Wednesday, March 16, 2011

TNR

The TNR (trap-neuter-release) project continues with all ten cats successfully making it out of surgery yesterday.   I hear, however, all are in terrible health, thin and with upper respiratory infections.  Two of the girls had bad uterine infections which (well, I'll spare you the graphic details).  One might have pneumonia.  They will have to be on antibiotics for the next two weeks.  Hopefully, the owner will step up and be willing to feed canned food with drugs (provided to him) to get these cats back to health so that my part in the project is complete.  It he is unwilling or unable, I guess my project continues for two more weeks.

Such projects on the surface seem to take a great deal of my time that we could have spent "schooling", one might think.   We learn more by doing.  William has accompanied me on this "hunting" trip, carrying cages, setting traps, and enjoying seeing the size and color of each one he caught.  And of course, there was the inevitable questions about why we were doing what we were doing, the surgical procedures for removing the reproductive organs, the differences between the males and females, what a mammal is versus birds and lizards that don't feed young from their body, how animals reproduce, including humans.  All precipitated by catching cats and so much more interesting and useful than the difference between a noun and a verb.

1 comment:

Kristina said...

Oh yes. I'm trying very hard to let go a little. I see good things happen with the younger two kids when I let them just go about their learning unrestrained. Gabriel, however, wants me to assign everything. I'd love him to show some initiative, but I think that got drilled out of him in school, and 4 years of homeschooling hasn't helped. *sigh*

I'm so glad you guys are doing TNR with those cats. There're so many of them. I do wish I could figure out which ones over here are feral and which ones belong to neighbors.

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