Panther is still sleek, beautiful, black, and very special, as befits a cat who was able to call out to me telepathically as I walked through the county shelter, probably just days before they would have taken him out of this world. That’s pretty special indeed, because as cat listeners go, I’m pretty much deaf.

Panther is by far our oldest cat but still manages to get a twinkle in his eye and chase Jennifur around the living room every two or three weeks

“One of the common excuses for allowing a pet cat to give birth is “I want my children to experience the miracle of birth.” This woman has done exactly that, and videotaped the occasion for the world to see. In all fairness, she may be a foster to this cat, or it could have shown up at her door, as pregnant strays often do.

If you want your own children to witness the miracle of birth, please get your female cat spayed, and have your children watch this video instead. It would be best to preview it first, though. I found myself holding my breath for fear the last kitten wasn’t going to make it.“

Much of these two lists I adapted from several adoption center and humane society web sites.

The Low Cost Spay and Neuter web site allows you to search their database for places in the US, Canada and Europe that provide this important service.

Ten important reasons you ought not to breed your cat (or dog)

1. This is not a good way to teach your children about life. If you want them to see live births, try fish such as guppies, mollies or platys. Cat births usually occur at night and in secluded places and the mother will be hostile to intruders (this means YOU!) If you still want them to see mammalian birth, the video above, or others sponsored by National Geographic or Animal Planet should suffice.
2. Females in estrus (heat) are noisy, irritable and her cries and pheromone scent will attract males from all over to your home, where they will give chorus and may even fight. We got Glory shortly after she had been neutered. Upon arrival in our home, she began to sing her songs and soon after we had the local feral toms crooning noisily outside our home at all hours. When we bought her great granddaughter (a newly retired queen), Aurum, she went into heat before we could get her spayed and the tension around here from all our neutered males was amazing and annoying, too. One neutered male cat even started spraying urine which he had never done before!
3. Pregnancy is much like that for humans: balanced diet, vitamins, mood swings, potential dangers, expenses and all.
4. Not all females make good mothers. Ask any cat shelter volunteer.
5. You will be bottle feeding every two hours 24/7, and massaging their stomachs and wiping their rear ends to make them urinate and defaecate after every feeding for weeks if the mom rejects them — just like a human baby, they will be totally helpless and dependent on you.
6. You will be potty training them, too.
7. Unneutered males are more likely to spray urine around your home.
8. Cats (and dogs) are more likely to develop a host of medical conditions if they are not spayed or neutered– see #3 and #4 below.
9. Keeping a cat intact will not make him or her more kitten-like. So you don’t need kittens to have playful cats. I have seen incredibly playful 14 year old cats!
10. You may not be able to find good homes for the kittens or puppies — that is why so many get dropped off in boxes at shelters and pet stores, or abandoned in empty lots, or chained to a post in the rain, or thrown in bag and tossed off a walkway bridge, or a hundred other worse stories I could tell you.

Six excellent reasons why you should spay or neuter your cat (or dog)

1. It’s a lot cheaper than pregnancy and the 4 months of care after birth — there are many low cost clinics offered by shelters, vets and adoption groups We paid only $60 for Agile to be neutered, and this also included 3 nights at the shelter, his first vaccinations, rabies shot and deworming.
2. Spaying or neutering will teach your children that each life is precious — a very important lesson in this day and age.
3. Spaying before a female’s first heat (estrus) will prevent uterine or ovarian cancer and greatly reduce the possibility of breast cancer. She doesn’t need an estrus cycle to become full grown either!
4. Neutered males will not develop testicular cancer and the chances of prostate disease is decreased.
5. Fat cats happen because of too much food and not enough exercise, not from being neutered or spayed.
6. Spaying or neutering will make your cat (or dog) less likely to run away or get into fights with other cats that require trips to your vet for stitches and antibiotics.

