For lack of

creativity, I shall call him Boy. The aunty caregiver refers him as the "fierce cat from the school". But, he's not fierce, just a dominant male in the colony of community cats. Volunteers have weaved in and out to help the few elderly caregivers -- one in her 60s and another in her 80s, caring for separate areas -- but few actually stay long enough to help.

Boy was found more than a week ago with a patch on his back and a few days later, another bald patch appeared, as if hair was completely sucked out of the spot. The two patches hang on his back symmetrically. Boy was dull for a few days and resumed eating for two days before the caregiver rang me and asked me for help. I had a bottle of Negasunt (used to treat against maggot wounds) with me, but because the patches look very unusual and we wanted to play safe, we brought him the vet. At the time of this writing , we await for results from the vet after she's done with the culture test. If I interpret this correctly, culture test entails scraping some hairs and putting them into a culture of solution. It takes about 3~4 days for results to be out.

I brought up the issue of ringworm to the vet, but yielded no response. Boy's patches look like a fungal infection, but the vet is not ruling out something internal. He eats well, rests well and moves around just fine at the moment. Together, we have set a quarantine place within the caregiver's house to confine the spread of infection to other cats as much as possible. I was told this could spread to humans too, and washing of hands after handling Boy is absolutely necessary.

Bringing Boy to medical attention is part of our ongoing effort to manage community cats, even though the stray cat rehabilitation scheme that worked very well years ago had been scrapped. Boy is sterilised, ear-tipped and vaccinated, but like a typical alpha male, he roams around and makes the effort as the leader to chase intruding cats into territories far from home turf. Among most, he's the most people-social one and would saunter confidently to anyone who approaches the caregiver's house while he guards it fervently. We have made a payment of over $50 to the vet for the treatment this time (Boy's on oral medication), and if you believe in the community cats rescye cause and would like to help us defray Boy's medical cost, please write to projectjkteam [at] yahoo [.] com [.] sg. At this juncture, we sincerely appreciate all advice on Boy's condition. If you're a cat owner and caregiver, and have come across similar encounters such as Boy's, kindly write to us too.

What are also the preventive measures we can do to restrict the spread of infection to other cats?

Thank you.




Boy, resting on a chair indoors. The perfect opportunity for us to "scoop" him into the carrier and bring him to the vet's, knowing he is one to struggle.

Aerial view: two circular bald patches on the shoulder blades

Hair's totally gone as if completely uprooted

Spotty and her puppies

Yesterday, 6 hours spent on the road with the six dogs that were the target of culling bodies. We received an appeal from a stray caregiver that she needs help, and yesterday for the first time after many online correspondences, ventured into one of the spots of the remaining wildernesss of Singapore. What greeted us was actually a nice place, a heaven on earth for the dogs. The quiet of nature, the vastness of space, bushes, a hut and an enclosure to keep the dogs from running into neighbouring premises.

We targeted to bring about 3 dogs to the vet's, but the Kangoo could fit in more, so we took 6 of them all at one go -- Spotty and her timid but friendly kids. At the clinic, the dogs were verified sterilised, dewormed, vaccinated and microchipped -- the latter in compliance with statutory prescriptions.

5 young dogs, over one year old. They are all sweet-natured Spotty's children. Disgruntled, they waited for their turn at the vet's after what must have been their first horror of a car ride. And they resorted to lying low on the floor to cope with all the stress; shut themselves from the rest of the hubbub. Occasionally, they wagged their tails or inched to sniff at the caregiver discreetly, their pack leader, when she approached to pat them. We could tell these beautiful dogs are very fond of their caregiver.

Save for one sturdy male, the rest of Spotty's offsprings are females. Thankfully, all are sterilised to prevent multiplication of stray numbers. The caregiver made it a point to have all of them sterilised.

That's spotty on the extreme left of the photo. She sayangs the white dog the most and would mouth into his ear to clean out the dirt, dropping fat grey ticks on the floor in the process. Motherly grooming. Whoever adamantly believes dogs are without emotions is gravely miseducated.

