Car Kitty

On the 28th of February, I received an unusual call on the Feral Fixers phone – a woman had gone out to dinner with friends and the next morning heard a meow in her garage and saw a cat scamper under her car, ending up under the hood. This was a soft-top convertible but the woman eventually got the car out from the garage, cat stayed in the garage, the woman parked the car outside for 3 days. The woman searched for someone to help her, found our information. We arranged for her to pick up a trap and attempt to trap the cat, this was Sunday, the dinner had been Thursday night. The cat rode from a restaurant in Lyons to Westmont, where the woman lives. This was a very hungry cat and had been getting 3 meals a day in this garage. But, no more than an hour and a half after the woman left with the trap, she was calling to say it had been trapped. She very kindly drove all the way back to my house with the cat, which was thin and rather shell-shocked. Since then I have discovered that Carla, as I’ve named her, is a girl, a gray tabby/white, about 4 months old, and is definitely coming around, but just picture riding 10 miles, give or take, under the hood of a car? It will take awhile. Her constantly peeved expression has greatly improved and she is now rolling over for belly rubs! What a lucky cat!

People want to help ferals everywhere

We received an e-mail from someone wanting to know if we had a branch in Canada. She was helping her parent’s ferals and needed low-cost s/n for them. It was fun doing the research to send her some options; I hope she lets us know how it worked out.

Cats decide for themselves when they want a home!

We received a call from someone who wanted to bring a cat indoors that seemed to be begging to come inside, she was in a hurry tho and didn’t want to wait several days to have us take it to PAWS, but still wanted to do the rest of the cats she was feeding. The next morning, we got a call from a local vet that they had one of “our” cats. This has happened before - called them back and while I looked up the microchip number, heard the story that the lady bringing in this cat had a home for it with a friend but it had tested positive for FIV, which wasn’t a big deal because it would be an only cat, at least for now. When I found the cat in our database, she had been spayed 11/08 and the caretaker at that time had had her tested and she was FIV positive at that time. I asked the vet to have the new caretaker call us so that we could get more information. Turns out to be the woman I had talked to the previous day – small world! – and her sister-in-law was going to adopt the cat. The cat is still healthy, no signs of the disease and has become very friendly. I gave permission for the vet to release the cat and I contacted the former caretaker who is just thrilled that this cat has found a home. The two locations are a block away from each other. Another cat has found it’s own home and all parties are very happy!

Demolition to start soon

This past week we have been involved in trying to TNR the remaining cats in the O’Hare Expansion area in Bensenville. Demolition is due to start soon and the management company is very concerned about the feral cats. We have trapped two, one was neutered and released outside the impending demolition area and the other has indications of being a “friendly.” We have a new volunteer in this effort, Lisa Garcia has worked in animal rescue for a very long time, we both wondered how we hadn’t encountered each other before now! She has put in almost 40 hours in trapping time this past week. Only 6 cats have been seen, we’ve trapped two. The cats have a huge territory, and since there are so few cats remaining we feel that having the cats relocate themselves to surrounding colonies would be the best for them. Our main concern is to get them neutered before they move on. We have been working on TNR in this area for a very long time and most of the cats are neutered, so will not result in a feral cat population explosion for Bensenville. In 2007 we were invited to do TNR in Bensenville in order to counteract the effects of the feral and abandoned cats left behind as people moved out of their houses in the O’Hare Expansion Project. We have neutered over 300 cats and have removed approximately 100 for adoption since then. This is an example of people working together for the good of the cats!

It’s Yowling time again

It’s mating season again (or did it ever stop?) and Feral Fixers is in full swing starting the third week in March – I’m on vacation from my day job. The new traps are handed out, we are lining up transport for that week, keep your fingers crossed that we have the most successful week ever!

35% Reduction

We have received some very encouraging information from DuPage County Animal Care & Control – in 2008, 486 feral cats were euthanized and in 2009 the number of feral cats euthanized dropped to 314! As Ted has pointed out, this is a 35% reduction in feral cat euthanization in just one year. We are making a difference! This is entirely due to the tremendous participation of feral cat caretakers, volunteers, the rescue community and our generous donors! I hope this will encourage everyone, knowing that progress is being made and we are getting results that will have far-reaching impact on feral cats and the cat overpopulation problem. Way to go!

Thank you!

One of the reasons we work so hard in the months of February and March is so that kittens will not show up in April.

This morning, as I entered the garage to send the cats off for their spay/neuter, I heard frantic peeping. It sounded like it was coming from the floor – even tho I knew that a kitten that had just been born could not get out of a trap – panic! But, no, there were the three little kittens with their mom, Sugar, safe in the trap. Some of these mom cats hide their condition well, we had no idea she was this close to delivery. Caretaker is going out of town on vacation, someone will need to foster the bunch.

