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Spring is the season when all animal rescue organizations are inundated with hundreds of unspayed and neutered domestic animals and their offspring who have been abandoned by indifferent owners.  They end up tossed in dumpsters, ditches and cardboard boxes.  They are tied to trees or left wandering the streets attempting to fend for themselves.  They become road kill, die of diseases and malnutrition, revert to feral status, or find their way to a rescue facility.  Unless this facility is no kill, chances are good euthanasia will be the end of their short lives.

For those who care, the task is overwhelming,  The animals must be housed, nourished, madicated and altered, not to mention loved and trained.  All of this work requires time, money and lots of love.  For the foster parent the search for a permanent home for these animals can prove a long and heartbreaking one.  There are more animals than there are good homes to take them in.  In New Hanover County last year, 1172 cats and 741 dogs were euthanized, half of those because they could not find a loving home.

As a caring and enlightened society we cannot allow this to continue.  The solution is simple, spay/neuter your animal.  There are low cost spay/nueter facilities and a number of veterinarians who will work with you on cost.  There is no longer an excuse not to "do the right thing".

In the words of Saint Francis of Assisi: "We are all creatures of God.  If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from his shelter of compassion and pity, you have men who will deal likewise with their fellow man".

Please help reduce the number of unwanted kittens and puppies this year.  Make the appointment to spay or neuter your pet today.

When the call came to the Friends of Felines hotline, no one knew it was the beginning of a year long endeavor to get a large breeding colony under some semblance of control. The woman who called lived in Virginia. Her call was about a group of cats her recently deceased mother had been feeding for many years. She said that she thought there might be 5 or 6 cats but she was not sure. Her mother had cared for the cats until her death at age 93. There was a neighbor who was amenable to feeding the cats but had no interest in getting involved with the TNVR (Trap, Neuter, Vaccinate, Return) of the colony. A FOF volunteer was asked to check out the situation. What she found was a large colony of breeding cats, half grown cats, and kittens, not just a few animals.

To make matters more difficult some of the neighbors had taken issue for years with the elderly woman feeding the cats which seemed to grow in number by leaps and bounds. There were cats on the porch, under the house, and in piles of debris scattered about the property. The volunteer explained to the neighbors that she was there to help with the cats. They seemed satisfied with her involvement.

The volunteer began trapping the cats which at first was fairly easy. After a couple of weeks she was met by a realtor at the property who told her the house and land had been sold. The new owner would not allow the cats to live on the property. After a lot of searching and calling around FOF was able to help relocate some of the cats to farms and other colonies around the area. Slowly through months of trapping, most of the adults were done. Three older kittens were trapped and vetted. Fosters socialized the kittens and they were placed in loving homes. One of these was Yomi. He was so named because his foster mom’s husband told her that “you..owe...me” for having yet another foster kitten join their household. The name stuck and became Yomi!

The TNVR of the Myrtle Avenue cats went on for over a year. Over a dozen adult cats were TNVR’d and returned or relocated. Several of the TNVR cats have taken up residence at the neighbor’s house who agreed to feed them. Then in June the volunteer got a call from the tenant of the now renovated house that she had heard small kittens under her house. As she had three large dogs the tenant asked for help to remove the kittens. So armed with crates and a net on a long pole the volunteer once more returned to Myrtle Avenue.

The tenant had stacked large prefab fencing panels beside her house in anticipation of building a large privacy fence. The volunteer got down on the ground to peer under the crawl space of the house when she heard tiny mewling noises emanating from the fencing. She peered into the spaces between the panels and saw tiny kittens scurrying away from her. After three hours of waiting and reaching and scrambling and netting she managed to get all five little kittens out of the panels. Four were little tuxedo kitties and one was a white and grey tabby. They were barely three weeks old so she had to bottle feed them for a while until they could eat solid food. The volunteer enlisted other family and friends to help feed the growing babies while she was at her job.

Finally they were large enough to be checked out by the vet and placed with a foster until old enough to rehome. When the kittens reached the proper age and weight they were fully vetted, spayed or neutered, and placed for adoption. All of them are now living in their new homes as beloved pets. The volunteer has a few more adults to trap as it seems the colony encompassed more than one area. Adult cats will cover a lot of territory but the situation is much better for the cats and the neighborhood. And eight kittens have homes. Hopefully soon all of the adults that remain will be sporting the tipped left ear of a TNVR cat that shows someone cared enough to volunteer to give them a better life. If you want to help this worthwhile rewarding effort please contact Friends of Felines. We always need volunteers! 

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