A very exciting project

A few weeks ago, we took in a friendly mama cat and her five babies from a local prison. We also took in a couple of kittens born to a feral mom at the same prison. I asked if we could TNR the feral mom so she would stop having babies. After learning there are about six (which typically means 10-15!) feral/semi-feral cats at the prison, I wanted to find out more.

The inmates like the cats and take care of them. And some of the semi-ferals have bonded with some of the inmates. Unfortunately the cats cannot stay there if not spayed/neutered or vaccinated so several times a year, animal control comes in and traps and euthanizes the cats. However, removal attempts may temporarily reduce the number of feral cats in a given area; however, two things happen: first, the unsterilized survivors continue to breed and, second, other cats move into the now available territory (known as the “vacuum effect”). In communities not practicing TNR, several decades of “catch and kill” has done nothing to reduce the feral cat population – there are more cats than ever.

I made it my mission to see if we could TNR all the cats there. The prison cannot pay for it but money is a bridge we’ll cross later. Well, we have finally received permission to TNR the cats. We can trap the cats, have them spayed/neutered and vaccinated, and return them to the prison. How excited are we? Pretty darn! So now we are raising money to pay for the spay/neuters. We have already received donations to cover the cost of four prison ferals and we will come up with the rest -- this is too big of a win for the cats to let a "little" thing like money stand in our way.

We've put together a flyer explaining what we are doing, as the inmates are very protective of the cats.  Our TNR Task Force (including me) will be trapping there just as soon as we finalize the schedule (have to allow for enough manpower as we do have to be escorted by a corrections officer at all times). 

Adoption last night

Tiger, our really big chunky monkey, was adopted last night. It couldn't be a more perfect match. It was instant chemistry between Bruce and Tiger and when the rest of the family came up to meet Tiger and get some one-on-one time with him Wednesday evening, it was definitely love. Tiger is going to a home with another chunky cat who is currently on weight management food so this is a good thing for Tiger. We are so happy for Tiger.

It's raining kittens

Although for us single ladies, that's not quite as exciting as "it's raining men"! 

We adopted 1 kitten (Nappers) over the weekend and managed to take in 25.  Our reverse math seems to be getting worse every day.  However, each of these sets of kittens were in dire situations.   That means we have over 70 kittens in our adoption program.  Oh my....

We've been lucky enough to find more foster homes; however with this many taken in over the weekend, we do need more foster homes.

Thank you fosters, we love you and we couldn't continue to rescue without you.  Fostering is the cornerstone of our adoption program - it is vital to saving lives.  Fostering is a richly rewarding experience and provides you with the opportunity to make a huge difference in the lives of the cats/kittens you foster.  If you are interested in fostering, there is no better than than now to contact us. 

Please email info@alleycatsandangels.org.

Adoption Event this weekend

Come meet our cats at the PetSmart in Knightdale through Sunday, May 30th.  The following cats are currently in the adoption center: Tiger, Prince, Aubrey, Smokey, Nappers, Taffy, and Katie. 

We will be holding adoption events at PetSmart Knightdale this weekend on both Saturday and Sunday from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM.  Come by and meet the cat who could be your forever feline friend.

Alter An Alley Cat Program

Alley Cats and Angels is a small organization, but we are a mighty one and we are absolutely committed to helping end cat overpopulation. To further this effort, we have established an Alter an Alley Cat fund which subsidizes or sponsors spay/neuters for cats owned by families on fixed/low incomes and for feral cats where there is no caregiver or the caregiver cannot afford to TNR the whole colony. As a small group, we have already sponsored over 40 spay/neuter surgeries and vaccinations in the first four months of 2010.

We have identified several low-income areas which need a targeted spay/neuter effort, and we have been able to spay/neuter and vaccinate over 30 cats from these locations, however, we do not currently have the the funds to spay/neuter the remaining cats. Please help us sponsor spay/neuters for those that cannot afford it. Together, we can help end pet overpopulation.

