Alley Cats

There is a wonderful organization called Alley Cat Allies. I have a link to them already in the sidebar of this blog, but recent events made me want to promote them a little more.

Alley Cat Allies is a national non-profit organization dedicated to protecting cats. They mainly focus on humane treatment of feral cats and they get their ideas across through education and facts. I have to point out that they use facts because while they are definitely an animal welfare organization, they aren't crazy like PETA (have you seen PETA's "Kittens of the Sea"? Google it if you haven't. Its good for a laugh.). ACA is the organization that began the idea of Trap, Neuter, Return, and instead of me re-writing all of this, I'm just going to copy and paste a note that I posted on my Facebook page a few days ago, which explains the sad, recent events that sparked my idea of making Alley Cat Allies more well known.

Most people who know me know that I have a house full of cats. I know that there are a lot of people who probably think we're crazy cat people and some people who appreciate what we do. Every single one of our cats is our own rescue. None of them came from a shelter. They all just wandered into our lives somehow.

My first cat was Wendy, and she arrived in my life via my old roommate who found her at her old apartment complex. (actually to be completely accurate, my first cat was Misty, but she bonded with my dad almost instantly and she quickly became his cat and not mine.) I wasn't a cat person until I got Wendy. I didn't dislike cats, but I really never gave much thought to them until I suddenly had a very sick stay cat on my hands. By nursing Wendy back to good health I started to realize that cats are actually very affectionate animals and very loyal to their owners. I always imagined them being snobby and aloof and while thats true to a point, they are also very, very loving pets.

After Wendy, I got Patches. She is actually Thomas' cat, and we found her living at a beer brewery in San Antonio, Texas. She was walking from table to table begging for food and when we asked the waitress if she had a home, we found out that she was a stray being fed by the brewery and the staff there would be thrilled if we took her and gave her a good home. So Thomas "claimed" her and took her home.

Shorty after that, Cledus arrived in our lives. He was a very tiny, very sick abandoned kitten. He lived for only 8 months :-(. He came into our lives with a horrible upper respiratory infection but we managed to get him healthy from that. Then right after Christmas in 2007, Cledus suddenly got very sick, very quickly. I was home in New Jersey at the time and we rushed him to an emergency vet, where he tested positive for leukemia (he had tested negative months earlier). Leukemia is possibly the most traumatic of all cat diseases in the sense that a cat can carry it for years and be fine, but when it hits, it hits hard and fast. By the time we found out that he was sick, it was too late to save him and we opted to have him euthanized that day. We were both so upset and I cried for days.

Since that day I have heard from many other people that while cats can die from a variety of different illnesses, leukemia is by far the worst, simply because of the way it comes on so suddenly and so unexpectedly. Our vet here on Whidbey, who has been a vet for many, many years, even told us that he's had cats with leukemia and its possibly the worst disease to go through, and he wouldn't wish it on anyone. Cledus' death from leukemia is what brings me to the point of this post.

Until this point I hadn't become a crazy cat lady yet. However, I was so upset and traumatized by his death so I set out to research feline leukemia. While researching it I came across a lot of information for something called "Trap, Neuter, Return (TNR)" It was something I had never heard about before, but something that I now fully support. I'm sure almost everyone has seen stray cats wandering around at some point in their lives, and I'm sure people have heard of animal control coming out to collect and kill these strays. Well, recent research has proven that trapping and killing is a completely ineffective way at managing the feral cat population. I didn't know that. I never liked the idea of killing cats, but at the same time it made sense to me that if there were too many strays wandering around, then trapping and killing them was a way to lower the population. I was wrong and so were they.

If you google "Trap, Neuter, Return" you'll find lots of articles and information about how this has been proven to be the only humane, effective way at managing feral cat colonies. The ASPCA and the Humane Society of the United States support TNR. Shelters all over the entire world support and promote TNR and if you read the information, it will actually make sense as to why this is the most effective thing. I could launch into a discussion hours long about why I also support and participate in TNR, but if you google it, the info on the first page you find will speak for itself.

After Cledus died we went back to Jacksonville where we had some feral cats living around our apartment complex. By this point I had decided to set out on a mission to save the cats of the world from feline leukemia. I can't save every cat in the entire world and I know that, but I can at least help some. A spayed/neutered feral cat has less of a chance at contracting feline leukemia because it isn't a cancer in cats, its a virus spread by the saliva in bite wounds and blood. Sterilized cats are less likely to fight and therefore less likely to spread this disease around. We found out that Jacksonville has a city wide program that helps people with TNR. At this point we found out that lots of cities all over the whole country fund TNR programs. So we trapped 2 feral cats, had them spayed, and then decided to socialize them. Most feral cats are too wild to be socialized but if they are caught young enough, they are more likely to become friendly cats. It took us a while, but we succeeded. We kept one of the cats and found a great home for the other one. We also trapped a 3rd cat, who was friendly from the start, and she was also pregnant. She only had 1 kitten and we still have that kitten (who is 2 years old today!) We found her a good home, but Thomas was pretty attached to the kitten and wouldn't part with him :-). And finally before leaving Jacksonville we trapped a 4th cat who was very battered and beat up, but also VERY friendly and loving, so we kept him too. The point of TNR is to release these cats back outside, but at the same time, we didn't feel it was ok to release friendly cats back outside when they had the potential to be good housecats.

