The Week in Torre Argentina

Three weeks in the shelter, again.

Saturday, June 26

By definition there are no second class residents in the shelter and therefore the Feline Council for a Democratic Shelter has established that as of today, use of the faucet for any purpose, be it quenching thirst, studying physical phenomena or for just plain fun, will not be restricted to black and white cats. Immediately following this ruling, in line behind Bloody Mary, who had hoped the motion would be rejected, were Zoe and Fantasmina, eagerly waiting for their turn to exercise their newly obtained right.

Maxime has not been seen all day which is strange and also worrisome.

Sunday, June 27



Kristina, the German volunteer who arrived last Friday, is a police woman in Germany. She is trained to keep her eyes open and to interpret human behavior. She immediately understood that the man who had come down the stairs and was furtively looking around instead of looking at the cats, had indeed not come for the cats.

He asked for the bathroom. Kristina told him that we do not have one. He probably decided the giardinetto would probably do just as well and went straight for the underpass that leads to it, but he had not counted on Kristina. She used her police voice and told him in decisive German that he was to leave immediately. He could not get up the stairs fast enough!

Monday, June 28

Spay Day: 9 females and 1 male.

It was Kristina’s last day and she brought in kilo’s of pastries! We are sorry to see her go but she will be back!

Maxime has not turned up yet and, today, also Bloody Mary was not seen.
Tarot has crossed the road to the shoe shop again.
Tobia and Nasus are being deprogrammed in their respective cages, Kelsa has just been released after her deprogramming: we have never had so many straying cats.

The shelter was not intended for its present purpose, it happened and we are squatters. We cannot alter the premises to make the place safer for the cats.

Only part of the shelter has been made secure, the nursery and the cages, maximum security cells. But how can we in good conscience keep any animal that by its very nature is free, closed in the nursery or in a cage to keep it safe?

It is bad enough that new arrivals in the shelter end up in a cage in the nursery for a while, it is often a big trauma for them. Many of them get depressed, refuse food and we have even seen cats that lost their fur and have gotten sick. We have no choice, all cats that enter the shelter need to be vaccinated and will be in a cage until they are ready for their booster shot and are sterilized.

Once all has been taken care of they are allowed to leave their cage but stay in the nursery to adapt to shelter life with other cats, feeding time and to the many people that come and go. Healthy cats are allowed to leave the nursery when they are judged to have adapted to their new life and surroundings but we keep a close eye on them. If they overstep their bounds, they are back in!

When cats are sick and need special care and food, they need to be in a cage but healthy cats need a different quality of life: that is why we rescue them.

Disabled cats are confined to the nursery but fortunately the majority find a home.

We feel that some cats that are allowed out during the daytime, should return to the nursery for the night. We have tried to do this with Maxime, Obama and Bloody Mary, to name a few. But most cats learn fast and find a place somewhere on the Roman wall right at closing time. They make sure they are out of reach but not out of sight, they like to smirk at us to let us know they have superior qualities.

When our night shift volunteer Rixa was in the shelter, the cats had a point of reference, they waited for her, like cats in a colony wait for their gattara to turn up and feed them. Now that Rixa is gone and we do not have anybody in the shelter in the evening, the cats look for distraction elsewhere. Many like human contact and know where to find it. At the top of the shelter stairs and the other stairway that leads down to a platform looking over the giardinetto, there are always plenty of people, unfortunately, often with food.

The area over the giardinetto is a meeting place for cats and people to the delight of many tourists but a nightmare for us.

Maxime has become the center of the attention; he wants to be held and he often is.
Obama, Kelsa, Verdiana, Vladimiro, Diva, Oprah and Sky also like socializing there. It is interesting that it is always the same cats that go there while many other cats are not in the least interested in joining them.

“Deprogramming” has had some effect on some cats but although we use the term jokingly, we are not happy about putting cats in a cage. We wish we could fence in a part of the outside shelter but our squatter status obliges us to be discreet and to avoid doing things that can get us in trouble.

Tuesday, June 29

We had a visit from Susan Dale and Dr. Malcolm Holliday of the Anglo-Italian Society for Protection of Animals, AISPA.

