Super-volunteer Judy took nine ferals into the PAWS-Chicago Spay/Neuter clinic this morning (thanks Judy!) while I picked them up this evening and drove them back to Tammy's.
I had to wait an hour to get the cats this evening - Monica and her Pet Taxi brought in fifty (50!) ferals to be fixed and that kind of slowed things up a bit ☺ They don't come into PAWS as often as we do (it's a 100 mile ride) but when they do, they bring in a boatload of cats.
Six of the cats we did today were from a just-discovered situation in Lombard that had "only 4 or 5 cats" (according to the caretaker). Judy trapped the six and says that she saw at least four more that need to be trapped and fixed. We see this a lot - an underestimation of the number of cats at a location. But you have to get them all done, no matter how many there are. If you don't, the numbers will just continue to increase and soon, the unfixed cats will outnumber the fixed cats - and then you're just about back to square one. With Judy on the case, however, I'm sure we'll get them all - and soon...
PAWS also donated 10 large bags of dry cat food to us today - Thanks PAWS! We have a couple of 'new' colony caretakers who are very short on money (who isn't these days?) and we'll distribute most of the food to them. We will keep a couple of bags in reserve for those 'special situations' which often show up.
These nine cats are the first ones we've done for March. This brings us to 59 for the year and 1,538 overall.