Yin and Yang

Yin and Yang are probably the best looking pair of cats I've ever run into in our shelter.
They're two brothers who are half siamese, and you can tell by their thin muscular build and triangle heads.
They were seized from their owner as a cruelty case. I don't know exactly what happened, but I suspect the owner went to jail or was unable to care for the cats in some way, they are way too friendly to have been abused. She claimed she would return for them but never did.
Anyways, as brothers they fight a lot, but in the end they still love each other as you can see in this photo.

No One Wants to Play With Me

This is Prince, a real sweetheart of a lap cat who found it really hard to adjust to shelter life. He would always go into this little hidey house once let out of his


I like his sulking expression here. Anyways, he's in foster care now and doing well as the darling of his foster family.

Natasha

Natasha came to us as an adorable and playful one year old female, transferred to us from Toronto Animal Services. An unnamed volunteer took her to the vet to get her spayed. The vet found a scar Natasha's belly, meaning that she was either spayed, or had a cancerous tumor removed before age of one.

The unnamed volunteer asked the vet to open her up and check anyway.

Despite that, Natasha recovered fine, and was adopted. The man who got her called us every day for a week begging to come in to see her, and when he finally got on the phone with our cat adoption coordinator, his co workers and secretaries all came on the phone begging us to please let him adopt a cat, because his cat had recently passed away.

Well his persistence paid off, and he got Natasha, but not before I snapped this adorable photo!

Pixel

Pixel came to us as a senior, abandoned by his owner of thirteen years because she "didn't want to vacuum for him anymore". Talk about callous, the more I work here the more I realize how cold people can really be.

Pixel turned out to be the one of the sweetest most mellow cats we've had, and in excellent health to boot. The poor guy spent months in the shelter, and his spirits were beginning to lower. Finally, one of our volunteers, tired of seeing him sad and broken in the shelter, decided to adopt him. Pixel is extremely happy in his new home, and giving his new owner lots of love and joy in return.

Rufus

Rufus was probably a stray his entire life. He was found peeing all over the car and garage of a kind lady who managed to trap him for us. When he first came to the shelter he was so happy to get some food and shelter that he didn't even want to leave his cage when we cleaned it. His pee really stank, his hair was knotted and messy, and he would gobble down his food faster than we could serve it.

Since then, we've had him neutered and trimmed his hair. He is a lot friendlier, and makes some interesting noises that make him sound like a wookie. Rufus still has a strong hunting instinct from his time outside, and really loves running after toys that simulate prey. He loves human care and attention, and will jump onto my desk scattering all my paperwork if I leave him alone for too long. I really hope he finds his forever home soon.

Shimba

Shimba is a three year old domestic short hair currently in the shelter. His story is kind of a funny one. He came from a family who also owned an older cat. Apparently Shimba was so playful, that he aggravated the older cat's asthma, so he had to go.



He's still a little shy from having just arrived in the shelter, but for some reason seems to have no problems giving extremely hard love bites.

We Can Make It Together

Buddy and Wendy were born with a neurological disorder similar to cerebral palsy or Parkinson's. They were the only two who had it from a litter of five kittens. When they were in the shelter they had a hard time getting around or even eating or drinking like their siblings because they would wobble and shake with every step they took.

After spending a week in the shelter they had become underweight. A number of our volunteers were quite concerned about them, and several offered to foster them.
Well, the volunteer who fostered them did an excellent job, and managed to adopt out Buddy. She couldn't bear to part with Wendy, and finally decided to adopt her herself.

I like this photo of them a lot, because it kind of symbolizes some of the attitudes at Etobicoke Humane. There are tons of challenges facing us, and the problems of animal cruelty and overpopulation are great, but together, we can tackle the problem one step at a time.

Crazy Cat Lady Theory

Our shelter can only accommodate cats, and is staffed almost entirely by women. We seem to get a lot of visits from crazy ladies, and my theory is that if there are enough cats somewhere they attract crazy ladies.

I hope to avoid this myself, so I only have one cat at home.




His name is Gremlin. He keeps this place clean by hiding all my lost socks.

Anyways, back to crazy ladies. So one day a person came in with a picture of their lost cat, and previous shelter manager let them take away the cat without a hassle. Later in the day, another lady came in claiming she had lost a cat, similar to the one collected earlier.

Well, she was understandable pissed when she found this out, and proceeded to show pictures of her and her cat at the vet, at home, in the backyard, and why didn't we check the id of the person who took the cat, and she was terrified because she overheard her neighbours kids saying something about a cat, and then she threatened to sue us.

Nothing ever came of it, thank goodness. We can barely afford rent as it is.