Oct 16, 2011

How I'm Celebrating National Feral Cat Day!

Today is National Feral Cat Day, a day dedicated to helping feral cats in communities from coast to coast. I love all cats, but feral cats, as many of you know, have an extra-special place in my heart.

I am one of three proud mommies to a colony of feral cats in my office parking lot. They are fed every single day (breakfast, lunch and dinner on workdays even!), are spayed and neutered, get all the vet care they need and all the love they'll let us give them.

We have found homes for several of them through the years, and also rescued more than a few kittens and other cats who were "dumped" in the parking lot by others who see cats and figure, "Hey, I can leave a cat here and they'll be fine."

They are fine, luckily, because of people like us.

Bully, Sweet Pea, Lilo, Stitch, Crybaby, Daisy, Petunia, Westin and Orange Guy are our kids. Little Meow, Westin Junior and J.T. are three cats who we've happily found homes for, who all hailed from our parking lot. Sal, who we rescued from the engine of a Mustang, is at Cats Exclusive and (fingers crossed!) has already picked out his future daddy, a man who works there.

Stubbie, a beautiful dilute tortie girl with no tail, is our latest project. She is gorgeous, timid, friendly to those she trusts... and FIV+. She is currently in a foster home with a friend of ours, and we're hoping someone will step up and give her a permanent place to live and be safe. Yes, she is FIV+, but that's not the end of the world. She can live as an only cat, with other FIV+ cats or with other cats like her, who are non-aggressive and soft-mannered. Read more about Stubbie here.

To some people who work in our offices, these cats are a nuisance, and we've had our share of run-ins and threats from people who wanted them out of there. We've defended our kitties tirelessly, and won every time. The parking lot is their home, and they're not hurting anyone!

Feral kitties deserve love and protection, and I'll always do anything to help them. Today, for Feral Cat Day, I'm going to head to the parking lot with some extra special treats, maybe some turkey or tuna and a bag of Temptations. I'll spend a few extra minutes petting those that let me and talking to those who don't.

They deserve love just like inside kitties, and I'm going to give it to them!


How are you celebrating Feral Cat Day? Do you have feral kitties you care for? Share in the comments!

19 comments:

  1. Aww Stubbie is adorable. I have my own FIV+ kitty found as a stray and she is now the love of my life.  I will always have a special place in my heart for FIV+ cats.  Thanks for giving her a second chance!

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  2. Give my love to your feral cats for me too please - you are awesome!

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  3. Aw, it's so nice that you took in your own FIV+ baby! Love it. :)

    Stubbie is adorable. I hope we can find her a home!

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  4. Thanks, Rumbles! She's quite the pretty girl, isn't she? ;)

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  5. I care for three teral colonies.  They are also fed and watered on a parking lot.  However, the lot borders on an old farm with sheds and barns for shelter.  I think that it is a perfect place for feral kitties.  The have all been TNR, and are thriving.

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  6. We have one FIV+ soon to be formerly (we hope) feral, Domino who is truly a marvel.

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  7. God Bless you for your efforts!

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  8. On Memorial Day Weekend I trapped a feral mom and her 2 kittens.  Someone who had adopted one of my foster cats previously works for a storage facility and momcat had had her kittens under a car parked there, and the district manager said he would put rat bait out for them if the staff didn't get rid of them.  Mom turned out to be truly feral, and I found her a nice job keeping the rodent population down at a very kind man's acreage (after her spay, of course).  Her kittens, who were terrified, are now around 6 months old, and ridiculously friendly.  One is going to trip me one of these days because he likes to walk between my legs.  I foster for a local Houston shelter (CAP) and am sending these two, along with two young adults, to their Petsmart venue 3 weeks on and 3 weeks off to try to find furrever homes.  Their turn will come! 

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  9. Love this!  I do not have Feral Kitties that I care for, but an animal communicator told me that before I adopted Madison (my Tuxedo) from a Rescue that found him FIV+ on the streets of Philadelphia; he was cared for by a colony of Ferals.  I will be forever grateful to them for watching over my boy until we found each other.
    xoxox thank you for all you do!