AISPA, a British organization, helps animal care organizations in Italy and has always been a great support for Torre Argentina, for which we are extremely grateful. Please have a look at their website: www.aispa.org.uk and learn more about all they do for Italian animals and how it came about!

Silvia did not sound too good at the meeting, she had a very hoarse voice and a bad cough.

Daniele and Monica spent several hours cleaning the room in the Massaro giardinetto, the home of many semi feral cats like Luke, Nicoletta, Lautrec, Vedova Nera, Danton, Morla and Jamila but also Eutropio and Julep, and others.

It is a very nice room where the cats can go in and out. There are a number of individual cat houses, an inside feeding station, litter boxes and very important, it gives these shy cats privacy, because here there are no visitors. Although the cats in this garden are actually the ones that attract visitors to the shelter, most of them are not social!

Daniele and Monica got all the houses out and thoroughly washed them one by one while the sun did its part drying them. They then scrubbed the floor and the walls as well as the plastic panels that serve as isolation. It was a big job and well done!

Another seagull ended up in the garden, this bird had a hurt wing. He was put in a cage and given cat food. Young seagulls sometimes end up in the archaeological area where they are safe from cats (they are too big) and can be looked after by their mother. Sea gulls, like other wild animals near urban centers, have discovered they can find a lot of discarded food in the city and have begun to invade human territory.

Wednesday, June 30

Bloody Mary was seen in the courtyard behind the shoe store, that is a relief.

We put up posters about Maxime.

Silvia has bronchitis.

Andy took the sea gull to the LIPU, Lega Italiana Protezione Uccelli (the Italian bird protection organization). It had a contusion to the wing and will be released once it is rehabilitated.

A volunteer saw that Iron, Sky and Maria Colonna were in a cage together and expressed her surprise; the three do not have much in common, although Iron and Sky are members of Markers United but it was obviously not the reason they were together in a cage.

Apparently, these three cats are often given a special and private breakfast in the morning and are sometimes joined for this happy occasion by Olympus. Why? No special reason, like many things in TA, things happen and then it becomes a tradition.

We know that Iron has to be kept isolated sometimes because otherwise he does not let Luana work. He always wants to drape himself around her neck and it can be cumbersome and very warm this time of the year. So, perhaps, when Iron was put into a cage for a while and given food for consolation, Sky and Maria Colonna just joined him and now it has become a daily appointment.

Anyway, they had finished their breakfast a long time ago but had been forgotten in the cage, which they did not seem to mind at all.

We had not seen much action from Tau Fu lately, he has become a sedentary cat! But today he saw a nice hat that was marked “for sale”. Tau Fu’s reading skills are minimal and he guessed it said “for practice” and so he did. He never wastes a good occasion.

Daniele managed to trap Tarot at the shoe store and put him in a cage. He is very upset and raises his voice, he actually howls, to tell everybody how unjust life is to him.

The big surprise today was Ramingo. He has problems using the litter box because of his condition but he is good about using the newspapers that are spread under and around the litter boxes. We were watching him today as he went to the litter box and saw how, once he got there, he turned his back to it and with his tail high, aimed at its entrance and managed to pee inside without messing up. It was amazing, he was in total control. We wonder whether he may have done it before.

He is not a member of Markers United (nursery cats do not qualify) but he ought to be made a honorary member. Of course, his performance cannot be qualified as an act of marking, it was natural but in Ramingo’s case, quite remarkable and deserves official recognition.

Today Ramingo had guests, perhaps he had wanted to impress them! Michaela and Herbert from Dusseldorf spent the whole afternoon in the nursery. They would have adopted Ramingo if that had been possible but the vet advised against it because a long journey might be traumatic for Ramingo.

Since Michaela and Herbert adopted Tarot at a distance, they were quite sad witnessing Tarot’s ordeal in the cage and so we suggested that maybe they should take Tarot home. They had to think about that since they had not really thought about adopting a cat other than Ramingo.