Please donate via our Firstgiving page: http://www.firstgiving.com/alleycatsandangels

Thank you.

Fantastic week in adoptions

We had an amazing adoption week/weekend.  Ten adoptions total -- two adults (Pepper and Yates) and eight kittens were adopted (Zander, Nantucket, Neptune, Nadia, Nayla, AJ, BJ, and CJ) were all adopted.

Of course we took in a bunch too!  We took in a mama and seven kittens from a local correctional facility.  And we took in four kittens born to a mama that we are assisting TNRing.

So we still have tons (we have approximately 60 kittens under 3 months old right now).

Handmade Cards

We are very fortunate to have a very talented scrapbooker and card maker as one of our volunteers. Jill make beautiful cards that we send for honorary and memorial donations. Each card has a matching lined envelope (lined by Jill) and matching inside graphic and a pawprint. Jill, your cards are fantastic. Below are just a few of the cards she's made for us. 

  

Sweet Tomatoes Fundraiser - help us fight pet overpopulation by dining out!

Join us on Tuesday, June 8 from 5PM-8PM at the Sweet Tomatoes on Capital Blvd.  for our "FunRaiser" to help raise money for our Alter an Alley Cat fund, which sponsors spay/neuter surgeries for cats owned by families on fixed/low incomes and feral cats.

Please print the linked flyer (http://alleycatsandangels.org/SweetTomatoes.pdf) and bring to the Capital Blvd Sweet Tomatoes, purchase a meal and a beverage (beverage must be purchased in order to Alley Cats to receive credit), and present the flyer at time of order and Alley Cats and Angels will receive 20% of sales generated by our group.

Please assist us in our mission to help end cat overpopulation. Thank you for your support.

During the first four months of 2010, Alley Cats and Angels sponsored over 40 spay/neuter surgeries and vaccinations for cats owned by families on fixed/low incomes and cats in feral colonies.  We may be a small organization, but we are a mighty one!  And we are committed to ending cat overpopulation.  If we had the money, we would spay and neuter every cat in the Triangle area. 

Volunteer Spotlight

We would like to take this opportunity to welcome our new "virtual office" administrator Karen Tracey.  Karen fosters for us, has helped staff adoption/community events, and most recently conducted a home visit of a potential foster home.  Karen wants to continue to expand her role with our organization and we can't thank her enough.  

Karen will take over several very key administration activities including following up with adopters and fosters, maintaining our adopter database, registering microchips, and other various tasks.

So how over the moon happy are we?  In a word - ecstatic! "Thank you" does not convey how appreciative we are for all she does for the cats and our rescue. 

Saturday's Barn Relo

We relocated six cats to a property near Castalia Saturday.  These are six of the trailer park (first trailer park) cats.  Some feral, some semi-feral, some with "potential" and one friendly guy with a blind eye.  The relocation went well and the new caregiver emailed me yesterday to thank me for the "vicious ferals" (haha!!) as he's covered in cat hair because the bad eye kitty was sitting in his lap.  Of course I knew he would be ok with a friendly or two otherwise we would have sent only the ferals.   So bad eye kitty is most likely  moving into the farm house with access to the outside via a doggie door (access to outside after he gets acclimated).  I think kitty will be very happy.   And we are so happy for such a wonderful barn home. 

We've checked in with the last four barn relos we did in April and all of the cats are doing great.

Thank you to all of our barn cat "owners".  You gave a new and safe life to cats that otherwise would have no chance at all. 

Muffin adopted

It was a slow adoption weekend, but we did adopt out one adult yesterday (Saturday).  An adult - YAY!!!   She seems to be settling in well and has already let the poor doggie of the house know that she (Muffin) is the boss! 

Newest kittens from last night

We received a call last night about two kittens found in an attic in a house being remodeled.  It's possible mama cat was moving them to or from the attic when the workmen left for the day and these kittens got locked in.  Thankfully the owners heard the kittens. These two little gems are about two weeks old.  The "cow" kitten is just fine. 

