{"id":62,"date":"2013-07-30T17:58:44","date_gmt":"2013-07-30T17:58:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/janeganahl.com\/blog\/?p=62"},"modified":"2013-07-30T17:58:44","modified_gmt":"2013-07-30T17:58:44","slug":"huzzah-tiny-lives-in-my-garage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/janeganahl.com\/blog\/2013\/07\/30\/huzzah-tiny-lives-in-my-garage\/","title":{"rendered":"Huzzah! Tiny lives in my garage"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I felt anxious from the moment I woke up, knowing I was going to try and trap Blue Baby and Frankie today. I’m still a relative beginner at this and have had a few unqualified disasters since starting this work. These two were tiny (read: naive) enough, though, that I figured they would not balk at going in the drop trap, and I was right. They were a little anxious, sniffing around it, but their hungry bellies overrode their suspicions, and as soon as both were in the trap, I yanked the string and down the trap came. (Wile E. Coyote would’ve been proud.) They did what all ferals do in this situation – bashed themselves mercilessly against the sides of the trap in their frantic attempt to escape, which is extraordinarily unsettling to watch, especially when they’re babies.<\/p>\n

I quickly grabbed the other trap – a standard one – and pushed it up close to the drop trap, which has no floor – only sides and roof – and the challenge is then to get them to leave the drop trap and venture into the traditional trap, which is long and narrow and has a floor. You do this by lifting the gates between the two traps, making sure the traps don’t come apart, and by covering the traditional trap so it’s like a dark tunnel that would entice them to enter. Of course that didn’t work this time. For literally 15 minutes I cajoled them to move, but they were frozen with fear. They were probably also in pain; Frankie’s little white nose was bashed and scraped. I just had to wait until they figured it out. When they finally darted into the darker space, I closed the gate behind them, and couldn’t resist lifting the blanket a bit to see them huddled in fright in one kitten clump. I also couldn’t resist touching them through the wires, just a little. They were soft as little bunnies. “You’ll be okay, little angels,” I cooed to them, which didn’t seem to help their fright at all.<\/p>\n

I whisked them to my garage, where I had already set up the giant dog crate on top of a table and draped it with dark cloth. Inside the crate, I had placed a carrier with an uber-soft, thick fleece blanket inside it. (The crate itself is way too big for them to feel safe; they need a smaller hiding space within it.) Next to it, a little litter box (please, God, let them figure that out quickly) and in front of the carrier, some of their beloved tuna and some water.<\/p>\n

I covered them up, and will leave them alone for a few hours so they can get their tiny heart rates down. Once they learn they’re not going to be imminently killed, they’ll venture out for some food.<\/p>\n

I confess to also having feelings of grief for Mama Grace. She disappeared from the sidewalk the moment she saw me carrying the trap. It’s possible she is unaware that I trapped her kittens, but I suspect she’ll figure it out. When this has happened in the past, she has disappeared for several days, and I feel crushed by guilt. It’s impossible to know if she understands why I subjected her litter to this violence, in order to save them. I wish I could explain it to her, but I can’t.<\/p>\n

So I’m trying to be content with the joy I also feel. These are the littlest, least hostile kittens I’ve ever trapped. I hope this means we can forego the hiss-hiss-scratch-scratch phase and get right to the cuddling. The next few days will tell. In the meantime, I am awash in gratitude that two more lives will be vastly improved for having human love in them. Grateful that I can help.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I felt anxious from the moment I woke up, knowing I was going to try and trap Blue Baby and Frankie today. I’m still a relative beginner at this and have had a few unqualified disasters since starting this work. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_s2mail":"yes","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/janeganahl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/janeganahl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/janeganahl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janeganahl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janeganahl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/janeganahl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64,"href":"https:\/\/janeganahl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions\/64"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/janeganahl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janeganahl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janeganahl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}