Trap and Return - Bobbi/Bobby, Riely & Andy

Hello Friends

Tonight was our first night of RETURN. On February 27th, we returned Riely and Andi to their colony. And Laura trapped Bobbi/Bobby (not yet sure of sex). For some reason we have only been able to get one cat at a time. So far Riley and Andi have both been females. And all three trapped at Burger King have been tabbies, though we have seen many black cats too!

Last night I trapped at Sandy Pines Resort (a Summer RV/Trailer Resort South of Grand Rapids) with the founder of Jandy's Home (Amy Pietras). She and I managed to trap three beautiful girls who were spayed this morning at The Humane Society of Kent County. I asked if it was strange that all our catches were female. Erin (assistant to Dr. Wendy Swift at HSKC) said that it's often females that are trapped first because they go right for the food. The male TOMS are more leary and tend to shy away from the traps unless they are really hungry. Well, I want to spay and neuter all the cats in the colony for sure, but at least if we get these girls before high kitten season, we will reduce the number of surgeries we have to do. So I'm happy with what we are getting the females first.

If you would like to know more about the Sandy Pines Project, see the link to the right of the blog.

Two weeks ago, I would never have imagined I would be involved in such projects. Currently I have three Sandy Pines kitties recuperating and Bobbi/Bobby awaiting surgery tomorrow. It's amazing where life takes you. And it's pretty great too!

Thanks for reading!
Carol

PS See pix below



This is our first 4F Feral - Riley after 1 week in captivity. Just before her return to her Burger King Colony.


This is Bobbi/Bobby. Just trapped tonight. Tomorrow morning Bobbi/Bobby will go to C-SNIP for surgery, recuperate for a few days, then be returned to the BK colony.


This is Andi. Both she and Riley flew like bats out of hell when we opened their carriers and set them free to join the rest of thier colony at Burger King tonight.

Andi - Burger King Kitty Number Two

Laura and I camped out in the Burger King parking lot and got Andi (another pretty brown/black female tabby) on Thursday night. She was taken in for surgery on Friday and is recouperating on Amy's heated sun porch. She is about 1 1/2 years old (prime for kittens...no doubt).

We are both new at the whole TNR game so our trapping skills aren't finely honed yet. But with the right bait, trap placement and patience, we have faith that we will fill all four on Monday night. It's a very interesting experience....this TNR. When we see the cats out at dusk, we are just hoping that they will find our smelly food and walk into one of the traps. We can't see most of our hidden traps, so we just wait it out. If we go and check too soon, we will scare other cats away. The waiting is excruciating. Lucky for us, we find eachother interesting enough to sit in a car together for three hours. Mostly we talk about cats and animal welfare. Monday we will be rigging the traps with reflective tape so that when we shine a high beamed flashlight onto them, they will be visible in the dark of night. With this, we will easily see that the trap door is shut and there will be a kitty inside waiting for us.

When we approach a trap we feel a rush of emotion. First is YIPPEE, we got one!! This one won't add to the feline overpopulation problem. Then when covering the trap with a towel, we feel a little bad. Though we know we are doing what is ultimately best for the colony and all involved, the kitty is scared poopless and we feel sad for it's stress. Then when we get it in the car, we feel happy again because we know that at the absolute minimum, this kitty will spend at least 4 - 7 days in a warm place for the first time in this bitter cold winter. Once those emotions pass, we just feel good that we are making a difference.

We have been hearing from people who are offering support to this project in various ways. Laura and I have big dreams for ferals. We hope that one day we will have other groups trapping at other locations in a mass effort to "fix" (pun intended) this feline overpopulation problem. Reach for the stars. You might not get them....but then again, you won't end up with a hand full of dirt either!

Thanks for reading our blog,
Carol & Laura

Riley Was Our First

I received an email regarding a colony of feral cats outside of a Burger King Restaurant South of Grand Rapids. Laura was looking for help in doing some TNR there. I have been wanting to get into TNR after doing it for only a short time in my neighborhood, so I felt this was the golden opportunity. And oh boy is it ever! On Monday, February 20th, Laura and I set two traps and camped out awaiting our catch. We saw many but only got one. That was Riley, an 8 month old female brown and black tabby. With the generous help of Amy from C-SNIP who will be recouping the ferals after C-SNIP preforms the spay/neuters we will hopefully be able to get this small colony under control before we get into heavy kitten season.

Just today though, we heard that there are colonies at other fast food restaurants up and down the street. We have our work cut out for us.

Right now the plan is to Trap-Spay/Neuter-Return. We would like to relocate the cats to a safer more rural area, but until we have someone who would like to offer us their comfy barn, it looks like TNR is the way we will have to go.

We will make the appeal for financial help because we think this project may really come into "big money". We have time and effort to put forth, but we already forsee the big picture costing us more than we will be able to afford. If you are passionate about TNR and would like to help us out, please contact Laura at crazycatladylw@comcast.net or me at dollmouse@aol.com.

We will post pictures of our quest and share our experiences with you. Keep checking this blog.

Thanks for reading,
Carol