Daniele had always advised against a real adoption for Tarot because Tarot is not an easy cat to handle and in the shelter he was, until some time ago, quite happy. Tarot, not that long ago, even tried to break up the relationship between Penelope and Kenneth and his scheming kept him busy for many months.

After his attempt failed, Tarot became restless and it culminated in his excursions to the shoe store. Now Tarot’s situation is different: we want him safe and since we know all about Michaela and Herbert’s fenced in garden, we think it would be ideal for a cat like him.

Frankie and Sky had a bad argument when they met under a desk in the office, arguments can become quite dramatic in small places.

We had a nice visit from Gayle and Scott from Portland, Oregon. They came at the right time to admire Ignazio’s new oufit and they also met Lui but Bruce had a bad day and refused to come out of his scratch pole house. They spent much time in the nursery where they became friends with Ramingo.



Ignazio is the shelter star of the moment, he has surpassed Kenneth and Penelope in popularity right now. Everybody notices him and everybody thinks he is the cutest cat. People are very surprised when we show them a picture of Ignazio and what he used to look like on bad hair days, it is just not the same cat!

Here for all of you, a little clip about Ignazio, the poodle-cat.


Thursday, July 1

The numbers for June:

14 cats became TA residents.
3 cats found a home.
23 kittens are fostered by TA volunteers in their homes.
5 cats died.

No Maxime, and Bloody Mary was not seen near the shoe store today.

We found a kitten of about one and a half month of age in the Massaro giardinetto. Fortunately Priyanka can look after the kitten for a while. She gave the kitten an Indian name, Paari. Which brings us to 24 fostered kittens.

We have a new volunteer called Bianca, she is German from Heppenheim and will be with us for a year.

Daniele realized that Beethoven, our deaf white cat, was not castrated as he had thought! He found Beethovens’s behavior a bit suspicious and when taken to the vet, it was discovered that Beethoven has an undescended testicle and will need to be operated.

Eutropio is very unhappy in his cage but he is doing a bit better.


Friday, July 2

Spay Day: 2 females and 1 male.

Beethoven was sterilized too, albeit not in the traditional way.

Elena R. one of our laundresses, celebrated her birthday on June 24th. We did not know that but today we received an email that two of her friends, Raffaella and Rossella, instead of a birthday gift, made a generous donation to Torre Argentina as requested by Elena. Thank you Elena! Thank you Raffaella and Rossella!

Maurizia B. first only intended to adopt a beautiful long haired kitten called Daniela. It was sad to see Daniela’s little brother, Davide, alone in the cage but, a couple of days later, Maurizia returned to adopt him. It made us all very happy.
Today Maurizia returned to give us many cats but this time they were cats she created for sale in the cat shop! They are beautiful, each cat is different from the other not only in color but also in shape and size. Thank you very much Maurizia!

We have three new short term volunteers whom we thank for helping us out: Ella from Nebraska is here for a month, Richard K. from Erie PA and Robert.

Robert has been here for a while but has time only now to volunteer. He is the co-founder of Friends of the High Line ( www.thehighline.org) and won the Rome Prize which brought him to Rome for a year. But here he was busy with urban revitalization too; just have a look at www.chance-encounter.org about a project that he and the other winner of the Rome Prize, Lisa, worked on here in Rome!

Now he was set to work in the garden since Keith is absent for two weeks!

Saturday, July 3

Michaela and Herbert sent a mail that they will take Tarot, providing his tests are all in order. They can come back for him next week.

There is little time to do everything, tests, passport and microchip but Daniele would do the impossible to give Tarot’s this chance.

We had a phone call from a TA friend, fundraiser, volunteer and adopter of several of our cats: yes, she is all of that! Her name is Ellen and she lives in Groningen, the Netherlands. She told us that one of her cats had died and although that was bad for her, it means that she can give another one of the TA cats a home. She leaves it up to us to choose the cat but she will be very happy to give a home to a disabled cat.

There are plenty of disabled cats and they are all very deserving of a good home. Some of us really would like to give Spencer a chance, finally but what about blind Giuturna?