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  10. Two of my five kitties were feral kittens my husband and I socialized when they were five months old.  They are pampered indoor kitties now!

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  11. We also took in a FIV+ stray in 1991 who lived to be 18+ years old!  Buddy lived with three of our cats, who grew up with him and never got the disease.  His vet was a marvel and had done research into Human AIDS and how it was transmitted.  At the time he was one of few vets NOT recommending euthanasia for FIV+ cats.

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  12. I too help take care of feral cats at my job! We only have 4 currently but 2 of my 4 kitties I have at home came from people seeing our feral kitties & dumping their kitties. We have found homes for countless cats & kittens that have wandered to our safe haven or have been dumped there over the 5 years I have worked at Skipper's Smokehouse. Skipper's has always taken care of the kitties who have ended up there(way before my tenure there but I happily joined the tradition of caring for our Skipper kitties!)! All of our kitties are fixed! They get 3 squares a day & all the treats & love they will let us give them! We have many of our regular customers who love the fact that we have the kitties there & they all help look out for them! All of our employees look out for them as well! I didn't know today was Feral Cat day but tomorrow I will break out some Temptations & give some extra kitty love! 

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  13. I'm happy to hear of FIV+ cats living to 18!  I had one show up at my door; I had planned to adopt him out through the shelter for which I volunteer, but of course with the FIV diagnosis he could not stay at the shelter, and when after a year he hadn't been adopted through the website I decided to keep him.  He and his favorite female companion adore each other, and I adore THEM!

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  14. I am caring for a feral tom in my townhouse complex. Two months ago he weighed about 6 pounds. He is now about a solid 10 pounds. It has taken me all this time to get to the point where he allows me to touch him between the ears with ONE finger. Any more and he is gone. He has been wormed and I have given him oral antibiotics for a bad tooth. Hope to have him friendly enough to get him in the house before winter really sets in.  (I live in Canada and winters where I am can be really rough. Temps can go to - 40 Celsius!!!) I have built him a shelter just in case. He is only about 4 years old, but as a tom has led a hard life. Want him neutered! My neighbors have been good about it. They know I want to bring him in the house. Unfortunately I Iive in a condo and the board is giving me a hard time of it. We are not supposed to leave anything outside over night and they want the shelter gone. Figure if they make me move it I will make one HELL of an insulated cover for my shrubs in the garden!!! Plenty of people protect their plants :)

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  15. Cindi, do you think maybe you could trap him and then bring him in the house? Then you could get him fixed and maybe just keep him safe and warm indoors?

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  16. He is just starting to trust me. Do not want to ruin that. Also I have 2 cats already and want to be careful how I introduce them.So far the weather here is holding. If there is a sudden shift, or if the condo gives me to many problems, I will bring him in and deal with the issues. I have a feeling that this cat, calling him Sir Spitsalot, has  had a very hard life. Not sure he was born feral. Maybe dumped. Maybe abused. I have had 2 badly abused cats in the past and his reactions to things are the same as they had. Also has some very unusual scaring. If I haul him in against his will, he may never settle. Will keep you posted on how it goes. Either way he will be in the house no latter than Christmas.       

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  17. You know, it's very common for killjoys like the people who work in your offices to call cats a 'nuisance', as if the cats bothered them in some way. Can you ask one of them, "Why are they a nuisance?" or even "How do these cats affect you in any way?"

    The only valid complaints I've ever heard from the "round 'em all up and put them down" contingent is that un-neutered cats do vocalize annoyingly and they do spray urine when marking territory. And both of these situations can be easily 'fixed'.

    I've also heard this particular meaningless thing: "If you feed them, they'll just multiply and soon we'll have hundreds of them! So stop feeding them!" That can be fixed, too.

    Feral colonies are so deserving of our support and protection! People will always say that they need to be rounded up and go somewhere else - NIMBY - with no reason or evidence behind them. But we know that outdoor cats can have good lives! Getting them euthanized because they're feral makes NO sense. None.

    You do the work of ten people, Dorian, and the kitties love you for it. I admire you for it. Thank you for your service to cats!

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  18. Beautiful! The best outcome you could hope for.

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