Their online “tour” of shelters is a chilling reminder of how publicly funded shelters can be deceiving us into thinking they are killing adoptable pets to make room for others. Yes, irresponsible members of the public who do not spay/neuter are part of the problem. But so is the attitude of county officials, jaded shelter workers, and the unwillingness of the many to change the rules for the few.

The challenge as the No Kill Advocacy sees it:

“…From entrenched bureaucrats who are content with the status quo, to uncaring shelter directors hostile to calls for reform; from agencies mired in the failed philosophies of the past to those who have internalized a culture of defeatism—the roadblocks to No Kill are substantial, but not insurmountable. We have a choice. We can fully, completely and without reservation embrace No Kill as our future. Or we can continue to legitimize the two-prong strategy of failure: adopt a few and kill the rest. It is a choice which history has thrown upon us. And a challenge that the No Kill Advocacy Center is ready to take on. The No Kill Advocacy Center is the nation’s first organization dedicated solely to the promotion of a No Kill nation. And it is the only national animal welfare agency that is staffed by people who have actually worked in and created a No Kill community.
The power to change the status quo is in our hands.“
If you want to become proactive in your community they offer numerous free .pdf files detailing every step to take to help change the status quo. They have a free enewsletter and listserv signup. They accept donations and offer a paying membership which includes a magazine.
Just to show you how detailed and well thought out their program is, with the Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society, they created a “matrix” of injuries, illnesses and other conditions (like being an adult cat or dog versus a kitten or puppy, or having fleas) for shelters to use in order to determine adoptability of the pet. The ultimate goal being to stop the killing.

They have information for educators, students, shelter advocates, dog owners whose dog faces a “dangerous dog” hearing, grants, and how to start your own no kill shelter.

Go forth, learn and become proactive!

I was on lunch break, so I asked her to bring the kitten (who was kenneled in our grooming salon). Everyone at work knows I have cats. OK, read "sucker for hard luck cases" But where did you get her and why can’t you keep her…? Questions and more questions.

The groomer had been eating at a local fast food restaurant. The kitten came up to her, meowing, and then when she opened the door to leave, the kitten followed and jumped/scrabbled into her car. This was three days earlier. Kitten was very skinny. The groomer is renting an apartment; the lease says two pets only and the kitten makes three. Kitten has been sleeping with her small dogs. She has trimmed claws and freshly washed and groomed fur (hey, she’s a groomer…).

I am holding the kitten who is a cute, cuddly, black and white tuxedo cat. I feel her belly and she gets squirmy. Suddenly I asked about if she had a litter box in the kennel. No, she does not. So I quickly improvise one. Kitten steps in and immediately "does her business". She must have been holding it in because after that she wasn’t squirmy.

Sigh. Oh, BTW, all the local no-kill shelters we know of are full. And even the kill shelters have too many kittens this year (as if we’d leave any animal for one of those ).

So I am able to borrow the groomer’s carrier to take her home. I am sort of dreading the trip home. Sundays at work are exhausting, plus I have to persuade my family that taking this little girl in is the reasonable thing to do.

Worries For Nothing, And the Kits For Free

My husband knows me. He makes no fuss, neither does my 13 year old son. We set her up in our bedroom, quarantined until she has shots, etc. I gave her a kitten dose of Revolution, which I just happened to have handy, since she’ll be sleeping with us. She gobbles down almost a full can of canned kitten food. Sniffs the kibble. Drinks water. Explores the room and plays with the toys. Purrrrs!! After a quick dinner, she meows when she sees us and greets us at the door, tail held high.

She hisses and growls at our other cats as they come to the gated door to sniff around. Standing her ground, saying she has the right to be here. No hostility really, just a declaration of belonging.

Oh, did I mention I dreamt of a tuxedo kitten recently?

Based on her personality, we think she is a "keeper".

What a contrast to this other kitten I’ll tell you about.

About 3-4 months ago someone dumped a pregnant black and orange tabby in our area. Like all the other strays in the past, we began feeding her, seeing if we can approach her. No good. Eventually she turned up with three tiny orange furballs. We fed and watered them, too. Their den is very close by, as they come soon after we open the back door to put out food. The kittens grew.

