It's been a busy weekend. Yesterday, Saturday, Amy and I took in 20 cats to the PAWS-Chicago Spay / Neuter Clinic to be fixed. One was a 'friendly feral' while the other 19 were true ferals. While Amy & I were waiting to have our cats checked in, we met another TNR person, Ellen, who was taking feral cats from Bridgeport to be spay/neutered. She was feeling overwhelmed; the cats kept coming, and she was doing all this work by herself and paying for everything out of her own pocket (and, as she is a college student at the University of Chicago, money is very tight for her). During our conversation, Yvette came in with a couple of more ferals ('St. Francis' and 'St. Jude', two more 'Convent kitties') and was able to, I think, link her up with someone else handling ferals in Bridgeport. And, during THAT conversation, Rochelle Michalek, the Executive Director of the PAWS clinic, came out to the lobby to visit. I introduced her to Ellen and in short order Rochelle was able to help Ellen place some of the friendly cats she has found (through the new PAWS program that handles these types of adoptions) and was also able to give Ellen some vouchers for future Feral Cats in exchange for some promised volunteer work.

This is yet another example of how we can all help each other. Ellen was in danger of being a victim of 'volunteer burn-out', a condition that happens when someone tries to do much and/or has no support and its a condition that I've seen all too often. Thank you Yvette for hooking her up with someone in her neighborhood and thank you, Rochelle, again, for being there for the TNR people. And, speaking of help, it was wonderful to have Amy with me today. I drive a lot of cats to/from PAWS and normally have no problem dealing with all of the issues myself. But when you have 20 cats or more (as we did today), the help is immensely appreciated. Thank you Amy!

We did have one downer today - one of our feral cats died during surgery. This is a very rare occurrence - I think only the second time I've seen it with any of our cats. Of course everyone was upset, including the PAWS personnel, but it comes with the territory. As safe as modern medicines are, and as good as modern veterinary techniques are today, sometimes bad things still happen...

Today, Amy brought in 11 cats to the PAWS clinic. She did the transport in and dropoff by herself and, in addition, picked up the cats this evening from PAWS, again by herself - what a trooper! She's only been working with us for a couple of weeks and is already becoming a seasoned transport person. And that's only the half of it. She and her husband David live in an apartment complex in Villa Park, a place that has a long history of feral cats. Attempts have been made in the past to 'solve the problem' by trapping and removing the cats. Of course that doesn't work and the feral cat population there today is proof of that. Amy and David are now trapping cats there and getting them fixed and we are going to do everything we can to help them get the feral cat issues there under control, once and for all. Of the 11 cats Amy brought to PAWS today, I believe that 7 of them were from their apartment complex. Thanks Amy and David and thanks to all of our other volunteers who help make this all possible.

With these 31 cats, Feral Fixers has now done 69 cats in March (and the month is only half over!), 113 for the year and 726 since we've started work.

(The picture thumbnail is of the 19 cats we brought home from PAWS on Saturday - if you click on the thumbnail, you will see a larger version of the picture)

And a beautiful St. Patrick's day it was - temperatures in the 70's for the first time this year. People in shorts out jogging, lots of people taking their dogs for walks, etc.

And Feral Fixers had 10 more cats fixed today. All of them were ferals. One had, what appeared to be, an injured front paw. When the vet surgeons took a closer look at it though, they found that it was deformed, not injured. A couple of toe bones appeared to be missing. The cat is surviving (and seemingly thriving) with this issue, so I guess it's not as bad as it looks.

Chicago recently privatized their parking meters. The company that now owns the rights to them has been busy going around the city jacking up the parking rates. They have finally got to the meters on 26th street, in front of the PAWS-Chicago Spay / Neuter clinic. The rates used to be 25 cents for an hour. Now its 25 cents for 15 minutes, a big increase to be sure. I resigned myself to using the parking lot in back of the PAWS building more often, but now I'm starting to wonder if this increased rate just might be a good thing for us. People don't linger in the parking places any longer than they have to now. For my last two trips to PAWS to pick up cats, including today, parking spots have opened up right in front of PAWS, just as I was getting our cats returned to me. I quickly took the first two traps back to my car, in the lot in back, and then drove around the building, hoping that the spot was still open. Both days it has, and its been a big help in loading up the rest of the cats. Maybe I've just gotten lucky these last two trips, but I'm not complaining ☺

With these 10 cats, Feral Fixers has now done 79 cats in March, 123 for the year and 736 since we started work.