It's Overwhelming....

[tnr1]

Originally Posted by Dozen2luv

My fosters send out a great big thank you to those who foster!!!

Regina (Dozen2luv)

Regina....fostering is a great way to help...but there are many ways to get involved. I find that volunteering at a feral cat clinic is especially rewarding as these are cats who would be having litter after litter after litter..but due to the clinic, we are able to reduce the number of breeding cats outdoors through spaying/neutering. We have already seen the impact to our kitten intake numbers.

Katie

 

[tnr1]

Originally Posted by Cinder

It would be nice to have every kitten that leaves the rescue already spayed or neutered, but if you can't trust an adopter to carry through on that part of the agreement, then can you believe them when they say they'll provide veterinary care, feed it, give it shelter from the heat/cold, etc? So do you stop adopting them out? No way. You do the best you can, which is what you're doing.

Cinder..I can appreciate your perspective....however I do not believe that the majority of "oops" births were purposeful or from an individual who was intentionally irresponsible. More times than not...those same individuals can show you a spay date that they made in advance and somehow the cat got out. The only way to 100% guarentee that there will not be a chance that the cat could become pregnant is to go ahead and get it spayed.

Katie

 

[dozen2luv]

Katie I hope you didn't take my thank you wrong. I have nothing but admiration for those of you who do the other work. The shelters, the clinics taking care of the ferals. My contribution is fostering. taking the kittens to their adoption shows and helping out the rescue when I can.

Regina

 

[tnr1]

Originally Posted by Dozen2luv

Katie I hope you didn't take my thank you wrong. I have nothing but admiration for those of you who do the other work. The shelters, the clinics taking care of the ferals. My contribution is fostering. taking the kittens to their adoption shows and helping out the rescue when I can.

Regina

Regina...I totally understood and appreciated your post.

Katie

 

[talltales]

Friskycatz is a liar. She is not working with a rescue or an exec director of a rescue. She is also not moving.

She is a stay at home mom of two kids with a vivid imagination. Do not take anything she says seriously. She has deep serious issues

 

[susanmly]

Talltales, is it necessary to start name calling on what was a very heartwarming post? Please just stick to the subject!

 

[alleygirl]

Originally Posted by Renny

Just got some more frustrating news....at the adoption fair yesterday some people returned kittens that they adopted a year ago from us (all kittens come with voucher to be s/n if they aren't old enough to be done - voucher is for 50). Well all of these now 1+ year olds have not been neutered, and in one case they were also returned with a litter of kittens of their own. I'm glad i wasn't there to meet these people...I might have snapped and said something I would regret later (or maybe not regretted...)

We don't adopt out anything that hasn't been fixed. They are done when they reach 2 pounds, male and female and we haven't had any problems with them being done that early.

As for mousers.. my Alley was spayed and she brought me a critter every night and left it on the rug next to my bed for me to find in the morning

 

[renny]

Unfortunately all the vets in this area refuse to spay/neuter until the kitty is 4 to 5 months old. The rescue is still working trying to find ones that will work younger then that. I think more education about pediatric spay/neuter is needed in Canada. I had to fight to get both of mine done before 6 months of age.

 

[tnr1]

Originally Posted by Renny

Unfortunately all the vets in this area refuse to spay/neuter until the kitty is 4 to 5 months old. The rescue is still working trying to find ones that will work younger then that. I think more education about pediatric spay/neuter is needed in Canada. I had to fight to get both of mine done before 6 months of age.

Hi Renny....that's unfortunate....the rescue I volunteer with spays/neuters at 8 weeks...although we tend to wait until 9/10 weeks. It is great to be able to send kittens into homes knowing that they will never add to the overpopulation.

Katie

 

[renny]

I totally agree....but the ingrained belief at the moment of vets in this area is waiting till 6 months. I had to pay extra for a pediatric spay on my two...I had read here about the recovery being so much easier the younger they were...and it was. I guess it will take time to change the thinking in this area....

 

[mzoricak]

All,

I can totally relate to everything you said. My husband and I have worked with rescue for a long time. This year has to be one of the worst. We currently have 8 foster babies. 5 of which came from a mama that we tried so hard to trap before she got pregnant. That didn't happen. She was so trap savvy. After she brought the babies around we managed to get them all (5) and we got her too! Woo hoo. She's a tortie, not 100% feral, but feral enough that you can't touch her. We TNR'd her and I take care of her every day. She's in a safe place, the company that was there isn't there any more and the building is vacant, but maintained well. HER mama was there on and off, and has 3 kittens out there. That's the next project. The sad news is that the mama of the 3 died yesterday. I found her laying in the parking lot on the side of the building. My guess is that she was bitten by a raccoon a few days ago and had a bad infection. There was no blood, but her belly and backside was wet. I've seen this before with a feral who was bitten and subsequently had to be euthanized. It was a terrible start to my day having to find her. We came back after work and got her and took her to our vet for a proper burial. There's no way I could just leave her there.

But even with the sadness, there are good people out there. Tuesday morning I found a box behind the pole where I have the feeding station. It was hidden from the street, as the feeder is. In the box were several large feeding dishes and one of those big food-for-a-week feeders. There was a note addressed to 'The great people who care for the wild kitties, hope you can use these'. How cool is that? The rescue group can certainly use them.

As I said we have 8 fosters (all around 14 weeks). 5 from the one litter are lovebugs. Should have no trouble being adopted. The other 3 came from a feral mom 'with an attitude', or so I was told. At first all 3 were hissy, nasty and stay-away-from-me-or-I'll-attack-you. Now, a month later, 2 out of the 3 are in your face, wanting attention. The third one, however, has not made any progress. She will come out from hiding and be in the samea area with you, but when you reach for her: goodbye. Our rescue shelter will take her when a spot opens up. They have a lot like her and have 'socialization' volunteers that might be able to help. If not, she'll live a happy life at the shelter.

Sorry to ramble, but it's so nice to have a place to talk with others who do the same thing and have similar stories. Don't despair, even when it is overwhelming (been there done that). Somehow, you'll get through it. We are the only friends these kitties have in most cases.