Waiting for their turn. We brought them into the doctor's room one by one to have their surgical markings verified. No frills, not much of a struggle with any of the dogs. They were really very obedient, considering they are not home pets.

In the back of the vehicle. Nary a car sickness. While her kids cowered and curled up on the floor, Spotty kept standing, like a mother watching over her kids. I took the opportunity to spray Accurate on them and ticks (dead ones, fat ones, shrivelled ones and baby ones) dropped like flies. On one of the dogs that weighs only slightly over 12kg, there were so many ticks lining inside and outside her ears that if you were to run your fingers across, you could feel a deliberate "texture" on them. Absolutely gross. Parasites.

The leashes criss-crossed as the dogs moved frantically about in the car. That's Spotty's side profile.

A male dog that's been skinny for a long while even though he eats a lot. Newcomer to the community. We'll need to get him castrated as well, lest he roams and mates with unspayed females.

.............................................

This case is one out of the many we encounter in our collective attempt to keep the stray numbers at bay. Like many caregivers, we receive no government or organisational funding to help the street animals, and many times, depend on individual donors and friends to support our work. While the existing number of dogs needs to be controlled, the same should be done at the side of imports and breeders. For now, we'll focus on what we can do, as there is nary a statutory application of animal welfare laws that effectively CURTAILS the unnecessary imports, breeding and sales of dogs. The key here is effectiveness and sadly, we have yet to see what that can be done, done effectively here.

The total bill for yesterday's expenditure is over $500. And there'll be more to incur with sterilisation of the strays in the area, if you'd like to contribute, kindly email projectjkteam[at]yahoo[dot]com[dot]sg. Receipts will follow.

Thank you.

Fauna play key role in circulating seas, says study

PARIS (AFP) –
Creatures large and small may play an unsuspectedly important role in the stirring of ocean waters, according to a study released Wednesday.

So-called ocean mixing entails the transfer of cold and warm waters between the equator and poles, as well as between the icy, nutrient-rich depths and the sun-soaked top layer.

It plays a crucial part in marine biodiversity and, scientists now suspect, in maintaining Earth's climate.

The notion that fish and other sea swimmers might somehow contribute significantly to currents as they moved forward was first proposed in the mid-1950s by Charles Darwin, grandson of the the legendary evolutionary biologist of the same name.

But this was dismissed by modern scientists as a fishy story.

In 1960s, experiments compared the wake turbulence created by sea creatures with overall ocean turbulence. They showed that the whirls kicked up by microscopic plankton or even fish quickly dissipated in dense, viscous water.

On this evidence, sea creatures seemed to contribute nothing to ocean mixing. The clear conclusion was that the only drivers of note were shifting winds and tides, tied to the gravitational tug-of-war within our Solar System.

But the new study, published in the British science journal Nature, goes a long way toward rehabilitating the 20th century Darwin, and uses the quiet pulse of the jellyfish to prove the case.

Authors Kakani Katija and Joan Dabiri of the California Institute of Technology devised a laser-based system for measuring the movement of liquid.

They donned scuba gear and then released dye in the path of swarm of jellyfish in a saltwater lake on the Pacific island of Palau.

The video images they captured showed a remarkable amount of cold water followed the jellyfish as they moved vertically, from deeper chillier waters toward the warmer layers of the surface.

Katija and Dabiri say the 1960s investigators had simply been looking in the wrong place.

They had been on the alert for waves or eddies -- signs that the sea was being stirred up in the creatures' wake -- rather than vertical displacement of water.

What determines the amount of water that is mixed is the size and shape of the animal, its population and migratory patterns.

Churning of the seas is a factor in the carbon cycle.

At the surface, plankton gobble up carbon dioxide (CO2) through photosynthesis. When they die, their carbon-rich remains may fall gently to the ocean floor, effectively storing the CO2 for millennia -- or, alternatively, may be brought back to upper layers by sea currents.

William Dewar of Florida State University in a commentary, also published in Nature, said the new paper challenged conventional thinking.

"Should the overall idea of significant biogenic mixing survive detailed scrutiny, climate science will have experienced a paradigm shift," he said.

