One fateful day about ten years ago, we began helping transition unwanted and distressed critters to forever homes. Our family fosters a handful of the many creatures of Lucky Day Animal Rescue and Sanctuary. Primarily cats, and sometimes dogs when the moon aligns. Many animals have come to our home through Lucky Day Animal Rescue and Sanctuary during this time. Many wonderful memories, stories, beautiful people, and animals have filled our lives with this collaboration.
It is a labor of love for us Crows, and although quite a set of tasks to take on, it is undoubtedly, one of the most rewarding responsibilities in our life as a family. My wife, Dodie, does the lion’s share of the dirty work. She is the main pooper-scooper, nail trimmer, matt extractor, lead malady diagnosticate, and medication administer, who also functions as a member of the Board of Executives at Lucky Day, offering her inputs to fundraising events for the outfit. Of course, the rest of us lend a hand around here, but our function is loving and socializing the critters brought in. You know the “hard part!” I joke, but It can be quite hard sometimes. Some animals are wild or damaged or both when they come into our care and take a bit extra. It is truly remarkable when all goes well, but that said, it is never easy when our work turns out differently than we had hoped it would, and it happens.
Lucky Day arranges interviews with potential adopters, identifies animals in the community that it can help best, and covers the cost of any surgery, medical intervention, routine vet visits, checkups, parasite prevention, and vaccinations of the animals on our site. We, Crow, ensure these animals get that care, giving lots of love, our time, food, and other consumable costs as part of our volunteerism with Lucky Day. —On our website, we hope to drum up support for Lucky Day and encourage responsible care and ethic toward all furry friends.
We currently have ten Lucky Day fosters under our care and, over the years, have grown a population with unique traits that have proven difficult to home. None of them are bad cats, but “The Island of Misfit Cats” might be a better name for our place than Anderson’s Halfway House for Wayward Critters! These are all beautiful animals but have unique traits that may need particular circumstances in a potential forever home.
The Lucky Day Roster (As of 1/1/2023)
Odin, Clarabella, Gypsy Rose, Mystic, Manfred, Buddy, Lorenzo, Juejuebean, Tamale, and Amber.
Each has a unique personality, and in some way or another, each responds positively to human interaction. But each has a particular something that has made them more difficult to home than a cat that will immediately sit in your lap and purr. Odin, Clarabella (The Bathroom Kitty) and Amber are the cats closest to that personality, and the others are from colonies or traumatic experiences, where positive human interactions were, at best, limited. The truth is… they may never become the fuzzy love ball we all want to adopt. Here at the Halfway House, they will get all the favorable treatment and respect they need for the rest of their days, but of course, we hope to find “Just that right person.”
The Anderson Family Pets
The Cats are Cleocatra (Cleo), Two Tone (Twotonebabycakes), TacTack, Drucilla, Gerdi, Lilli, Nova (The Fuz), Jedediah, and Adda. Inherited cats are Toby, Ava, Gypsy Roo, and Punky.
Our Dogs are: Willow, Autumn, and Allie
These we consider our family, and not that we would treat the Lucky Day critters any differently than our own. Still, it makes sense to show some segregation for clarity on this website, as none of these animals benefit from Lucky Day support.
These animals are our first pets and, the most recent, taken in through hardships within our families and what we call “foster failures,” a hazard of being a foster caregiver, which means we fell in love and now have become permanent parts of our lives.
Unfortunately, we have no more room to take in another soul. We are stuck at our “Limits to Population,” The observable limit our home environment can handle.
This bunch of fuzz buckets puts us in a holding pattern in our fostering efforts, and to reach new needing souls as we observe our limits to population.
“Observe and Interact” is a permaculture principle that informs us as we assess our needs, the needs of the environment, inhabitants, and the effect of our innovation, often leading us to realize the Bill Mollison’s third Ethic of Permaculture. “Setting Limits to Population and Consumption,” a not-so-fun permaculture principle that has fallen from usage. (I had to get some permaculture content in this post! Even Permaculture folks get all itchy about this Third Ethic! So that’s a topic for another conversation.)
Soon we will feature our LD animals with descriptions and images to find them more exposure. They deserve more than we can give them and as I hinted above, some might need an extraordinary person. Still, every cat responds to good treatment on specific terms, usually dictated by the cat! And every life deserves love, and we hope we find the right match.
Stay tuned as we introduce our Lucky Day cats individually with photos, histories, and descriptions. As well watch our storefront for additions in the coming weeks. It will soon be filled with the oddities of the Stange Collection. All proceeds will be forwarded directly to Lucky Day Animal Rescue and Sanctuary.
We hope your holidays were filled with joy and happiness and all the best in 2023!
Be Cheerful!
Darren
