I brought 21 more cats to the PAWS-Chicago Spay/Neuter clinic to be TNR'd this morning and then picked them up this evening to bring them back to Tammy's for recovery.
There's no way that 21 cats, even in the teeny-tiniest of carriers, would fit in my car, so, once again, we had to borrow super-volunteer Sue's van to make the trips - Thanks Sue!
12 of these cats were ferals while the other 9 were friendly-ferals. "Friendly-feral" is a very nebulous term. Some of these cats we find are truly friendly while others are 'handle with care'. Five of the 'friendly ferals' I brought in today were from a hoarding situation that Tammy is trying to help resolve. They were beautiful cats, with their coats in fine shape. If anything, they were overweight. But they were the unhappiest cats I have ever seen. When PAWS vet Dr. Cirillo finally succeeded in getting them out of their carriers, they just cringed on the examination table - not moving at all. These are the first cats I've seen that were so 'whipped' that they wrapped their tails around one of their back legs - trying to become the smallest, most insignificant bundle they could be. And their faces - truly, truly sad. These cats, for all of their outward appearance of health, were clearly not happy. And one of them had the saddest meow/cry I think I have ever heard...
At least this situation will be getting resolved so that there will be no more kittens and we'll ensure that they have had their vaccinations. But hoarding situations are awful, hell on earth, for both the people and the animals...
Anyway, with these 21 cats, Feral Fixers has now TNR'd 53 cats this month, 657 for the year and 2,136 overall.