Adopt-A-Cat Month®

As you know, June is Adopt-A-Cat Month®. In honor of Adopt-A-Cat Month® I've added a new page to my blog - I Need a Home Please! On it is a widget that features cats from my favorite shelter, Duncan's Place, a Cat Sanctuary. If you click on it, it takes you to Petfinder.com and you can look up pets everywhere. It looks like this:



I hope you'll visit Petfinder.com. You can get a widget like this one for you own blog. Or, you may just find your new best furriend there!

It's Saturday and that means bloghop! Join the fun.

Adopt the Internet Day

Today is Adopt the Internet Day and Petfinder.com's 15th birthday!

You all know that I was rescued from a trailer park by my mom's friend and given to mom, but not all kitties (or dogs for that matter) are as lucky as I am. Some pets need help finding new homes like EK and Candy. They're both from Duncan's Place.  Duncan's Place lists their available cats on Petfinder.com. Mom looked at lots of cats on Petfinder.com before deciding on EK and Candy.

Did you know that Petfinder.com has other pets besides cats and dogs? They have rabbits, horses, fish, birds, and all kinds of wonderful fuzzy furriends waiting for someone to love them. If your home needs a new addition, Petfinder.com is the place to start.

If you're full up, please join the blog hop and help spread the word.

Sunday Musings

Happy Sunday everyone! Yesterday was Mom's birthday, so we've been giving her extra cuddles this weekend.

Good news! Okey's Promise passed it's funding goal and @BZTAT can go forward with her project. Congratulations @BZTAT and Okey's Promise!

Pals been asking about my Turbo Track cuz we got two of them arranged together. So here's what it looks like. We love it! We all gather around it with Mom and play with it. We roll the balls to Mom and she rolls them back to us. It's just so much fun.

Speaking of fun, here's a picture of my favorite ball. It's just about an inch or so big and it's my favorite ball for playing fetch. Problem is, because it's little it gets misplaced a lot and I'd like to have more of them. But Mom can't find any in the stores and doesn't remember where she bought this one. So if you see this ball anywhere, DM me on twitter (@pumpkinpuddy) and tell me where so Mom can buy it. EK likes it too, so we need lots of them for sharing.

We recently got a wonderful present from @Staffpurrson. It's one of the Harry & David boxes that @Mulder_cat and @Scully_cat are so fond of. It came with all kinds of surprises in it.

Just look at all the fun in there! We got Temptations treats, and some Luna Tuna, some great toys, a nice fleecy pad and something we've never had before - crinkley paper! We're just loving everything in this box. Or I should say EK & Candy are loving the box and everything in it. I can't get near any of it cuz they're toy hogs. At least I get treats & Luna Tuna. Nommy!

Look how funny EK is. There's not room for both of them in the box so he just climbed right on top of Candy. But she doesn't mind. They bonded at Duncan's Place and just love each other so much that they climb on each other like this all the time.

Here's more pictures of them cuddling. In fact, it's hard to get pictures of them not together.

And here I am in all my floofyliciousness!

Aren't I gorgeous?

Gotta go watch football with Mom now. She's rooting for Green Bay and the Steelers today, but especially the Steelers. Happy Sunday everyone!

Sunday Musings

We must be the luckiest kitties in the whole world! We got wonderful stuff for Yule. Take a look!



A couple of these are videos so you may need to go to Picasa to see them.

Our pal Sweet Praline is pawticipating in Paw it Forward. We told her we wanted to pawticipate, too. So for our Paw it Forward we're gonna give some of our toys to the local shelter. We were gonna take them today, but we were talking to @BabyPatches at the #catmasweve pawty and found out her mama put lots of stuff on sale for after Catmas. So Mom ordered some more stuff from Nip and Bones to add to it. When that stuff gets here, Mom's gonna take it to the local shelter. I think we'll send Evie to snoopervise and report back on the visit.

This has been an interesting year. It started out kind of iffy. As some of you remember, we almost didn't get to keep our pretty house. But the bank people finally saw sense and fixed things so we could afford to keep paying.

