to hear that Lila thought the cat was
    "wild", that the cat was a sweetheart, very friendly, and obviously
    belonged to someone.  Lila knows that woman, and so Lila says that in
    that case, the cat was just frightened by being caught, and for sure
    they will put him back in their normal process, where they try to find
    the owner and if they can't, they will keep the cat until they can
    find a good home for him.  Whew.  (I also asked her to let me know if
    she changed her mind.)  So, we are back to just worrying about Sertze.
    

  I'm so glad to hear there's at least some good news in this awful situation.
I hope the big black kitty finds its way back home.  Still keeping fingers 
and toes crossed for Sirtze (and her mom).

				SQ

    There's more good news, I hope, but Sertze hasn't yet been found.
    The manager and I had a long talk yesterday, and he knows a woman friend
    of Johanna's who is also a "cat person" and he says he and she should
    be able to deal with "the finding the cat situation" and he will get
    back to me as soon as he knows something, within three days, anyway.  I
    am hoping that since he sounds competent (you wouldn't believe the
    people I've been talking to in the past week) and is also a friend of
    Johanna's and they are familiar with the situation on the ground,
    so to speak, that this will have good results.  I am about worn out,
    but I'm not giving up until we have that kitty. If he and she
    don't succeed, we still have the going in there with Johanna's Russian
    immigrant male friend and the other cat volunteer person plan.
    
    He also says Johanna was not the target of the fire;  some other
    person on the same floor was, and the police have the arsonist in jail.
    

    Good news that the police have the arsonist.  I hope they throw the
    book at him.
    
    Keeping fingers and toes crossed...
    
    Jan

    No news yet about Sertze...
    

    Still no good news about Sertze.  I've been trying to contact the
    woman friend the manager told me about, but her phone has been off
    the hook for a couple of days.  I also gather from Johanna's
    Russian immigrant friend that he doesn't have much confidence in
    her finding the cat, as she's been involved in drugs, been arrested in
    the past, etc.  Fortunately I got a voice mail msg from another
    animal rescue group person this morning saying she had someone
    who knew the area and thought she could help, so I left her a
    humongeous msg explaining the situation, with the one hopeful
    piece of news we have, that Sertze seems to have been seen there
    a week ago.  The manager was really confident though, so maybe
    sometime constructive is happening, maybe ...
    

re .14

>    Good news that the police have the arsonist.  I hope they throw the
>    book at him.

  The mood I'm in today, I hope "the book" includes dousing him in kerosene 
and lighting a match....  Hope that doesn't offend anyone, but the Richard 
Allen Davis jury STILL hasn't convicted him (Polly Klass murder) and I'm just 
not feeling very charitable toward murderous criminals right now.

				SQ

    Well, a stack of posters just went off to Los Angeles to someone
    who an animal lady thinks will spread them around.  Kinko's did an
    amazing job with color copies;  I thought the proof copy was my
    original.  I'm also offering a reward, so maybe that will help.
    Initially I was worried that someone might try too hard to catch
    the cat if money was offered, but...  Let's all think good thoughts
    and maybe...  Thanks, everyone, for your support,
    
    Karen, for Sertze
    

    Well, we had a false alarm last night.  Someone saw a cat resembling
    Sertze, so a couple of animal rescue folks ran down there. but it
    was not Sertze.  Sigh.  At least people are looking, though.  Please
    keep those good thoughts, thanks,
    
    Karen

    Still no news about Sertze. A woman called in and said she had seen a
    cat resembling Sertze in her neighborhood after the fire, and that
    later she saw the cat with a red collar on, so we have been hoping
    it was Sertze and someone took her in (hence the collar appearing),
    but she hasn't seen that cat in several days.  This is really getting
    discouraging.  A couple of people were going to go around that
    neighborhood yesterday and today, but I haven't heard any results,
    so I assume they found no kitty. :-(
    

    Another looking-for-Sertze update.  So far the kitties that people
    have called in about either have all turned out to be already
    owned neighborhoog kitties, or whoever has called in hasn't seen
    the cat again.
    
    Except a couple of days ago a woman (Johanna tells me this woman
    may or may not be reliable, as she is involved in drugs) who lived
    down the hall and says she knows Sertze (Johanna says maybe, maybe
    not) says Sertze has been sleeping under Johanna's car.   I've left
    messages on her phone telling her who to call if she sees the
    cat again (a person who can get down there and hopefully id the cat
    and if it is Sertze, coax her into a carrier), but she hasn't called
    back, even though she said she'd call back regardless yesterday
    morning.  sigh.  I'm still trying to get in touch with her.
    
    In the process of looking for Sertze, we've rescued a feral mother cat,
    her three kittens, a pet cat who belonged to someone who'd been sent to
    jail for five years on drug charges, a cat who's owner called in and
    said "take her, or she goes to the pound" who turned out to have
    recently given birth but no idea where her kittens were, a pet cat with
    a complete urinary tract blockage who surely would have died without
    our intervention, and a feral kitten who is clinging to life by a
    thread (good thoughts for that kitten needed, as well as for Sertze.)
    Thanks...
    
    Karen
    

    At least some good has come of this search for Sertze, even though you
    haven't found her.  Think of all those cats that wouldn't have made it
    otherwise.
    
    Keeping fingers crossed that you do find her...
    
    Jan

    Re: a feral kitten who is clinging to life by a
        thread (good thoughts for that kitten needed.....
    
    The little kitten passed away.  It seems from flea anemia.
    It's not clear if the vet should have picked up on this or not -- the
    cat rescue lady combed "hundreds" of fleas off the kitten before
    the kitten got to the vet, and this may have misled the yet if
    she didn't mention it.  Apparently a transfusion could have saved
    the kitten, probably (several bad words inserted here :-(