The little monster got away from me.  A cute little orange/white kitty
showed up in my yard on Saturday out of the blue, very chatty, begging
to eat, and never left my yard again.  I can't bring him in because I
have a cat separation issue going on inside anyway.  So I've fed him,
of course, and made up some beds for him outside and he seemed sort of
content, albeit chatty.

He's only about  6 mos. old so I don't want him out there but you know
how hard it is to get kitties into no kill shelters, rescues, or homes.
So today at work, I placed a found ad in the paper, a found ad on the
internet, and called the group that I got Marbles from and who also
took another little stray kitty I had in my yard in April from me.  At
that time, I gave $100 donation to them for taking her.

Today I contacted them and they had changed their policy.  Before they
required some paperwork and a $25 surrender fee.  Now they require that
you get the cat vaccinated, keep it for another 2 weeks, and then they
will take it with a $50 surrender fee.  They are the group who
pirmarily adopts out of Petsmarts here in the Phoenix area and I know
they are inundated...especially now.  I begged and pleaded and asked if
they would take him immediately if I gave them $100 instead.  They
thought about it and called me back and said yes.  I had to get him to
the foster home by 6pm so I left work early, after making up some lie,
drove home, no sign of him.  But signs that our yard guy had been
digging up our sprinkler system which was not planned for today.  I'm
sure he scared the little tyke off.

I caught a glimpse of him running down the alley and he whipped into my
yard but acted scared and kept going.  Now it's dark and no sign of
him.  It's after 6 so he won't be going there tonight.  Who knows if
I'll ever even see him again.  I can't leave work early any of the rest
of the week so unless I can take him in early in the a.m. he won't be
going until Sat. anyway.  I'm so depressed--if I had known I could take
him in today I would have kept him in a carrier overnight last night
but last time they took a stray from me, I had to wait several days.  I
also didn't think he'd leave my yard but he did.  I now have a big dog
carrier ready if he comes back and if I can nab him and stick him in
there he will remain until I can take him back there...hopefully
tomorrow morning.  But that's a lot of "ifs."  It's so discouraging to
have it all lined up and then have it fall apart.

Candace