Feral Fixers brought in 14 more cats to the PAWS-Chicago Spay/Neuter clinic to be fixed. Nine of these cats were ferals while the other five were 'friendly ferals'.
Because of the relatively small number of cats today (due to the inclement weather), I made the trip, solo, both ways; picking up the cats from Tammy's this morning and bringing them to PAWS and then picking them up from PAWS in the evening and bringing them back to Tammy's for recovery and distribution.
As always, super-volunteer Judy was at Tammy's this morning and this evening, helping out with everything that needed doing - thanks Judy!
It was a very sad day for me today as this is the last time I'm going to see a couple of PAWS stalwarts - both moving on to different things. Frank Fiacchino has been the front desk supervisor at PAWS for a couple of years now and is the person that we directly interact with for all of our paperwork, bill payment, questions about sugeries, etc.. He's a great guy, competent, always cheerful and fun to be around. He's moving to another clinic, this very close to his house. Good luck Frank - we'll miss you! And the long time Clinic supervisor, Shannon Gillen, is leaving to have a baby (she's seven months pregnant, I believe) and start a family with her husband. There are no words to do justice to what Shannon has meant to PAWS and to Feral Fixers. Before Shannon arrived, it was difficult to bring a large number of cats to PAWS - everything was hard to do. Shannon took a long look at the procedures and made things much, much better. As I told her today, she made me (and all of the other people who bring in large numbers of ferals) really feel 'wanted' at PAWS. Her cheerful demeanor, her very strong organizational and technical abilities and her overall caring attitude set a very high bar. I have made mention in this blog on numerous occasions about how the PAWS people rock, how they really care for each and every cat that comes in (even if it's 'just' a feral) and that attitude starts at the top. Shannon set the tone and will be a very difficult act to follow. I will miss you very much Shannon - I wish you great joy with your family and your future, and please give Gracie a scratch behind the ears for me :)
Fortunately for us, Frank and Shannon are being replaced by Leslie and Jenny, long-time employees of PAWS and people who I also enjoy working with - I'm sure they'll do a great job!
With these fourteen cats, Feral Fixers has now processed 47 cats for April, 196 cats for the year and 7,474 overall.