My wife and I have been working with two feral cats. She was feeding them outside but then Jefferson County Animal Control said that if we feed them that they are our cats. We eventually brought the 2 strays in and have them isolated from our house cat. We took them to the vet and had their rabies shots and other shots. They both are coming along really well. Both are very friendly with us. We have not introduced them to our house cat yet, we still need to get a snap test for FLV.
Today I got a summons to appear in court. We have been trying to do everything we can for these 2 cats but every turn is turning out to be a bad one. Both my wife and myself are on disability and a very fixed income. I don't know if we can continue to keep these cats. I don't want to let them go. I called over 30 no kill shelters and none of them will take them. 1. they are feral. 2. they are both black. 3. they are both around 8 years old. If I had any hair left I'd be pulling it out right now.
Today I got a summons to appear in court. We have been trying to do everything we can for these 2 cats but every turn is turning out to be a bad one. Both my wife and myself are on disability and a very fixed income. I don't know if we can continue to keep these cats. I don't want to let them go. I called over 30 no kill shelters and none of them will take them. 1. they are feral. 2. they are both black. 3. they are both around 8 years old. If I had any hair left I'd be pulling it out right now.
A) the animal itself for the unlucky lot of being an outside - feral OR lost OR general dump animal, and (2) people why are trying desperately to help. Perhaps at some point, the effort by the government should be focussing less on the people generally trying to do something good, and more on education re: Trap/Neuter/Return and how it really lessens, over time, the # of animals, and that by "just feeding/sheltering" the animals, or by mass euthanization they'll actually suffer from the "vacuum effect", causing new -perhaps more-animals into the area. And chances are "the new guys" wouldn't be fixed. Meaning instead of 5 cats to deal with, suddenly they'll have 20 cats, then before they know it, 50 animals etc. Suddenly the complaining neighbors go from seeing one guy feeding/keeping disease and injury lower/fixing them to keep numbers down.....and when they remove the caretaker's ability to feed, fix, & shelter, they open themselves to an unhealthy skinny colony! Definitely government cutting off their nose to spite their face! Our neighborhood had a huge problem feral cat population, many of which looked awful...unhealthy....wounded....skinny. So some of us started T/N/Ring. We too caught a lot of flack, trying to get governmental edicts laid down (not surprisingly, one suburb -luckily not ours- did end up creating a law like yours. Our neighborhood even had a big meeting on "what to do with all the damn cats." One began poisoning them!!!! So next neighborhood meeting, I went armed with free informational materials (free from Alley Cat Allies !!!), a spokesperson from our local spay/neuter clinic---and the meeting quickly went from "what about those pain-in-ass cats" & " round them up and euthanize them" to "I had no idea!" and "we thought you were weird & just feeding to have more & more kittens----NOW I get it!!" Often if people are informed...they learn. It sounds like you found one person (the judge!) to start to get what a useless, silly, law like your area's is. Soon now maybe you can slowly spread the word that there IS a better solution!!!!!! (W/the help of those free Alley Cats materials)
