- Joined
- Nov 16, 2013
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I think $300.00 for a rescued kitten is outrageous. No wonder people won't adopt from a shelter and cats and kittens are either "put down", languish in shelters forever or a shuffled from one to another when there are free kittens advertised every spring by people who have not neutered their cats.. Here the usual charge in a regular shelter is under $100.00, "senior" (over 8 years) are less expensive and if a "senior" human adopts a "senior" cat in many instances it is free.
Our cat club does not charge more than $50.00 to a person from outside the club and nothing to a member, the club even helps pay for any expenses that a member incurs from an adopted cat beyond the usual, like a surgery or special vet visits. Of course, donations are always accepted, ( my cat's new mom donated an extra $50.00 when she adopted him and has donated more money since then), we have a boutique including a bake sale and a raffle with prizes donated by local merchants and restaurants twice a year which brings in $5,000 plus every time. Before a cat is adopted out or fostered the cat is taken to the vet, checked for microchips, de-fleaed if needed, receives all shots, has any surgeries or other procedures (like spaying) necessary.
Almost all of our fosters have cats of their own so it is not as hard to give one up that has found a forever home, thus the foster does not have an empty home and the cats have been socialized with other cats (or found not to be compatible with other cats as I found out with mine).Whoever finds a cat in our community immediately calls the cat club (we are a closed condo community of people over 55, not an old folks' home, everybody owns or rents their own home) and everybody knows that there is a cat club which takes in found and abandoned cats, including those where the owner has died and there is no family to take them. The cat club then immediately finds someone who will foster that cat so the cat is never in a cage but for the time it takes to transfer it. We also care for one feral colony which has been about 5 cats for the last 5 or so years due to TNR. We keep hoping that it will eventually die out but apparently another cat will join the colony whenever one of them disappears. The colony has not had any kittens in the last two years so TNR works so far. But we do find a nest including mama which does not appear to be feral but a stray every once in a while on the periphery of the community, so we figure that the stray has just found a place relatively safe which she had not found in her previous community.
My avatar cat was found, even had a microchip but it was out of date so the owners could not be found. Last known address was in a neighboring community. We think the cat got out during a move to our community and the owners did not yet know about our cat club to inquire if he had been found. Now of course he is mine and we love each other to death.
