Help needed in Maryland

I am looking for members here from Maryland ,that would like to help the strays on the city streets. We need good foster homes and also others that are willing to help feed and rescue unwanted, abandoned cats and dogs who are all over the city alleys and streets. It only takes a few hours a week to help these little ones who live in such bad conditions. Please Pm me if interested.





http://furryfriendsrescue.bravehost.com/

Originally Posted by Christy L

I am looking for members here from Maryland ,that would like to help the strays on the city streets. We need good foster homes and also others that are willing to help feed and rescue unwanted, abandoned cats and dogs who are all over the city alleys and streets. It only takes a few hours a week to help these little ones who live in such bad conditions. Please Pm me if interested.

http://furryfriendsrescue.bravehost.com/

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Christy....have you contacted Alley Cat Allies and Best Friends Network?

Katie

I just looked at your website and I think you are totally right about inner city animals needing help. Too many rescues focus on pulling animals out of rural shelters and bringing them to the city for adoption when there are literally thousands of strays in the city that are not being helped.

I would encourage you, though, to do more reading on TNR and why it is the best solution for feral cats. Relocating looks good on the surface but it's not the perfect solution it seems to be. There just aren't enough relocation sites out there, and the relocation process itself is time intensive and risky because the cats do not always "take" to their new homes. Plus cats who have lived in the city their whole lives are bonded to their homes and used to dealing with the dangers there. "Safe" country locations have their own dangers like 50 mph traffic and predators that city cats don't know how to deal with. Cats who are spayed/neutered and vaccinated can thrive in locations that are definitely less than ideal. It's the kittens who really suffer so preventing births should be a top priority.

You have a good point about the rescues needing to get involved with the strays on the city streets instead of only pulling from shelters, I've talked about this for a long time. With enough volunteers we could reduce the stray population in the inner cities with just sheer numbers.
Trust me they need to be relocated when they are rescued off the streets. Most of them are starving because people are not willing to go to high crime areas to feed them. The vacant buildings are all being torn down, so they don't even have shelter. When I've tried putting doghouses or trashcans fixed up, down there, many times they're stolen. The abuse in the summertime is really bad and the cats are always having to be on the run. It's fun for the teenage boys to sick dogs on the cats down there and nothing is done about it. There's plenty of locations in the county or rural areas that could be used for colonies to live at. We just need a lot of people to be made aware of this situation and begin to help. I'm also praying for the day when oral birth control that can be put down in the catfood for the strays will be ready for us to use to do something immediately to stop the birthrate effectively.

Originally Posted by Christy L

You have a good point about the rescues needing to get involved with the strays on the city streets instead of only pulling from shelters, I've talked about this for a long time. With enough volunteers we could reduce the stray population in the inner cities with just sheer numbers.
Trust me they need to be relocated when they are rescued off the streets. Most of them are starving because people are not willing to go to high crime areas to feed them. The vacant buildings are all being torn down, so they don't even have shelter. When I've tried putting doghouses or trashcans fixed up, down there, many times they're stolen. The abuse in the summertime is really bad and the cats are always having to be on the run. It's fun for the teenage boys to sick dogs on the cats down there and nothing is done about it. There's plenty of locations in the county or rural areas that could be used for colonies to live at. We just need a lot of people to be made aware of this situation and begin to help. I'm also praying for the day when oral birth control that can be put down in the catfood for the strays will be ready for us to use to do something immediately to stop the birthrate effectively.

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Christy....have you looked at DC Cat? This organization formed last year to address the stray/feral population in DC. I think you need something similiar where you are...so perhaps you can find out how they started:

http://www.dc-cat.org/

Katie

Originally Posted by Christy L

You have a good point about the rescues needing to get involved with the strays on the city streets instead of only pulling from shelters, I've talked about this for a long time. With enough volunteers we could reduce the stray population in the inner cities with just sheer numbers.
Trust me they need to be relocated when they are rescued off the streets. Most of them are starving because people are not willing to go to high crime areas to feed them. The vacant buildings are all being torn down, so they don't even have shelter. When I've tried putting doghouses or trashcans fixed up, down there, many times they're stolen. The abuse in the summertime is really bad and the cats are always having to be on the run. It's fun for the teenage boys to sick dogs on the cats down there and nothing is done about it. There's plenty of locations in the county or rural areas that could be used for colonies to live at. We just need a lot of people to be made aware of this situation and begin to help. I'm also praying for the day when oral birth control that can be put down in the catfood for the strays will be ready for us to use to do something immediately to stop the birthrate effectively.

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Sadly, there are not abundant rural areas for cats to live. This is a commonly held belief but it is not the case. There are also many cats in rural areas and most property owners do not want to care for more cats than they already have.