Then in the summer, Mom went to Massychewsits. She was gone a long time and I was very lonely without her even though I had a kittysitter. So when Mom came home, I got antsy every day when she went to work. I was always afraid she'd leave me alone again for many days. Mom decided I needed fursibs so I'd never be lonely again. At first I wasn't thrilled with the idea, but as usual, Mom's right. Now that the squirts have been here a while I really like them. And I love having playmates. Even though I like them I'm still gonna call them squirts. MOL

We made some wonderful new furriends this year, but lost some of them before we even really got to know them. I miss Inigo very much. I'm glad Ryker decided to tweet from OTRB because otherwise I'd miss him something terrible. And there were Sniffie, Mookie, Hollie, and so many others. It's been a very sad fall. I wish we didn't ever have to be sad, but just the fact that we're here, blogging, tweeting, and making and losing furriends just shows how lucky we are. Every time I lose a furriend, I think of all the poor animals that don't have homes or furriends at all. Or worse, homes where they're abused. The fact that we're all loved the way we are truly does make us the luckiest animals in the world.

'Summer at the Lake with Petie' did fairly well. 43 copies sold, allowing me to donate over $160 to Duncan's Place. My goal was 100 copies, but I guess that wasn't a realistic goal and I'm pretty happy with how the book did.

Mom's coming up on a very busy time at work, so I'm not gonna get much computer time the next couple of months. Please forgive me if I don't comment on your blogs. I am coming by to visit even when I don't let you know I've been there. I do want to keep up on what's going on with my pals.

I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year. I hope the coming year brings peace and love to everyone, especially those that don't have it right now. I wish everyone in the world had as much love in their lives as we have in ours.

The Excitement Continues.

The excitement from last week continued right through this week. I got great holiday cards from @Ryker_Tyker & family and from @DuchessCrabtree. I also got greeting cards and TokiPoki cards from @Mariodacat, @Yoda_the_Dog, and @BorisKitty. The Pink Kritter Kondo Deluxe that I won from Kritters that Twitter came this week, too. I can't wait for nice weather to try it out.

Then yesterday the doorbell rang and rang. The first package had the Cafe Britt coffee in it that I won from @Petethecat at #pawpawty. Mom hasn't tried the coffee yet because she has a cold and can't taste anything. She wants to wait until she can taste properly before trying the coffee. The next package was a present from Amanda from Greenies - a huge bag of tuna flavored Greenies. I couldn't believe it!

Later in the afternoon Mom went to the mailbox to get the mail and came back with more packages! The beautiful bear I won from @I_am_fuzzy showed up. That was really a surprise because Evie (that's the bear's name) came all the way from England! Her compartment even got opened in customs and still only took a week to get here. On top of that, the necklace for Candy that I won from @MizzBassie came yesterday, too. What a day!

There are too many pictures for me to stick them in here, so I just put one picture. If you click on it, it links to the album with all the pictures and even a couple of videos.

I know there's more excitement coming because Mom's been hiding stuff from us for Catmus. If we aren't the most spoiled rotten kitties on the planet, I don't know who is! I sometimes feel guilty because I know there are so many animals that need lots of help and don't even have safe places to live or food to eat. I purr and purray for them every day and do what I can to help. I think after Catmus we need to go through all the toys and take some to the local shelter.

Happy Holidays my furriends. Lots of love to everyone.

Thankful Thursday

So far I've sold 34 copies of Summer at the Lake with Petie. Today I received my first payment in the amount of $119. I haven't been paid for all the copies yet so there's more money coming (but not until next month)! I took great joy in going to Duncan's Place and clicking on their donate button and donating that money. As both Blurb.com and Duncan's Place both use Paypal, it was very easy.

Ordering is very easy, too. Just click on the picture below and it will take you to the order page!

The deadline for ordering in time for Christmas in the U.S. is December 12. Blurb.com delivers all over the world, so don't think you can't order if you live outside the U.S.

Thank you to everyone who has or is going to order Summer at the Lake with Petie. And Happy Holidays to all!

My Gotcha Day!

Happy Sunday everyone! Today's a very special day. It's my Gotcha Day! One year ago today I came to live with Mom, and it's been a fantastic year. I won't go into details 'cause you guys hear me brag on my Mom all the time, so you already know how spoiled and lucky I am.

I only got a small present, but good things come in small packages. And this package had my favorite treats - freeze dried shrimps! I may be getting something else. Mom was looking at the Petco website today. I wonder if she ordered anything?

It's also 3 weeks until the brofurs arrive. I guess I'm sort of looking forward to that. Mom's gone so much that it will be nice to have company and someone to play with.

