7/11 was a heck of a day. 

We sent 24 cats to DCAS.  Two of the kittens had irregular heartbeat so they did not get surgery that day - too big a risk.  Some times the chambers of the heart do not close up by the time the kittens are 10 weeks.  We're giving them two weeks and then we will take them for a vet visit, see how the beats are and then schedule their neuter soon after that - cross your fingers!  The friendlies were done early, couldn't reach the transporter so I went and picked them up myself - this meant that they were able to go back to their fosters much earlier than otherwise so worth it.  In the chaos that was Thursday, a caretaker (who I started helping 13 years ago!) trapped a mom who had delivered in the last two days, brought them to me and luckily we had an opening in one of our mom & baby fosters!  LadyBird and her two kittens were picked up and transported to a safe, quiet crate and are currently doing well.  In the midst of this, received a call from Debbie, our Transit vehicle had lost its brakes, she was safely in a parking lot!  Called our favorite repair shop and the tow truck people and arranged that.  After the friendlies were picked up, the M&B's were picked up, I went to pick up the ferals and Debbie to bring them on back.  Truly a day of one thing after another!

At the end of the day, we had sent 10 friendlies and 14 ferals to DCAS, 8 friendlies and all the ferals had surgery, resulting in 3 males and NINETEEN females being neutered.  Way to go DCAS!!!  This brings us to 54 for the month of July, 291 for the year and 11,262 cats being neutered since 2007!

Usually in July things slow down a bit.  Ain't happenin' this year.

Thank you to our donors and supporters for helping us to continue to care for the cats!"

It's an easy way to donate to Feral Fixers - you can visit our Amazon Wish List, purchase one or more items and have them shipped directly to Feral Fixers - no muss, no fuss! Note that when you add an item from the Wish List to your Shopping Cart, the Feral Fixers address is automatically added to your Shipping Addresses.

And, please do your shopping on AmazonSmile (not the "regular" Amazon website) and select Feral Fixers as your "designated charity". This is an Amazon.com website where eligible purchases made for us also count for cash donations made to Feral Fixers by Amazon - 0.5% of all eligible items purchased on AmazonSmile are donated to the designated charity.

So, satisfy your shopping urge on Amazon and help out Feral Fixers at the same time - Thank you!

This was an exciting event for us as we debuted the first of our 2019 kittens as well as several very sweet adult cats.  9 kittens (Cupcake, Cinnabon, O'Hara, O'Shea, O'Keefe, Sandy, Simon, Sammie, Sawyer) and 6 adult cats (Twinkle, Bobbie, Donnie, Rosie, Corazon, Symon) were the stars of our show.  Everyone was very well behaved and held up well to all of the attention of our guests.  Bobbie and Donnie were a bit overwhelmed by it all initially and decided to hide under their blankets.  But by the end of the event, they were peeking their heads out to see what was going on.  Sandy and Salty did great initially, but later had enough and decided it was time to nap under their bed :-)

Foot traffic was good in the store and lots of folks stopped by to interact with our cats & kittens.  We handed out many cards and received a few adoption applications which are under review.  2 kittens and 1 adult cat were adopted during the event:

• O'Hara and O'Shea were adopted by a terrific lady from Chicago.  She was referred to Feral Fixers and sent in her application at the end of April for a pair of kittens.  She patiently waited until our kittens were old enough to be spayed/neutered and then decide on this pair of sisters.  Needless to say, she was very excited to take them home on Saturday.
• Rosie was adopted by a young lady and her parents in Lombard.  They have a 2 yr old female cat who was looking for another buddy after losing her 6 yr old female companion cat to cancer.

Many thanks to the volunteers and fosters who made this event a success, namely Sara P, Steve, Bernie, Candy, Bonnie, Laura B, Cheri, Sarah K, Debbie, and Lili.  Your support and promotion of our cats and kittens as well as your interaction with our guests and adoption counseling is what makes our event successful!  The set-up team of Sara P, Steve and Bernie did an excellent and efficient job, as always.  Clean-up went equally swiftly thanks to this team and everyone else pitching in.  Special thanks to Sara P for transporting O'Hara, O'Shea and O'Keefe to/from the event, handling all of the adoption paperwork and being my right hand assistant in adoption activity.