Source: http://www.fight4home.com/2009/07/29/fauna-play-key-role-circulating-seas-says-study-afp

It's either these 4 pups are surrendered

to SPCA. Or we give it a try, to get them a home. If not all 4, then at least 1.

Right this moment, many many young lives are being born or weaned, while old lives are slumbered in rest. Life and death, a continuous cycle. The only difference? Where you are born.



Big Boy Russell (Rusty)


2nd boy - Ray


Girl - Little Anne


Girl - Little Beth

These 4 pups are born in a farm where there are a few wary females and males, uncatchable. Home for these 4 pups is a wet, dirty, gritty ground between slabs of bricks, under a container. As they grow and get more playful, the farm area is unsafe with vehicles coming to and fro.



Home for now

We will try to rehome them. If not 4, then at least 1. In the reality of stray work with limited resources and very few people stepping forward to adopt, despite varying opinions and statements, unwanted puppies are surrendered to SPCA.



* Pls email us at projectjkteam@yahoo.com.sg only if you've experience with local breeds/big dogs, and have thought thru entirely about the difficult phase of looking after a very young pup - the whining, nipping, pee/poo-ing all over the place etc.. - and the 10-15 years lifelong commitment to a full grown adult dog. No matter what.

We hope u understand the difficulties involved in rehoming, and that we only want the best for these animals.

* Pls also email us if you can support with donations, dog food, neem/tea tree oil and sprays, thank you.

* Local breeds/mongrels grow to be medium-sized dogs and are not legally allowed in HDBs.

Early in the morning on the way out yesterday, I stumbled on a black mass lying motionless on the street. I didn't need to examine further to know with ominous certainty that it was the neighbourhood Blacky all right. Blacky -- the female street cat we had tried to catch when her caregiver sounded out to us that she was suffering from conjunctivitis. Red sore eyes. We could see so clearly from afar that her eyes were infected and in need of medical attention. We used cat traps, waited for hours for her, peeked beneath vehicles, tiptoed to her quietly, lured her with different food baits, but like many strays, Blacky eluded us. She longed to be her carefree self, going only to humans (her elderly feeder) for food.

About a year ago when C the cat hoarder moved out, Blacky was one of the handful left behind the vacated house when her owner could not house and take care of so many. While some were caught by pest control after adjacent neighbours quickly seized the opportunity to complain about the cats left unattended, Blacky was smart enough to explore the area behind C's house. She took shelter at an abandoned duplex for many months, quietly sleeping there and also met with our elderly feeder who decided to place food along the pavement for Blacky.

Blacky was the the human-wary sort. She took on a stance of either complete ignorance of passer-bys or scampering quickly to underneath cars when humans approached. But patiently and loyally, she would wait out at the feeding spot under some random foliage and hoped in the heart of hearts that no one would hurl a stone at her, stamp their feet so loudly to scare her or upturn her water bowl. Those were our hopes too.

Then, as if part of Singapore's waves of urban residential property redevelopment, the empty house where Blacky stayed was rapidly torn down and workers' quarters, piling materials and the intermittent crane replaced the plot. Blacky was evicted and was found more often than not seeking shelter in the vicinity of the feeding spot (the pavement), what choice did she have?

According to the feeder, she would sometimes be pursued maliciously by an alpha ginger cat, or hissed at and intimidated by other gungho males who followed the feeder to her spots. Blacky did put on a little bit of weight from the good nutrition, but as time wore on, I realised she was less adept to responding to sudden motions or sounds. Her deteriorating eyesight impaired a fraction of her agility and nimbleness. The delayed turn of her head, the contortion of her nose to sniff out her surroundings more deeply... I guess these were signs people who observe cats long enough could tell from. Blacky's reactions were a tad awkward, if I may so say.

And perhaps because of such handicap, in the wee hours of Sunday morning, Blacky was knocked down by a speeding vehicle travelling downslope along the street. When I found her, her body laid motionless on the concrete of the street. Her eyeballs were ejected, the subsequent cars must have continued to roll over her.