The Lake with Petie book is half done, and looking pretty good if I do say so myself. I've heard from some pals that you want to add stuff to the book. Well get busy and get that stuff in to me or the book will be done. I'm hoping to finish it up next weekend. I'm gonna have a few pals look it over before printing to see if I left out anything important. I really want to have it done soon, so please get stuff to me this week. I think this book will not just be a great memory book of the fun we had at the lake, but also a good present for our humans for the holidays coming up. They can see what we do when they're not looking! MOL! And don't forget, the proceeds go to Duncan's Place, so it's for a good cause, too.

I have to apologize to @joeybeancat. I said I'd write about his howloween costume contest and then forgot and now the contest is over. I'm very sorry. *hangs head in shame* Please forgive me.

That's it for this Sunday. Love to all my pals!

Blog the Change - Duncan's Place

Pumpkin's Mom here. Pumpkin's letting me take over her blog for today.

I started this blog just for fun. It never even occurred to me that it would be anything other than fun. About the same time I started this blog I got involved in the Twitter Anipal community and started reading other pals blogs. I saw what others were doing with their blogs and with the connections they made through Twitter. I decided I needed to learn more about using social networking to help others and went to BlogPaws West 2010. I came away from BlogPaws determined to do what I could to help. I'm still going to have fun with my blog, but I'm also going to try to do some good with it.

I contacted some shelters letting them know I was looking for someplace to sponsor on my blog. It was amazing that none of the places got back to me. I finally had success when I contacted Duncan's Place. Duncan's Place is a cat sanctuary started by Cathy Campbell. They don't have a facility, so they foster cats in homes until they can adopt them out. Their mission is to make sure every cat in their community has home. I think that's a pretty awesome mission.

From Cathy: "Duncan's Place is named after my late beloved kitty. He was my first cat,and a lot of little furry lives owe a lot to him. Duncan was a Scottish Fold and was a rescue, too. I now have another Fold, Ainsley, who is also a rescue. The neat thing about Folds is that they can all trace their ancestry back to the same female Suzie, so Ainsley and Duncan are related."

I had a nice long talk yesterday with Cathy and asked her some questions. I was really curious about how she was able to run a successful cat sanctuary without a facility. It turns out she does manage to do it -  and quite well, too. Since 2008 when Duncans Place opened, they've rescued 133 and adopted out 113 cats. Not bad for a small operation with no building of its own.

Here are the questions I asked and her answers. Unfortunately I'm not great at taking notes, so the answers are all my paraphrasing and not direct quotes from Cathy.

Q: What happens to cats you can't place?
A: They stay in foster care until they're adopted. Sometimes they're adopted by the family that fosters them. None of the cats have ever been sent to another shelter because it couldn't be placed. They also try not to move the cats around to different fosters so the cats have nice, stable, comfy homes where they're cared for as part of the family until they find their forever home. Duncan's Place is a no-kill sanctuary, and cats stay in foster care until they find homes.

Q: Is the sanctuary how you support yourself or do you have another job, too?
A: Cathy is not supported by the sanctuary. She works as a vet tech and also as a massage therapist, both for humans and for animals. How she finds the time to run the sanctuary and coordinate supply distribution, listing the animals for adoptions, arranging adoptions, making sure all the cats are properly cared for, keeping up the website, getting donations, and doing all the other things that need to be done is amazing! I don't think I could do it.

Q: Do the fosters supply everything for the cats or do they get supplies from the Sanctuary?
A: Both. Duncan's Place has some extremely generous donors that give them lots of supplies. The foster parents buy some things themselves and the rest comes from the food and other items donated to Duncan's Place. These supplies are also distributed to families that need help feeding their pets and also to people helping to feed feral cat colonies.

Q: Do you find it's harder to get donations without a facility?
A: It's more difficult to get donations from the general public, but they've had some success getting donations from some corporations and some of the local businesses. Here is a list of some of the corporate donations they've received.

• Merrick Pet Food
• Avoderm Pet foods
• Drinkwell
• Bach's Flower Essences
• Catit Drinking fountains(Hagen pet company)
• Hartz
• Dr. Esley's Precious cat litter
• Idexx laboratories(FIV/FeLV/HWE tests)
• Home Depot(shed & cat enclosure)
• Lumber Liquidators(donated laminate flooring)
• Tiki Pet Products

That's a very impressive list for an organization that hasn't been around that long. And impressive as that list is, it still doesn't cover all the costs they incur. There's an equally impressive list of individual donors, but they still need help. Caring for so many cats and trying to help people in the community who need assistance caring for their pets takes a lot of resources.