You would probably be very surprised to find out that people are already feeding the cats. I have done TNR in a large city for several years now and even in the "worst" neighborhoods, there is almost always someone who is feeding the cats. One alley in particular is well known for drug activity and homeless people hanging out at all hours, living in abandoned cars in the alley. What most people don't know, though, is how much these homeless folks care about the cats who live in the alley. They have very little food themselves but whatever they do have is shared with the cats. And they've become great allies of me and of the cats because whenever a new cat comes in or a litter of kittens is born (which is rare since most of the cats are s/n now), they make sure that I know about it so the situation can be dealt with.

Sadly, too, there is the problem of cats being abandoned in poor urban neighborhoods. My friends and I find an average of one or two new abandoned cats in each alley that we have TNRed. Because either we or a neighborhood resident who has our phone number is there every day, we can keep tabs on the situation and make sure that one cat does not become ten cats.

I would highly encourage you to read this section of the Neighborhood Cats (NYC's feral cat organization) website: http://www.neighborhoodcats.org/info/relocation.htm, as well as the rest of their site and Alley Cat Allies' information. Inner city New York City and Washington, DC are not very different from inner city Baltimore and what has worked for them (and not worked!) will have the same results for you too.

As for controlling the population immediately, we may not have oral contraception available but we do have good ol' fashioned spay/neuter. This is the perfect time of year to get started, even if you are only able to do a little. There should be very few kittens and almost no pregnant cats, so right now is the time to really make a difference and prevent springtime litters. Remember that even one female cat spayed will mean at least 4-6 fewer kittens born (and suffering) in the next year. That is a big accomplishment!

No , very few people feed the strays in the inner city and housing projects, I've been going down there for a long time now and I know 4 other people who do many alleys in the city and that's the number one problem here, the cats and dogs are not fed or given water and that includes many pets who are owned. that's why so many are thin and suffering from malnutrition. Certainly spaying and neutering will help with the population problem, but it's not right to leave them there where they won't be fed, and don't have any shelter and are going to be abused. I look at it as the same as child abuse, you don't leave a child in a bad situation, the cats and dogs need to be taken off the streets. And yes I have talked to quite a few of the people in the area over the years, they tell us about the abuse there against the animals and urge us to rescue them. The responsible people there keep their pets inside the house and take care of them. A cat or dog left out on the streets all the time is a homeless one. I don't come to the forums to argue, I think TNR is a good program as long as the cats are living in safe areas and being cared for. There is a desperate need for volunteers to go into high-crime areas and get involved.

Hi Christy,

I checked out your web page and links.

I am not getting a clear idea of how your goals are different than Ally Cats? I didnt get a whole lot of info from your web site, didnt seem to be there, so I emailed off to Alley animals asking where their food drop off point is. I could email you for more info, but I'm not clear why you have a different organization for the same territory/mission as Alley animals. Sorry if I am slow I can donate food regularly, thank you for linking to Alley animals. (hope they arent too far from me)

You say that there are people in the area who want the animals rescued. These are the cats' best allies! Tell them that they can help simply by feeding the cats. Offer to provide food if necessary.

Most people do not really understand how big the stray animal problem is and that there just are no places to take them. You can educate them about how they can help the animals in their area just by giving them food and water. People do care about the animals and they will amaze you with what they are willing to do once they understand what to do and how to do it.

It sounds like you are dealing with several different kinds of animals. From what you are saying there are neglected but "owned" animals, stray animals, and feral cats. These are all big problems but all different problems with different solutions. Animals that are owned but neglected need to be brought to the attention of your local humane law enforcement division (unless circumstances are such that you can discretely "kidnap" the animal). Stray animals need to be brought in and put in good homes. Feral cats are most effectively and realistically dealt with by TNR.

What is amazing, too, is how much healthier the cats are after they are spayed and neutered. Cats use up a ton of resources by females having and nursing kittens and males constantly roaming and fighting. Even if they have plenty of food they are usually quite thin. But once they aren't reproducing anymore they need a lot less food to maintain a healthy body condition. It's hard to believe that just spaying and neutering could impact the individual cats' health so much but it really does.

I'm glad you can donate food to Alley animals, cat food is always needed for the many cats out n the streets. We take care of different locations in the city. They travel many alleys throughout the innercity to help the strays. However there's still alot of neighborhoods where noone goes to take care of the strays. I just wanted to write about the need for more volunteers. Alot of people just don't care about animals like we do, that's the problem really.

I agree with SemiFeral...best to TNR and try to find someone locally who will provide shelter and food for these cats.

Katie