Then we moved to Washington where we helped another lady trap and neuter some cats living under her house. Then somehow along the way more ferals and strays found us and we ended up with 10 cats of our own. Then finally we ended up with 6 feral cats living in our backyard. Its like we have a sign on our heads that says "All cats are welcome here!" The cats in our backyard were young, but already completely feral. We trapped 2 of them and had them spayed, and we were planning to do the same with the rest, until they suddenly disappeared about 2 months ago.

Yesterday (March 28th) we received the sad news that the cats were found dead in our neighbors backyard, where they had also been living. The neighbor suspects that they were poisoned and she is pretty sure she knows who did it. This was so heartbreaking to me, especially since I've become such an advocate of TNR. I'm not stupid. I know not everyone likes cats. But at the same time, there are animals that I don't really like (small yappy dogs and ferrets are what I can think of at the moment) but it would NEVER cross my mind to kill them! One of our neighbors has a little yappy dog that drives me insane, but the thought of poisoning it would simply never cross my mind. In fact, as much as that dog annoys me, if it was hurt or injured or sick, I wouldn't even hesitate to take it to a vet, because thats just simply the RIGHT thing to do! I don't feel like you have to be a crazy animal rights activist (ahem...PETA) to even see how wrong and how heartbreaking this is. My own mother hates cats, and will admit that, but even she can't believe that someone would poison them on purpose.

I can't do anything to save these cats, even though I originally tried to, but I CAN promote TNR a little more and at least make people aware that it exists. There are also deterrents to keep cats out of your yard if they are really driving you crazy. Heck, when I was growing up there was a groundhog that lived underneath our shed that drove my dad crazy because it ate all of our flowers, but did he ever think to kill it? No! Because thats just not what you do! Alley Cat Allies is one of the main supporters of TNR and you can find lots of information, including local programs to help through their website.

I just want people to know that you don't have to love cats. But there ARE ways to deal with them and maybe if more people understand the benefits of TNR then they will be more likely to support it. TNR IS effective and if more people know that then maybe less people will be inclined to kill innocent animals. Several states, including Washington have made animal cruelty a felony. If the person we suspect is found guilty of having killed these cats, he can go to jail. Thats not some crazy animal rights group making that law. Its state lawmakers. The fact that its even a law shows that its not just groups like PETA that support legislation against animal cruelty. Alley Cat Allies has been very effective in getting local lawmakers to understand the benefits of TNR and they have started education programs around the country to encourage the use of TNR. TNR is also something practiced world wide and in the case of an organization called Save a Gato is even supported by the National Park Service. If you check out the website for Save a Gato they have links to other TNR sites around the world. The numbers speak for themselves. I've always been an animal lover, but even I didn't understand until recently just HOW effective TNR really is. I feel like if more people were aware of it, and more people understand how great the benefits are, then maybe people like my neighbor won't find it necessary to kill innocent animals :-(.

I've always silently supported TNR, but after finding out that our own feral colony was killed by some horrible person, I think I'm going to make more of an effort to make people aware of it now. Hopefully some of you reading this will actually check out the links to Alley Cat Allies, Save a Gato and simply google "Trap, Neuter, Return" for more information.

The really sad thing is that Mr. V and I reported the cat killings to the police (on behalf of the neighbors too), and they promised to help us and reassured us that it was in fact a crime to kill animals intentionally in Washington state. He passed the case on to animal control and an officer contacted us this past Monday. Let's just say that we found out very quickly that neither the police nor animal control cares at all about what happened. In fact, they tried to turn it around onto us and accused us of breaking the law by having too many pets, who weren't registered with the city, in our backyard. The animal control officer also told us that TNR is illegal here (which we researched and it isn't true) and he came up with excuses as to why it was ok to kill the cats. My personal favorite was "Old people don't like when cats poop in their yard." Really??? Its nice to know that no one here cares enough about animals to do anything about this. I wouldn't care so much, except that Washington law states that killing domestic animals (and feral cats are considered domestic animals) is illegal, but apparently the law enforcement here doesn't care about that.

I contacted Alley Cat Allies and they will be sending me information to give to people about TNR. I know it may not fix this situation, but maybe it can help change someone's mind. I used to think that killing cats was the only way to control the feral population. I didn't like it, but I thought that it was what worked. All it took was me reading Alley Cat Allies website one day and doing a little research of my own for my mind to be changed. So even if one person changes their mind, to me that will be worth it.