Stella

Stella is the other female that gave us kittens. She was a small cat, and had what looked to be some brown in the fur on her chest. Like Calico Mama, she always disappeared in the winter, and showed up in the summer with her kittens. She and her kittens stayed on the Brenau side of the Ocie Pope building when it was standing. Ocie Pope was the hospital's educational building that was where the OB parking lot is now. Stella is believed to be the mother of Midnight born in 2010.

In 2011, and again in 2012, she had two kittens. In 2013, she had three kittens. The night we trapped in 2013, Stella went into a trap sometime after dawn, and we discovered her as we were picking up all the unused traps from the night! Stella was spayed and released, and we never saw her again.

Zorro

Zorro before surgery

Mr. Bully is a nut!

In early 2017, we noticed Pretty Girl's fur started to look a little dirty. She had such long hair, we didn't realize she had lost so much weight until the day she came running to the feeder with blood coming from her mouth. We captured her, took her to the vet, and discovered she had a large tumor in her mouth. Her mucous membranes and pads on her feet were sheet white - indicating she had lost a lot of blood. We said goodbye to her as the vet ended her suffering. She is buried at the hospital in the area she lived her life.

Jett

Only seen once after release.

Time for Breakfast!

Jett and Zorro

Jett, Stella, and Zorro

Beautiful Zorro with his new coat of fur and feeling good :-)

Bully has earned his name from being a bully to the other cats. He is sweet to his feeders, and will rub against their legs for a pet, while purring and kneeding his paws. However, if another cat comes close, he will chase them away. Thank goodness he doesn't actually fight with the other cats, and he will back down if the other cat stands up to him. We are suspicious that he mostly acts that way when the feeders are present. We have seen him get really close to some of the other cats without bothering them when we are in the car, and he doesn't see us. If our feeders don't get the crunchy food in the bowl fast enough, Mr. Bully will reach out and slap their hand as if to say "Hurry up!". Bully hangs out mostly at the bottom of the hill in the back of the hospital, but sometimes comes up to the sidewalk to visit.

Mr. Bully

Backyard Cats

Stella's Kittens 2011

Pretty Girl

All these cats in the parking lot at the same time is EXTREMELY rare!

Midnight

This is handsome Midnight. He is solid black with long hair, especially on his tail. He appeared to be an adult when he was trapped in early 2011. We believe he was Stella's kitten from 2010. Midnight's fur has a brown hue in the bright sunlight just like Stella's. Midnight is noticeably bigger than a lot of the other cats. He and Mr. Vogue were best friends and were almost always seen hanging out together. In 2011 when our program started, and Vogue was a very young cat, Midnight would eat up on the sidewalk. But as time went on, he and Vogue both moved down the hill and stayed in the Ocie Pope/Woman and Children's/Brenau area. When his long time feeders try to walk away too soon, Midnight will run beside them slapping at their legs until they stop to give him more pets! Occasionally he will follow his feeders all the way across the back yard.

Midnight has always been a healthy cat, but in the summer of 2020, he was observed several times trying to go to the bathroom and not being able to. He would cry out, jump, and turn around like he didn't know what to do next. Luckily, I was able to capture him and get him to the vet. He was extremely impacted with hard stool that required multiple enemas over several days to get out. The vet suggested we give him a small dose of Miralax every day, so that's what we do. He's a good boy and gladly takes his medicine mixed with can food!

Left: Front to Back: Jett, Boots, and Sneakers

Pretty Girl

Pretty Girl was trapped and spayed as a young kitten in late 2011. She and Mr. Bully were littermates that year. She was unmistakable because of her 2 inch long fur and beautiful markings. She also had a brown hue to the black parts of her fur in the bright sunlight.

Pretty Girl was a super sweet kitty, and always loved pets and attention from her feeders. She stayed in the Ocie Pope/Women and Children's Pavilion area, and was good friends with Midnight and Mr. Vogue. She never traveled around with the boys, but she could always be found near them when they were "home"!

Mr. Bully

Mr. Bully was trapped in November of 2011, then disappeared after being released. In mid 2014, a black and white cat showed up, and we soon discovered he had a tipped ear! After going thru old pictures, we realized we were the ones who had trapped him 3 years prior. Where did he go for 3 years?!

Back: Midnight and Mr. Vogue

We believe Jett and Zorro are Stella's two kittens from 2012.

We trapped the short haired one as a kitten, then he disappeared. Two years later (2014) a short hair, solid black cat with a tipped ear showed up! Jett is a sweet and small-ish cat who scampers around a lot, never allowing anyone to get to close to him.

In 2015, a long haired, solid black cat appeared. He looks like Stella and Midnight, and oddly enough, he has an unusual mannerism involving a jump and a meow that Jett sometimes does. We believe Zorro was Stella's other kitten that we didn't trap in 2012. Zorro and Jett are frequently seen rubbing against each other like friends.

Even though we didn't see Zorro every day at first, he quickly became friendly enough for his feeders to pet him. Seven months after he was neutered, he was still very thin, and his fur was looking worse. We were able to get him in a carrier for a visit to the vet. The vet discovered he had severe feline gingivostomatitis. The inside of his mouth looked like hamburger meat. The only treatment is to pull most or all of the teeth. With a great deal of thought and anguish, we decided to go thru with the surgery. We are very grateful to the people that called the vet and donated money towards his bill. While he was asleep, the vet also shaved him down since every piece of his fur was matted to the skin....his mouth hurt to bad to groom. I personally kept him at my house for 8 more weeks because it was too cold to put him back outside with no fur. I tried to find him a home (no one came forward), and I tried to get my cats to accept him (one did, one had a horrible reaction), so after much more anguish, I decided to see what would happen if I returned him to the hospital. Much to my surprise, when I opened the carrier, Zorro perked up, held his tail high, looked around, and started skipping around the entire back yard of the hospital, stopping to smell anything he passed! The other cats from the colony came out to see him, and he touched noses with several of them. Zorro now hangs out with Bully, Boots, and Jett on a daily basis, and has a sweet spring in his step when his feeders come. He went from weighing 7lbs to consistently weighing more than 9lbs. At first it seems like a bad idea to return a cat without teeth to the outside. But there were no better options, and since cats chew their food very little, a cat with no teeth can eat dry food without a problem. We feed our cats can (wet) and dry food 365 days a year (without fail), so he gets plenty of food. Our cats do not fight with each other, and since Mama has been spayed, we are not seeing intact males passing thru during breeding season. Barring some very unusual circumstance, there is nothing out there that is a threat to the cats. Our beloved Zorro is thriving better now than he ever has.