As we discuss potential candidates, we realize that our new category, the wanderers should be first on the list; several are now in a cage, two are missing, we need to find them homes because they are more at risk than the disabled ones. The decision is made, Ellen will have a wanderer, perhaps Nasus.

Sunday, July 4

Daniele says that he was so happy and moved by the fact that Eutropio did not have diarrhea today, that he let him get out of his cage. Eutropio had been really unhappy and since we cannot cure him, but only treat him, he needs to enjoy his life as long as he can.

Monday, July 5

Spay Day: 5 females and 3 males.

Kiria, the cat from Trastevere with the serious granuloma condition, cannot groom herself and her fur looks terrible. Today she had a bath. The air conditioning was switched off in the nursery and Daniele and Laura immersed the cat in a little tub with warm water. Kiria was very good and accepted being soaped head to tail, rinsed and rubbed dry with a towel. She looked very pretty afterwards, her fur was fluffy and her whiskers clean and curly.

Spencer visited Eva in her cage! Poor Spencer, whenever he makes new friends in the nursery, they leave. His last friend was Rags who is now free in the shelter. Eva would be a good friend for Spencer, it does not look as if she will be adopted any time soon, nor that she will be released from the nursery.

Today Daniele cleaned the cage that had been used for the cat that survived gastroenteritis. He cleans the cages with peracetic acid, which is about as good a disinfectant as you can use.

Robert and Maria Destellirer from Uithoorn in the Netherlands came by, as they do practically every year, and brought an appreciated gift of medicines collected by vet Jeanette Venema of the Dierenkliniek Amstelplein in Uithoorn. Thank you all!

Meeva has learned how to open the door to the office. It would be nice if she learned to close it too so Charm will not run out to eat the cat food!

Laura found that Frankie had gotten rid of his identification collar. Daniele came up with something better: Frankie now sports a blue collar with diamonds. It looks good on him against his black fur. Interestingly, Kelsa is around more now, she thinks Frankie should not go around with diamonds around his neck and hopes somebody will realize that they would look good on her instead and, besides, the saying goes that diamonds are a girl’s best friends.

Tuesday, July 6

It looks like Bloody Mary has now settled in the courtyard of the shoe store but there is no news of Maxime.

Norman came back from a short excursion and he was covered in burrs. Andy and Cristian painstakingly brushed the angry cat and we all pitched in pulling a burr or two.

Sky thought he’d score some points to secure the title of champion marker (which is practically his anyway), but he was disappointed to discover that volunteers have become smarter!

He marked against the door of the oven knowing this would be a nasty cleaning task for the volunteers and thus a high score but the gaps of the door were sealed with tape and nothing seeped in!

Sky, we do not use the oven anyway, it is an oven inside the shelter as it is and you know that! Sky got the minimum score: for marking ordinary furniture.

We suspect that in the beginning Iron was Norman’s role model but the pupil surpassed his master. We immediately need to give Norman something of whatever we are eating (he even goes for coffee) to keep him away for a mini second. He needs a home or we’ll starve.

Wednesday, July 7

Obama decided that there were too many cats around the shoe store. He does not like to be one among many so he crossed the road and the tram tracks to go the bar. Fortunately he arrived there safe but his visit was a short; Andy caught him and brought him back. On the way to the shelter, Obama had plenty of time to scratch Andy and hoped it would teach him a lesson.

Obama has joined Nasus, Tobia and Tarot in the nursery for deprogramming.

Thursday, July 8

Andy tried to get Gommina because she had an abscess in her cheek but Gommina is feral and before she got away, she left her marks on Andy’s arm. We better keep Andy hidden because with all those scratches, he might give the wrong message to our visitors

We found out later that Gommina’s abscess had burst, hopefully it will heal by itself because now Gommina will make sure nobody catches her.

Giuturna the blind cat in the nursery loves her cage. Too much. If she is in her cage, she will not leave it, why should she. In the cage she has her own litter box, her food and her basket. Some of us believe she should be allowed to do as she likes, others want her to become more outgoing, literally and figuratively.

This is why Giuturna can sometimes be found in her cage, door open of course and just as often outside but then the door is closed so she cannot get back in.