The primarily black (some white) kitten has upper eyelid agenesis -- meaning he has no upper eyelids.  At only two weeks old, his eyes are ulcerated because he has no eyelids to protect his corneas.   This little one will be going into Animal Eye Care next week to see how to proceed.  In some cases, it's treated with artificial tear ointment twice daily, or removal of the offending hairs in conjunction with artificial tear ointment.  Severe cases typically require surgery to create an eyelid (often cryogencially created).  Sometimes treatment is a combination of several of the above.  It's possible this little guy is already blind in one eye. We won't know until he is seen next week at Animal Eye Care.

Cute times two!!

I mean how cute is this??

More kittens

These guys were taken in last Sunday -- they are about 6 weeks old.  They came from someone We agreed to take them in several weeks ago with the caveat that mama be spayed and we were sponsoring the spay last week but instead mama had to be euthanized because of cancer.   There are two short (well not quite short, but not quite medium either) haired kittens (one gray and one black) and two long-haired kittens (one gray and one black).  They are simply adorable - although they did not all want to pose for pictures.

Finally some pictures of new kittens

Mama and her babies.  Ok, well mama and her three babies and some surrogates.  She's a good mama cat.  Her three are the dark gray/black tabbies.  The calico (hidden) came from one of the trailerparks we're TNRing at and was so very little, she's now thriving.  And mama took on two new charges last night - more about them in another post.  I think all of these kittens are around 2.5 weeks old.

2 of our newest kittens

Litter 2 from last week - yet to be named.  They have settled into their foster home.  These guys were born into a feral colony, as are most of the kittens we take in. 

We'll have pictures of litters 1, 3, and 4 (that would be 1, 3, and 4 from last week alone) up soon. 

• Litter 1 is a group of four bottle feeders (including one manx) currently at a new foster home.  New to us that is, the foster parents have many years experience fostering and bottle feeding kittens.  We could get a picture but right now they just look like a blob of gray cuddled up together. 
• Litter 3 is a group of five (only four have been trapped/caught so far, working on getting the last one) kittens about 6 weeks old.  Very scared of humans but we'll have them purring and asking for attention in no time.  They are a little too scared to get pictures of right now
• Litter 4 consists of two gray kittens and two black kittens -- one medium haired and one long haired of each.  Two of each are super friendly and the other two are friendly but a little shy.  Pictures to come very soon.

Apex Peak Fest

We had a good time at Apex Peak Fest.  Ok, so I didn't get to participate except in preparing things for it the night before and helping set up because we had two other events (adoption events) that day, but Princess Marie, Karen, and Jennifer got to enjoy a beautiful day.   We sold quite a few catnip toys and purr pad cat mats and collected donations, but more importantly, we raised awareness for Alley Cats and Angels and our programs.  We handed out our new rack cards with info about our rescue, information on local low-cost spay/neuter programs, fostering and volunteering, and TNR/feral colony management information. 

We have several foster homes that live near downtown Apex, so we did have a few kittens in a cage (rotated kittens throughout the day so they didn't get hot or tired) so children get exposed to cats and pet the cats (we were not doing adoptions).  In one of the pictures below, there's a young boy kneeling on the table in front of the kitten cage interacting with the kittens.

Adoptions

The Second Chance for Love National Adoption Event weekend was a success.  Lord Byron and Orion were adopted this weekend.  Lord Byron is extremely outgoing and it was hard to immediately fall in love with him once you met him.

But score one for the shy cats as Orion was very shy and didn't necessarily make the best first impression.  He would hiss as you approached him but would settle down and purr if you petted or brushed him.  Taken in from a feral colony when he was almost 12-weeks old, he was very scared of humans when rescued but made great strides in his foster home over the past few months. 

But of course we've managed to take in more than we adopted out again.  We'll get pictures of them up soon.