One litter of kittens can seem to wipe out all of your hard work in a colony. A litter can be from one to eight kittens and if they all survive…you do the math.

So far we’ve heard of only a few litters being born so far this year, which is not bad compared to other years when we got a call almost every day that mentioned tiny babies – in February.

There are several ways to cope with kittens.

• Let them grow up to neutering age in the colony.
• Nab them at 4 weeks for the caretaker to foster them for adoption – giving the caretaker instruction on how to do this and how to find homes for them – Craigs List is usually the best option.
• Trap the mom, grab the kittens and keep them all together until the kittens are old enough to eat on their own = 4 wks. The benefit is that the mom does the difficult feeding and cleaning part of the job.
• Bottle feed the kittens without the mom being available. This is the most exhausting and emotionally draining option. Remember, a mere 25% of kittens may survive and they require a minimum of 3 feedings a day. Without the mom’s antibodies they are more prone to illness and formula is not cheap! And there is nothing like the stink of kittens – just what is IN that formula?!

Most shelters do not have the bodies available to foster kittens, it takes a very special person to produce healthy, well-adjusted cats.

We found out early on that it is impossible to do both TNR and care for kittens, so we count on the caretakers and volunteers who would prefer fostering cats than anything else. If that describes you, please raise your hand, but be aware that you are in for the duration – until they are big enough to neuter and even after, they are your responsibility – we will help with neuter and vaccinations, but we do not do adoptions, and usually during “kitten season” it is very difficult to get cats into shelters. If we arrange their neuter, they have a Feral Fixers microchip implanted, so we need to know where they end up, so that we can return them to their home should they get lost.

I’ve spoken to DuPage County and they are using less than half of their kitten fosters – the numbers of kittens are way down and they are not ending up at County. Vets that normally have kittens in their lobby for adoption - have none.

So, yes, kittens do happen, but with your help they are happening with much less frequency and we are on our way to making every cat WANTED!

Rescue Stamps

Visit "http://www.stampstotherescue.com/thestamps.asp to see the new Stamps to the Rescue. 5 cats and 5 dogs, all rescued and adopted by shelters appear on the stamps. Purchase and use these stamps to spread the word about the benefits of adopting a rescued animal! One of the sponsors of this campaign to increase awareness of pet adoption, Halo brand pet food, will be donating a million animal meals to shelters during this campaign. We have a relationship with many rescue organizations – we have encountered many strays that have been returned to their original rescue organization due to the wonders of microchips and of course we need to work with them to place the “friendlies”, we are all in this for the best interests of the animals – so BUY RESCUE STAMPS!

What We’ve Been Doing

We are involved in more than trapping and transporting cats for s/n.

With the closure of the O’Hare Expansion area, we stepped up trapping and neutered two additional cats. We are happy that there weren’t more cats in the area. They seem to have gotten the word and moved on out into nearby neighborhoods.

We are planning a new event in July – Cataoke for Feral Fixers. It will be a karaoke event with a twist. We plan to offer our Board and Officers to perform for a price – and you get to pick the song to be performed. People attending can also offer themselves up to help us raise funds for Feral Fixers. This should be a lot of fun! Of course we’ll have food and silent auction items, so keep posted about the details.

We are trying a new fundraiser – “Dawgs for Cats” at Ultra Foods. The kind people at Ultra will provide us with all the fixin’s for a hot dog stand in front of the store and we get the proceeds! This will take place on May 22nd at the Lombard Ultra Foods – come out and see us and have a hot dog!

Watch out for critters!

I was talking with a new caretaker and she was telling me about letting her own, inside cats out on a leash. Then her male cat had a bout of diarrhea – while I was there. I cautioned her to keep her indoor cat’s deworming current, since the ferals did not have regular deworming and worms could spread to her cats if they crossed the same paths outside. This had never occurred to her, nor has it occurred to other people who let their cats outside – always monitored, sometimes leashed, etc. But there’s no control on what they are stepping on and then licking off their feet. There is a reason we advise people to keep their cats inside and it isn’t just because we don’t want to trap them, there are health reasons. Humans are susceptible to some of the same worms. That cat that you are snuggling with, and you’ve let outside in the last two weeks, hmmm, feeling a little queasy? Please be careful, please keep your cats inside and everyone stay healthy!

March is a success!

In addition to spaying and neutering 118 cats in the month, we completely tnr’d several colonies. It is always our goal to get everyone in a colony and in March we had the time and resources to do so. It appears that we have spayed 101 females since the first of the year – Yay!!!!