Sunflower is safe!

We have been feeding Sunflower since the late spring. I guess we always thought that she maybe lived around the neighborhood and her owner would let her out once in a while. Those nights turned into weeks, and every night, like clock work, she would come to eat. When we went on vacation, I would leave food for Jon every day to feed her as well. She had her own bowls outside by Andrew's old car.

When it would rain, and I mean pouring rain and wind, she would show up, and we started to doubt that she did have a home. I would dry her off with a towel and make sure her food was covered.

Most nights, we would see her out under the car just hanging out. Sometimes we would see and feed her early in the morning when Zoe was at the bus stop and she was there.

She was so friendly it was hard to believe she did not belong to anyone. She would roll on the ground and show us her belly and jump up to be pet. She would rub up against our legs and purr. For months I searched all the online lost pets group pages, as well as the spca pages and craigslist, trying to find if anyone was missing her. She would disappear during the day and we never knew where she was. We tried following her when she left at night, but would always spot us and come back to the car. We tried to see where she came from in the evenings, but it was always in different places. We even drove down a neighborhood where we thought she lived and hoped to see her in one of the windows. That never happened.

When we heard there was going to be a code blue, we knew it was time to take action and see if she had a microchip. Andrew, Jax and I tried over the weekend and failed. We finally got her tonight. We took her to VCA vet, which is the vet who works with Save the Cats. It was great that we volunteered, since they do this rescue work all the time. It was the first time for us, and I was super stressed by the whole process. And I felt terrible when she was there. And it made no sense. 

But then it did. Sunflower was part of our lives. We would all go feed her and pet her. When it was warm, I would spend time outside with her, sitting on the curb and talk to her. She was part of our every day, and now our time with her was over. 

I thought very long and hard about taking her in and how that would work, but we were already to full capacity in our apartment. Also, the thought of adding more stress to Daisy during her chemo and Violet's eye herpes flare ups didn't make sense. 

The vet said that she didn't have a chip and was covered in flea dirt and had been living outside for a while. She also had a broken tooth (which was funny, because I just broke mine on Saturday!) and had to get a dental work up. She was already spayed, which probably meant she did belong to someone. Most groups that trap, spay and release will clip the corner of their ear to mark it, and hers were not clipped. 

I am glad that she is inside out of the freezing cold, and that she has the chance to find her furever home. So many nights I stressed about her getting hit by a car or getting sick. I don't have to worry about that anymore.