Laurel
Kitty Mama
- Joined
- Aug 27, 1999
- Posts
- 20,693
As some of you know from our newsletter rantings, Manu and I have become involved with a trap & release spay & neuter feral cat program. The first step of this program is, of course, trapping. We picked up three humane cat traps this week, and set them out on Friday, hoping to catch some by Saturday night so they could be fasted all night and ready for their surgery at the Sunday morning clinic. After being fixed, the cats are released into the wild where they can live out their lives without producing more wild kittens to take their place.
We caught our first cat almost immediately. As soon as I heard the trap spring, I ran outside all excited only to see one of the most friendly white cats sitting in the trap. He looked so sad! He didn't charge at the bars or hiss like I was warned he might do...he just looked up at me with that "why you doin' this, momma?" look. Broke my heart! I kept telling myself that he'll be a happier cat once he's neutered, that he won't die in a fight, that he won't sire any more doomed kittens...but I still felt guilty and cruel.
Late Friday night the trap went off again. Manu went out to check it, then came back and told me I had to see it. Sitting in the trap was a big gray possum. Three of the kittens stood next to the trap like kids at the zoo, looking in. I shined the flashlight on him and he stared back at us with those same sad eyes as the white cat. I always think of possums as oversized rats with bad attitudes, but this critter had a quiet dignity that touched me. We spent 20 minutes trying to get him out of the trap - he would not turn around and leave through the open door!
There's this one steel-gray tom with yellow eyes that sprays all over our plants, our patio, and sometimes even our legs. When we thought about trapping, he was the one we pictured in the trap. I thought it might take a couple of tries to get him, but believe it or not we nailed him this afternoon! He was more of a fighter than the white cat. He's still out there crying in that high-pitched, strange voice of his. Ha ha! His spraying days are over...
The last cat trap was a sad one - an old black scarred tom whose been our friend for a couple of years now. The biggest of the three, he slammed himself against the cage with such vigor that I could barely carry the cage to our garage! We laid him next to the other traps, then covered the trap with a towel to calm him down.
Tomorrow morning, we'll take the cat-filled traps to the monthly feral cat spay/neuter clinic. The doctors and volunteers there will anesthetize each cat, inspect it and treat any wounds or infections (including ear mites and damage from banging around the cage), spay or neuter the animal, administer a rabies vaccination, and note any irregularities - ALL FOR FREE, thanks to donations by people & the vets themselves.
If this goes well, we'll be bringing 3 cats to each monthly clinic until we run out of cats to fix. In between the monthly clinics, we can also take them to any vet whose affiliated with Maddy's Fund....
Maddy's Fund is a multi-million dollar fund which pays participating vets the full cost for every feral spay/neuter they perform. So the vet can help with the feral cat problem and still be paid for his or her work. Unlike the clinics, anything past a spay/neuter is an extra cost - i.e. rabies vaccinations, ear mite treatments, wound treatments, etc. But those are very small costs compared the fee for a spay or a neuter. The kind people at FeralCat.com gave me the name & phone number of a Maddy's Fund vet near me so I can keep working on the problem between clinics.
So there you go...I've attached a picture of our possum friend.
We caught our first cat almost immediately. As soon as I heard the trap spring, I ran outside all excited only to see one of the most friendly white cats sitting in the trap. He looked so sad! He didn't charge at the bars or hiss like I was warned he might do...he just looked up at me with that "why you doin' this, momma?" look. Broke my heart! I kept telling myself that he'll be a happier cat once he's neutered, that he won't die in a fight, that he won't sire any more doomed kittens...but I still felt guilty and cruel.
Late Friday night the trap went off again. Manu went out to check it, then came back and told me I had to see it. Sitting in the trap was a big gray possum. Three of the kittens stood next to the trap like kids at the zoo, looking in. I shined the flashlight on him and he stared back at us with those same sad eyes as the white cat. I always think of possums as oversized rats with bad attitudes, but this critter had a quiet dignity that touched me. We spent 20 minutes trying to get him out of the trap - he would not turn around and leave through the open door!
There's this one steel-gray tom with yellow eyes that sprays all over our plants, our patio, and sometimes even our legs. When we thought about trapping, he was the one we pictured in the trap. I thought it might take a couple of tries to get him, but believe it or not we nailed him this afternoon! He was more of a fighter than the white cat. He's still out there crying in that high-pitched, strange voice of his. Ha ha! His spraying days are over...
The last cat trap was a sad one - an old black scarred tom whose been our friend for a couple of years now. The biggest of the three, he slammed himself against the cage with such vigor that I could barely carry the cage to our garage! We laid him next to the other traps, then covered the trap with a towel to calm him down.
Tomorrow morning, we'll take the cat-filled traps to the monthly feral cat spay/neuter clinic. The doctors and volunteers there will anesthetize each cat, inspect it and treat any wounds or infections (including ear mites and damage from banging around the cage), spay or neuter the animal, administer a rabies vaccination, and note any irregularities - ALL FOR FREE, thanks to donations by people & the vets themselves.
If this goes well, we'll be bringing 3 cats to each monthly clinic until we run out of cats to fix. In between the monthly clinics, we can also take them to any vet whose affiliated with Maddy's Fund....
Maddy's Fund is a multi-million dollar fund which pays participating vets the full cost for every feral spay/neuter they perform. So the vet can help with the feral cat problem and still be paid for his or her work. Unlike the clinics, anything past a spay/neuter is an extra cost - i.e. rabies vaccinations, ear mite treatments, wound treatments, etc. But those are very small costs compared the fee for a spay or a neuter. The kind people at FeralCat.com gave me the name & phone number of a Maddy's Fund vet near me so I can keep working on the problem between clinics.
So there you go...I've attached a picture of our possum friend.