Depending on where Giuturna is, we know which volunteers are on duty!

Friday, July 9

Spay Day: 2 females and I male.

Eutropio looked good after a long brushing session with Laura.

It is very hot and as always in summer, the water that comes out of the faucet is warm, not lukewarm, really warm. Tina has taken the initiative to freeze water in plastic cups so she can add the ice to the big communal drinking bowls.

Saturday, July 10

This morning in the closed off passage between Ingrid’s garden and the Massaro giardinetto, we found an open, empty cage. In the cage there was a vaccination record booklet of a cat by the name Nerino but Nerino himself was not around. The vaccination record did not mention the owner nor the vet but only stated that the cat is 7 months old, had been neutered on July 8, (two days ago) and that the faeces were examined. He had not yet been vaccinated but there was a date for a vaccination appointment.

We understood how it happened. The person who had abandoned the cat had been very determined because he/she climbed over the fence onto the Roman wall and from there he must have jumped down; there is no other way to get into this part of the shelter.
We decided that the person must be young and in good shape to have done this and that he may be acquainted with the shelter logistics.

We have not understood why it happened but if the cage had not been opened, we could have saved the cat, which presumably had been the intention. It is very sad thinking about Nerino who must have been scared to death by all that happened to him in two days time.

Sunday, July 11

As Daniele was coming up the stairs, he saw a man standing over the little garden about to drop a cotton shopper with a little black head sticking out of it. Daniele yelled at the man but did not make it in time to get there. The man ran away with the shopper and the cat. Monica had heard the commotion and she came running up the stairs too. She and Daniele were absolutely flabbergasted when another man who had been watching
all that took place, approached them and asked them why they were so agitated. He told them that the person who had wanted to abandon the cat, could do so because it was his cat, he looked after it and fed it. The logic escapes us!

Luke entered the shelter today, as if he had come for help. He is a giardinetto cat and very seldom comes in. Daniele saw that he had lost much weight and immediately grabbed him. He looked in excellent shape only a couple of weeks time ago when he posed for his pictures in the little garden. Apparently, kidney failure, which is what Daniele suspects, can do that. Luke is only 5 years old, so we are worried.

Nicoletta was brought in for tests too because she looked dehydrated. Nicoletta is an older cat, she arrived in TA in 1998 and should be around 14 years old. In her case kidney failure is not surprising.

Monday, July 12

Spay Day: 6 females and 7 males.

Tarot’s blood tests came in and they were close to perfect! He is a healthy cat and nothing stands in the way of his adoption.

His transaminase were a bit higher than they should be. In Tarot’s case this can be attributed to non-acute stress because he is so frustrated in his cage. The release of cortisol, the stress hormone, makes the level of transaminase go up.

In acute stress on the contrary, as in case of a trauma or great sudden fear, the level of glycemia goes down.

Today we welcomed Sonja van Leeuwen and her twelve year old daughter Elise who have come to help out in the shelter this week. Their home is in Dronten, the Netherlands where Sonja is a cat and dog behavior specialist and more; she also grooms cats and we were very happy to find that out! She started by clipping nails of the cats in the nursery, competently assisted by Elise. Then she finished grooming Meringa, who was walking around half groomed because Daniele had not found the time to finish the task he had started. We would like to keep our Dutch friends here to help us out in these special tasks!




Tuesday, July 13

A woman called to ask about abandoned Nerino.

Elisa was smart and asked for the woman’s phone number, we finally had a contact! But, although the cat was abandoned anonymously, the woman did not seem to worry about giving details and information.

She said that she had to leave town suddenly for work and had given two of her servants the task of taking the cat to her house in the countryside. But, these people had not done so, instead they left the cat at TA.

In another call though, she said that she had read the Italian website and had seen that we only take in sterilized and vaccinated cats but she had not managed to get the cat vaccinated but did have him neutered.
She was of course asked why she had abandoned the cat. She replied that she had not abandoned it. Abandoning a cat, according to her, means leaving a cat in the street but she had left it with us.

Her last call was hilarious, in the strict sense of the word. She said she would like to become a volunteer in Torre Argentina. This was not exactly greeted with enthusiasm. Just when you think you've heard everything already!

