It was an eventful day today at our adoption event at the Wheaton PetSmart. In addition to our very faithful volunteers who help with many events (Lauren, Debbie, Sara) and our new volunteer who has helped with a couple of events (Jill), a couple of our volunteers who have not been at events recently were able help out today (Toni, Bernie), so it was a bit of a reunion! Joanna, Dan (former fosters) and their little Emily also stopped by for a visit. Emily's eyes really lit up as she looked at all of the kitties :-)

The store was pretty busy with a positive vibe, particularly at the start of the event. ARF was showing dogs at the front of the store and running a raffle. We also ran a raffle of two beautiful Easter baskets donated by Kim Marrazzo. Participation was good, by the Feral Fixers volunteers as well as PetSmart workers and customers. Our own Cheri and Sara were the big winners of the two baskets.

Six kittens (Alamo, Laila, Arthur, Ollie, Rukmini, Argo) and six adult cats (Tommy, Bogie, Bacall, Ramchata, Ruffles, Sweetie Pie) were at the event. In general, everyone tolerated the event pretty well. Tommy and Sweetie Pie were a bit over stimulated initially, but after Bernie treated them with some Martha Steward calming spray, they did seem to settle down.

Many thanks to the foster moms who brought these kittens & cats (Marissa, Veronica, Cheri, Christie, Maureen, Debbie and Jill/Sue) to the event. Special thanks to Marissa, Debbie, and Christie for staying for much of the event. There were 2 adoptions that we can credit to this event:

• Sweetie Pie turned on her charm and was adopted by a wonderful gal and her 15 yr old daughter from Wheaton. These folks are friends of Karen, one of our former fosters. They will be picking her up from her foster home on Monday, 3/28, so they can spend their spring break getting her acclimated to their home. Sweetie Pie will be happy to know that they do not have or plan to get any other pets, so she can be the queen bee, which is clearly her preference.
• Christie & Kyle, Argo's foster parents, decided that this would be Argo's last adoption event, and paid the adoption fee to bring him into their family. He will certainly be very happy there. He actually did very well at the event - was at the front of the cage the whole time. He must have known it would have a good ending :-) Fortunately, Christie also agreed to continue fostering for us in the May time frame.
• Two families also completed adoption applications. A family from Franklin Park is interested in Tommy, and a family from Wheaton is interested in Ollie. I will be completing the vet checks and discussing a few remaining questions with them on Monday.

We had a difficult end to the event as Ruffles got away while she was being transferred from her cage to a carrier. She was very frightened, ran and hid under very sturdy display racks. Unfortunately a PetSmart employee and I sustained some injuries before we could finally calm her down, confine her in an accessible location, and get her into a carrier. Hopefully the PetSmart employee will have a speedy recovery. From this experience, we all learned the importance of having two people carefully manage the transfer of all cats & kittens between cages & carriers during these event. Thanks to Maureen, Jill and Debbie for helping with Ruffles' capture.

So it was an eventful day with many ups and a bit of a mishap at the end. In addition to my thanks to the volunteers and fosters who made this event possible, special thanks to Lauren for the blankets, Bernie for the photography, Kim for the raffle baskets, Mike for the binder updates, and Connie and Ted for the excellent advertising.

Our next adoption event will be in April.