I'm Alive!

Wow, it's been a long time since I've posted. I was away for a week, then I was sick for a week, then school started and City Council was voting on the budget, and then I'd simply put it off for so long that it was hard to get myself to post. My apologies for anyone still reading! I did get a lovely email from a reader asking if I was okay, so I figured I'd better post at last.

What an exciting month! (Too bad I never posted, haha!)Honestly, there are so many things to cover, so let's do point form:

I went to another City Hall meeting, to give another deputation, earlier in September. While this one also went on for ages, I somehow managed to the be the first person on the list of 300 speakers, so I was in and out pretty quickly. We also only got 2 minutes to speak, so I sounded like I was on speed. Ah well.

The situation wasn't quite as urgent as before, however. The City Manager, Joe Pennachetti, released his report on September 12, and barely mentioned TAS at all. He had no real interest in privatizing, or cutting significantly. So far, the issues haven't come up again as they move forward with the budget process. There will be changes, and TAS is going to have to adjust, but on the whole it's not as bad as we feared. Of course, we won't really breathe a sigh of relief until the budget's set in stone. In the meantime, thanks to everyone for the support!!

We had an adopt-a-thon at Petsmart the second week of September,  and brought two bunnies, the gerbils, and two baby guinea pigs, including Ricky (above). It wasn't a roaring success, and I am always morally ambivalent toward Petsmart events, but it was worth it for two reasons - a big red-eyed white bunny from Scarborough found a wonderful home, and THE GERBILS got adopted! Hallelujah! It only took four months.

Poor Snickers has also been waiting over four months, but at least she got a change in scenergy recently. A new pet store on College Street named Pet Uno has graciously agreed to keep her in the store to see if they can find an adopter for her there. Since we are still packed with rabbits, this was very helpful! Pet Uno will also be hosting an adopt-a-thon for us in a few weeks. Thanks to them!
I don't know why Snickers is still waiting, because she's small, cute and friendly. But hopefully her adoption day is coming soon!

In other partnership news, the Toronto Humane Society gave us a huge hand last week, when they agreed to take six of our numerous rabbits! They had initially agreed to take a pair, so I was quite astonished when I got the email saying they’d take 3 neutered males and 3 intact females! We sent Ruby, Artemis and Echo for the girls, and Pecan, Apollo and Jasper (formerly known as Pearl) for the boys. Huge thanks to the THS! We’re still drowning in bunnies but it was a huge help.

The same day we did the THS transfer, we did the spay surgeries on the remaining babies (and Circe). The vets really outdid themselves, I have to say – they got all 12 rabbits from the two litters done in a week! I was quite excited for Circe, Pegasus and Amethyst to be done, but sadly it was not to be. Pegasus never recovered from her anaesthesia, crashed during recovery and passed away. We think it was a bad reaction to the anaesthesia due to the stress of transport. Poor baby. She was my mom’s favourite, and we had even had interest in adopting her. The poor vet was quite upset, even though it wasn’t her fault at all.

I was much more grateful than normal to see that Circe and Amethyst recovered well and are doing fine! 

Puppy Mill Awareness Day was a few weeks ago, and on the same day, a huge “commercial breeder” was raided in Quebec. Then a few days later, City Council announced that they were banning dogs and cats from Toronto pet stores, to fight mills. In other words, mills have been getting a lot of attention. Of course, no one thought of small animals’ disastrous breeding operations, which I complained about rather pettily on amazing foster mom Grace’s blog. She responded amazingly, as usual, by writing a post about it. She also inspired me to write my own post, which I’m still working on but will be posting soon (I swear!).

 

This past weekend, my friend Jenn (a staff member at the shelter) and I went to BUNFEST. For those who haven’t heard of it, it’s an event just for bunny owners, and people bring their rabbits in strollers, wagons and harnesses. It was a hilarious event, and we got two adoptions out of it, so it was definitely worth it.

And finally, let’s have an adoption round-up! Since the last time I posted, Hazelnut, the gerbils, Pistachio, Jet and Jade have all been adopted! Also, ,three guinea pigs, two hamsters, a budgie, and two rabbits that I never got the chance to post (like Pikachu, above). I really have been slacking off!

Tomorrow I think I'll just do a roll call of the Room (it's been a while since I've done that!) to catch everyone up. And I have to say, I think Bunfest deserves it's own post, because it was a pretty singular experience.

Right, I think I'm all caught up now! I swear it will not be another month before I post again.