But her body was intact. Fresh, yet bludgeoned by machines without respect and regard. I had a blue towel in the car, so I wrapped her up in it. My heart teared a drop.

Finally, for the first time, I could lay my hands on Blacky. No longer to give her medical attention, but to grant her some peace, respect and dignity.

We buried Blacky in the caregiver's backyard. Her body covered in the same blue towel.

Uncontrollably, our 80+ caregiver burst into sobs. The demise of the one she cared for and loved. While passbys judged and condemned.

"Remain positive for the rest of the cats." All I could force myself to tell her.

Blacky was nobody's child, but our caregiver gave her the love and warmth she snugly burrowed in.

Blacky, about to be buried



Her body seems microscopic in the richness of the earth

Covered and compacted. In shalom peace you rest, Blacky.

Video of Little Oliver

Evidence that he can climb out of his bathtub-bed and able and willing to climb back in. :)

Video link (take by his foster): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17XHDARhozI

Little Oliver has left the construction site

An eventful day. With 3 dogs sent to the vet for sterilisation, we were later informed by workers at a construction site that there is a puppy.



When I walked further into the site, I was saddened to see a very young pup, lying lifeless beneath a bench. His neck area was wet with an unknown substance. Fleas crawling all over his baby face and worms made his little tummy appear bulging like a sack. He looked weak and sick, and could bearly walk, stumbling as he tried to get up.



Once we brought him into the car, his hunger drove him to sniff out the box of char siew bao we had, his weak little body suddenly alive cos his hunger was so strong, he used his little strength to paddle towards the scent. He ate and drank, clearly his last meal was very long ago. We then took him to the vet to be treated for fleas and dewormed. And he later came home with me.



Although I had only known him for a few hours, this little boy has a loyal heart. He at times turns back to look at me with his puppy-round eyes. And when I placed him on the sofa or floor to lie down, he will look up at me, and moved to place his head on my lap, or just his body next to me. He comes when I call. And he sits still to be wiped clean. He even knows to poo on the newspaper!



This boy has won my heart. And we have decided to give him a second chance. He will grow up to be a medium sized dog. We are looking for someone who is familiar with local breeds and is willing and able to raise up a very young pup, who may whine and cry at night (but he will stop as soon as you place him near you), needs to be trained and forgiven for his puppy mistakes for now.

Someone who understands the commitment to the lifetime of an animal. Pls email us at projectjkteam@yahoo.com.sg to discuss more on a little special boy I think I will name Oliver, maybe? Little Ollie.



To support Little Oliver's second chance in life, pls donate to POSB Savings 108-15188-9. If you would like to donate puppy milk formula, puppy kibbles (we're giving him Natural Balance puppy kibbles now) or pee pads, pls email us at projectjkteam@yahoo.com.sg . Thank you.

Project JK's Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#/album.php?aid=188688&id=185453072387&ref=mf

"I take up compassion

and surrender my excuses.
I stand against injustice
and commit to live out simple acts of God's love.
I refuse to do nothing.
This is my resolve."

A quote I read and remember. My resolve.

6 dogs in 2 days and counting....

Gerry and Georgie waiting to be sterilised.

New girl was found to be on heat, with the help of a farm worker, she was also taken in to be sterilised.

Going back the next day

Ready to go back to their site after surgery

New girl is shy and chose to sit at my feet

Familiar smells...

And back she goes to the farm where she came from. Keep safe, New Girl.

Female Corgi-cross living at a kelong, on her way to be sterilised

Lost and found Terrier-cross on his way to be sterilised.

* We seek your support in all these sterilisation costs and more to come. Donations can be made to POSB Savings 108-15188-9.

Each surgery is a determination of a pup-free female dog, and a relief on the part of stray-carers who may be physically/financially unable to undertaking sterilisation plans on their own.

More sterilisations. Fewer pups. Fewer strays. Fewer unneccesary killing of innocent lives.

It is a simple conclusion. Let's keep it going.

A morning with the dogs

Favourite spot for a shade

Sweet Jonah

A good bath for Jordan