Wednesday, July 14

Luana went on a very short vacation today.

Norman tried out for Markers United. He used Lia’s bag as a target. He was disqualified because he was using it in lieu of a litter box, he was not marking.

It is very hot and even the cats can get confused. Kenneth was seen butting heads with Rigolino! He must have mistaken Rigolino for Penelope, they have the same coloring but Penelope was a little hurt.

Elisa with the help of Tanja, was hydrating Kujo in his cage. They held him with a blanket while Elisa injected the fluids subcutaneously. Kujo seemed quite relaxed, Elisa thought that it meant he was finally accepting the therapy. But then Tanja saw all the water on the floor of the cage and they realized that the needle had not gone into Kujo but into the blanket: it got hydrated allright!

Sonja and Elise continued working on the hairy cats. Today also Sky’s fur got a good clean up, he was freed of much dead fur on his undercoat and his topcoat looked nice and shiny when his beauty session was over.

Sonja is also hydrating Eutropio and she managed to do it twice today. Eutropio did not expect this, he thought it was a stroking session and let Sonja and Elise pick him up. Before he knew what happened, he was being hydrated. The second time he was distracted expertly again and he underwent the second hydration session. It will do him good.

On Wednesdays we only have Elisa on duty, it is Daniele’s day off and the other member of the vet- tech team, Luana, goes off duty at three o’clock.

Elisa had a call that her apartment was flooding and had to rush home. Luckily she had seen how competently Sonja handled hydration and she felt relieved she was able to leave Luke and Nicoletta’s therapies to Sonja.

When Sonja started on Nicoletta, Andy wanted to give a hand and he really did although not in the sense he had intended! Nicoletta bit and scratched him in the hand when he got her in the wrong hold. We rushed to help Andy disinfect his wounds especially the bite wounds and made him take antibiotics. It was one of those days where one thing happens after the other!

We were visited by a very nice Dutch family from Tiel in the Netherlands. The pater familias is very tall (2 meters 4 centimeters) and his head almost touched our ceiling/street. We thought he would not have been able to get through the double door of the nursery! Those who have visited us know what I am talking about, tall people practically have to fold up but if you are so tall, you almost need to fold up in three parts! We thank Emma’s and Femke’s father for being such a sport!

We thank Jean M-T, from Philadelphia for her visit and for bringing her mother’s hand knitted mice and balls filled with catnip for the cats! Your gift was much admired and appreciated!

Thursday, July 15

Michaela and Herbert came back today to pick up Tarot. Tarot was a bit sedated but still managed some feisty reactions and so Andy got scratched again.

It was a bit emotional to see Tarot leave, but he will be very happy and especially safe. Once he has passed the frontier, his name will be Rossini. Thank you Michaela and Herbert, I am sure Kara will come and visit.

The result of Luke’s tests are very bad, he has severe kidney failure which is so sad when it happens to such a young cat. He is also anemic. He will receive all the care he needs and already feels much better with the hydration therapy and his appetite is back too.

He is an outside cat: how long can we keep him in a cage to look after him? If we let him return to the giardinetto, it will be hard to get him. We do not have that problem with Maria Colonna, so she can be free.

But as Katherine used to say, we will cross that bridge when we get there.

Nicoletta also has kidney failure but is in much better shape, her age notwithstanding.

Friday, July 16.

Spay Day: 4 females and 3 males.

Tarot arrived safe and sound.

On their last day, Sonja gave Eutropio a special beauty treatment, his ears and eyes were carefully cleaned and he got eye drops, he was hydrated twice again and Sonja said that he is much better about that now.

We had a nice visit from Catherine and Michael G. from Switzerland who had hoped to meet Maxime but it was not to be. Thank you both for your visit, the yummy Basel cookies and especially for continuing your support!

This extremely hot day, unexpectedly, a little kitten was adopted.

At closing time, when cats are invited to leave the office, Carla and Stefania invited one inside! They were carrying in a cat shop table and had not noticed Tau Fu resting among the items for sale!

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