Q: Is it hard to place the cats without a facility where people can just come and see them?
A: It is a little harder when people have to make appointments. On the other hand, people who make appointments are more serious about adopting. Out of 113 adoptions, only 3 cats have been returned. That seems like a pretty good track record to me!

Q: Would you like to have a facility someday?
A: Yes. Cathy would like to have a facility where the cats could be cared for in a cage-free environment. She doesn't want a large place, just a small one where the cats could get enough individual attention and be cared for in a loving environment until they find their forever homes.

I learned something about cats in foster care, too. Since they live as part of the family and interact with everyone in the household (including kids and other pets), they tend to adapt well to their new homes after adoption. I'd never thought about this before. All my cats came from friends whose cats had kittens, or were rescued from the street.

Duncan's place is about finding homes for cats. Sometimes that means helping families in distress keep their pets with them. This can be help with spaying or neutering, vaccinations, food and litter, or whatever else they can think of to keep cat and family together.

They also work with Northern Colorado Friends of Ferals. They help with the trap, neuter, release program. They've also taken in ferals that were young enough to socialize and helped them find homes.

Most of you already know about my first project to help the sanctuary - The Lake With Petie Memory Book. Pals have been sending me pictures, stories, poems, and memories to put in the book. The proceeds from the sale of the book will be donated to Duncan's Place. I was hoping to have the book finished by the end of the month, but I'm waiting for one of the contributors to come back from vacation, so the book may not be ready until November. I'm still taking submissions, so if you want to add anything DM Pumpkinpuddy and I'll send you the email address to send it to. Please remember that you must have the right to publish whatever you send me. We used a lot of cute stuff that was copyrighted for #lakewithpetie tweets. That's considered fair use. But since this book is going to be sold, we cannot use that stuff without violating copyrights, so be careful what you send.

I've also signed on with Sponsered Tweets. Watch for the hashtag #ad on my tweets. For every #ad tweet link that gets clicked, I earn money. All money earned from ad clicks will be donated to Duncan's place. (@Boriskitty is doing the same thing for the places he supports, so please click on links in his ads, too.)

Sorry this is so long. Now you know where Pumpkin gets if from! Check out the Duncan's Place website, and if you can, make a donation. You can find them at duncansplace.org. You can also find Duncan's Place on Facebook (Duncans Place).

Sunday musings

Here it is Sunday night, and I haven't written my Sunday Musings yet. I was going to write about Blogpaws, but so many other pals have written about it that I don't know what to add, especially since they all write better than I do. I will say that I had a fabulous time, met some amazing and wonderful people, and learned a lot. My pictures are all in Facebook if you want to see them.

Packing for BlogPaws
BlogPaws Day 1
BlogPaws Day 2
BlogPaws Day3

This weekend I spent a lot of time at the #lakewithpetie. I had the idea that we could collect all the pictures from the weekends at the lake and make a picture book of them to sell for charity. @Petiethecat would pick the charity. I even talked to @thepetbooklady about it and she's offered to help. As usual, I got ahead of myself. I was saving the pictures people used from Twitpic and asking them if I could use them. Well I didn't think it through properly. I'd have no way of knowing what pictures were original and which were gotten from another source, or who to credit for the pictures. Also, a lot of the pictures are just too small to use. I get hold of an idea and I get a little overexcited and start running away with it. I'm nothing if not enthusiastic. MOL.

Spoke to Petie and he and his folks are ok with this project, so I'd still like to do it. I need to collect pictures from pals who have ones they want to contribute. I'd need a good size version of the pictures and assurance from the pals sending them that they own the pictures and can publish them. This way I'll know we're legal and I can give proper credit to the pals that contributed pictures.

If you have pictures to contribute to The Lake With Petie Memory Book, please send them to pumpkinpuddy@gmail.com. And remember, they have to be pictures you have the legal right to contribute. Sorry, the book won't have a picture of the alien ship cleaning up the campsite. Mulder already told me that was a borrowed picture. I'll let you all know what charity this is going to as soon as I hear from Petie. I'll know more about price and everything once I get it all figured out with the Pet Book Lady.

That's all for this week. I can't wait to get started on this project! Get your pictures in. I'd like to have the book ready in a month or so.

Update: We now have a charity. With Petie's approval, the money raised by selling the book will go to Duncan's Place Cat Sanctuary.