Thanks also for all of the other valuable contributions to this event - to Candy for the excellent photography & videography during the event; to Connie, Stephanie and Ted for promoting the event on our Facebook page and web site; to Steve for the professional-looking cage cards and volunteer name tags; to Debbie and Mike for the on-going updates to the Adoptable Cats & Kittens board and binder; to Marylou for creating all of our adoption paperwork; to Sara P for printing all of the adoption paperwork, helping with the laundry and coordinating our lunch run.

We have 2 adoption events planned for July:

• Saturday, 7/13, 11am-3pm, venue is still being finalized, please stay tuned
• Saturday, 7/27, at PetSmart at 63 Rice Lake Square in Wheaton, from 11am-3pm

There are lots of kittens scheduled to be spayed/neutered between now and these 2 events, so we should have some very fun and busy events ahead of us!  We have ~120 kittens currently in foster care and counting!

Thanks,

Sue

Still, we managed to take 11 feral cats and 2 friendly cats to DCAS on 5/9, composed of 6 female and 7 male.  On 5/16 we sent 10 ferals to DCAS, one male was already neutered and one female was discovered to have a mass located in such away that there was no way to save her and was euthanized, she would have suffered greatly if we had not intervened.  Of the remaining 8, 6 were female and 2 were male.

This brings us to an additional 21 in these two trips, 33 for the month, 128 for the year and 11,099 since our start in 2007.

While we are doing TNR, we are also collecting moms & babies which we keep crated together until the kittens are old enough to be separated from their moms, we need nice, cool, quiet garages for this purpose so that the moms can be stress free and raise happy kittens!  So far this year we have brought in a whopping 11 moms and 41 kittens.  There is another family in my garage, going to foster tomorrow that will bring the total to 12 moms and 43 kittens.  One of our volunteers is trying for another set tonight that are housed in a boat in a garage – owner would like to take his boat out for use J.  In addition, we have 12? kittens who came in without their moms – I think I’m missing a set, and a group of 5 is supposed to come into foster tomorrow.  Ye gods!  And we’re just getting started!  Every day brings more, but we actually are seeing fewer than previous years, SO FAR.

Please Come Out And Support Us!

Tomorrow is our Chipotle event – 33% of your purchase goes to Feral Fixers between 4pm and 8pm.  Come eat some great food and after, walk over to 5 Below and get some great stuff – t-shirts, toys, Father’s Day gifts, they have a huge variety! and 10% goes to Feral Fixers!

Help us neuter all these kittens!!!!

Update On Cat Trips

37 cats in Tammy's garage!

On 5/2 we took 12 cats to DCAS, 8 female ferals and 4 male ferals, plus a male that had been neutered in 2017, just a few blocks away.  There was also a female that had 4 wk old kittens at a grade school – a staff member scooped up 4 of the kittens and whisked them off to County before we could get there, the mom was trapped – you do not release an unneutered cat once you have them, leaving a 5th kitten still out there alone til the mom was returned on Saturday.  We’re pretty sure the kitten is still there but the mom keeps getting back in the trap – we do dish up good food.  This is 12 for the month of May, bring us to 107 for the year and 11,078 since our start in 2007.

Look for these kittens at WSHS for adoption in 4 months - 1 day old here!

Next Few Weeks

We have a lot planned over the next few weeks:

• 5/20 to 5/26, shop at Five Below in Finley Square, Downers Grove – intersection of Finley and Butterfield with one of our flyers and Feral Fixers will receive 10% of your purchase price!  A whole week in which you can benefit the cats and further our spay/neuter efforts!!!
• On 5/22, stop in at Chipotle, also in Finley Square, between 4pm & 8pm and a whopping 33% of your bill goes to Feral Fixers – everyone really enjoyed their meals there last year!  Then go next door and get those toys, crafts and beach items that will keep the kids busy this summer at Five Below!
• Beginning 5/26 you can drop off garage sale items in Warrenville for our 6/1 Fantastic Garage Sale!  No electronics but just about anything else will be welcomed!  And shoppers, we have so much coming our way – you never know what you will find at a Feral Fixers Garage Sale!  We have another fundraiser coming up – As If They Were Our Own -  funds from the garage sale will be directed towards the medical bills that we have for the ferals that no one “owns” yet still require care for wounds, dentals, so much to maintain their quality of life
• The Shred4Rescues event is on June 8th – get motivated, go thru your files, come shred your stuff at this yearly event at Citadel Information Management in Westmont.  Visit with Feral Fixers and the other organizations benefitting from this great fundraiser!

Plenty to do, plenty of ways to benefit Feral Fixers!