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Vail's Helen McIntyre, a volunteer for the Eagle County Animal Shelter, holds one of her foster pets, a kitten approximately two weeeks old Thursday at the home in Lionshead.
High Country Character: Helen McIntyre
VAIL, Colorado — Starting this week, Helen McIntyre, of Vail, is playing mom to a tiny two-week old kitten named Petunia.
This week an important event in Petunia's life occured — she made her first poo at McIntyre's Lionshead home. It's a sign that the little gray kitten is healthy and growing rapidly, McIntyre said.
She fosters lost or abandoned kittens through their milk drinking days until they are old enough, and healthy enough, to be adopted by a new owner, she said.
On Thursday, McIntyre fed Petunia with a two-and-a-half-inch bottle, pausing every once in awhile to rub the kitten's belly.
A mother cat would lick the kitten's stomach to keep the milk from coming back up, and to help her bowels work, she said.
McIntyre cares for new kittens in the Vail area during the summers and in Florida during the winters. She serves on the board of the Eagle Valley Humane Society and each summer she volunteers at Minturn's rummage sale to raise money for the humane society. This weekend she will bring the kitten to the Thunderbird Arts Festival. Petunia will help them sell wine to benefit the humane society.
Vail Daily: How did you get started with the humane society in the first place?
Helen McIntyre: Well I guess I've always loved animals, and Anne Loper, whose husband Bill is the president of the humane society, and I were working down at the Vail Alpine Gardens. She said, “You ought to come down to the shelter.” I said, “Oh I can't do that — I'm too tender hearted.” She said, “Oh, well we're a no-kill shelter, and we need someone to take over the little guys.”
And of course, at most shelters in big cities and things, if they get kittens in they euthanize them, because they simply don't have anybody to do this 24 hours a day.
VD: How many cats have you fostered now?
HM: Oh hundreds. I kinda lost track, because often I'll have five. I've had a litter of six bottle feeders, and that's hard. We had a litter last year ... they were all black and white, and when I first got them I thought, “how am I going to keep them straight?” I had them at first in the (tupperware) tub, because they didn't have their eyes open, and then I transferred them to the bathtub ... What I did at first, was, I had two buckets and I'd take one out of one, feed it, and put it in the other bucket. And then, when I finished that I'd start over again, so that everybody got two chances to drink. It'd be terrible if I missed somebody, but after a few days I knew their faces. Yeah, as soon as I get one litter ready for adoption, it seems like there's always more to come.
VD: Have you always had animals?
HM: I grew up in Missouri, but I've lived most of my adult life out of the country. Five and a half years in Aruba, three years in Japan, two years after that in India, Phillipines for a year, Greece for four, Indonesia for four, and Hong Kong for three. And ... for some reason or other I still travel ... And we had pets all around the world.
When my daughter left for college I even took her guinea pig to Greece. It was really funny because guinea pigs are really sensitive to climate change ... so I thought, “I have to take this guinea pig on the plane with me, and how am I going to do this so that nobody will notice?” So, straw handbags were in fashion, and I had a straw handbag, so I wired a little water bottle to the inside of it, and I put the guinea pig in it with some food ... We were sitting in the waiting room, I had this handbag next to me, and there was this whole group of people, who were really knocking back the cocktails. You know, before 9/11 people could see you off at the gate, they could practically get to the plane with you. So these people are sitting around having drinks and they're having the best time. And this lady's just kind of idly looking over, and about that time the guinea pig turned around, and the handbag shook, and the lady looked away. Then she looked back, and again the handbag shook, and I think she quit drinking. She was thinking, “Oh, I'm seeing handbags shake, I better stop!” So I took a guinea pig to Greece in a straw handbag.
VAIL, Colorado — Starting this week, Helen McIntyre, of Vail, is playing mom to a tiny two-week old kitten named Petunia.
This week an important event in Petunia's life occured — she made her first poo at McIntyre's Lionshead home. It's a sign that the little gray kitten is healthy and growing rapidly, McIntyre said.
She fosters lost or abandoned kittens through their milk drinking days until they are old enough, and healthy enough, to be adopted by a new owner, she said.
On Thursday, McIntyre fed Petunia with a two-and-a-half-inch bottle, pausing every once in awhile to rub the kitten's belly.
A mother cat would lick the kitten's stomach to keep the milk from coming back up, and to help her bowels work, she said.
McIntyre cares for new kittens in the Vail area during the summers and in Florida during the winters. She serves on the board of the Eagle Valley Humane Society and each summer she volunteers at Minturn's rummage sale to raise money for the humane society. This weekend she will bring the kitten to the Thunderbird Arts Festival. Petunia will help them sell wine to benefit the humane society.
Vail Daily: How did you get started with the humane society in the first place?
Helen McIntyre: Well I guess I've always loved animals, and Anne Loper, whose husband Bill is the president of the humane society, and I were working down at the Vail Alpine Gardens. She said, “You ought to come down to the shelter.” I said, “Oh I can't do that — I'm too tender hearted.” She said, “Oh, well we're a no-kill shelter, and we need someone to take over the little guys.”
And of course, at most shelters in big cities and things, if they get kittens in they euthanize them, because they simply don't have anybody to do this 24 hours a day.
VD: How many cats have you fostered now?
HM: Oh hundreds. I kinda lost track, because often I'll have five. I've had a litter of six bottle feeders, and that's hard. We had a litter last year ... they were all black and white, and when I first got them I thought, “how am I going to keep them straight?” I had them at first in the (tupperware) tub, because they didn't have their eyes open, and then I transferred them to the bathtub ... What I did at first, was, I had two buckets and I'd take one out of one, feed it, and put it in the other bucket. And then, when I finished that I'd start over again, so that everybody got two chances to drink. It'd be terrible if I missed somebody, but after a few days I knew their faces. Yeah, as soon as I get one litter ready for adoption, it seems like there's always more to come.
VD: Have you always had animals?
HM: I grew up in Missouri, but I've lived most of my adult life out of the country. Five and a half years in Aruba, three years in Japan, two years after that in India, Phillipines for a year, Greece for four, Indonesia for four, and Hong Kong for three. And ... for some reason or other I still travel ... And we had pets all around the world.
When my daughter left for college I even took her guinea pig to Greece. It was really funny because guinea pigs are really sensitive to climate change ... so I thought, “I have to take this guinea pig on the plane with me, and how am I going to do this so that nobody will notice?” So, straw handbags were in fashion, and I had a straw handbag, so I wired a little water bottle to the inside of it, and I put the guinea pig in it with some food ... We were sitting in the waiting room, I had this handbag next to me, and there was this whole group of people, who were really knocking back the cocktails. You know, before 9/11 people could see you off at the gate, they could practically get to the plane with you. So these people are sitting around having drinks and they're having the best time. And this lady's just kind of idly looking over, and about that time the guinea pig turned around, and the handbag shook, and the lady looked away. Then she looked back, and again the handbag shook, and I think she quit drinking. She was thinking, “Oh, I'm seeing handbags shake, I better stop!” So I took a guinea pig to Greece in a straw handbag.