Keep in mind we have foxes, skunks, racoons, possums, deer, neighbors dogs, etc. Keep in mind that of all the many abandoned cats we have seen here, only Agile’s parents survived even one winter in our area. Right now, Agile is snuggled up near me on the cat shelf by the window as I type this. He is the first feral kitten we were able to catch, born of two feral parents, whom we called Eager and White Paws. They lived for about three years here and both died before last winter.

We started setting out our trap, using canned kitten food as "bait".

Amazingly we caught one just three days ago and took her to our vet. She bit me — through a heavy towel — when I grabbed her to put her in the carrier (we used a lot of antiseptics at the vet’s office). She is FIV and FLV negative, about 9 weeks old, and weighs 2 lbs 13 oz. She was covered in fleas, so the vet gave her a dose of Revolution and her first vaccinations. She was so terrified, hissing, scratching, and trying to bite that the vet had to give her a dose of ketamine and valium before he could safely examine her. I helped clean her ears, all the while asking questions.

The final bill was well over $200, not something we can afford to repeat if we catch her two siblings and mother. We took her there because getting an appointment with Animal Outreach (a local non-profit low cost spay/neuter cats only health clinic) can be problematic and well, we had a wild cat on our hands.

So if we catch them, we will take them to Animal Outreach which does the medical workup and spay/neuter really inexpensively. Our marvelous Agile’s 3 day stay with Animal Outreach plus vaccines, deworming and neutering cost us only about $60. He is the sweetest, calmest cat we have, and always has a friendly greeting.

She is noisy! She yells when she knows her siblings are nearby…calls for them mostly at night, when we are trying to sleep. She is calling right now! So we have white noise generators running and doors closed so we can sleep. When we go into the bathroom she is in, she runs and hides behind the commode or in the carrier, hisses and tries to swat if we get too close. She eats wet food and kibble. We tried to give her some commercial kitten milk in a dish but she ignored it. Won’t play with toys. At least she uses the litter box.

We are fostering her, and any other members of her family we can catch. If necessary, we will spay and release the mom cat. I already have a lead on one family that wants an orange kitten. But we will screen people. No kittens in a box at a supermarket for us. Thinking about her getting abandoned while pregnant gets me angry. I may have to write a blog entry about that, too.

If you go to their Practice Guidelines page, you will find a few really large .pdf files detailing their suggestions to all veterinarians on many subjects including feline pain management, zoonoses and assisting aging cats. This group and the European Society of Feline Medicine which is linked with the Feline Advisory Bureau(UK), publish the bimonthly Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery. While a large part of the site focuses on technical matters, the Feline Advisory Bureau web site also has practical information about catteries, boarding facilities, and useful information for those who are owned by their cats.

From their Business Wire Press Release:

Celebrate the 500,000 Adoptions Milestone for Morris’ Million Cat Rescue campaign

A shocking 3 out of every 4 cats that enter shelters do not leave alive. The reality is that 5.5 million cats are euthanized each year, representing 71% of all cats that enter animal shelters. Many don’t know that there are tremendous advantages for the entire family in owning a pet — for adults, pet ownership can decrease the risk of having a heart attack by up to 6%. Pet ownership can teach children about responsibility, compassion and loyalty — in addition, positive self-esteem is enhanced in children with pets. And pet ownership has been shown anecdotally to help children diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) to focus and concentrate.

About Morris the Cat

In 1968, a street-wise orange tabby from a Hinsdale, Illinois shelter was languishing for a loving home after being abandoned by his owner when the shelter staff noticed something special about the cat – a certain star quality. They quickly contacted Bob Martwick, a professional animal handler who quickly adopted him on the spot, and — 20 minutes from death — Morris the Cat got a second chance. Recognizing his charisma, 9Lives cat food quickly signed him up, and the entire nation took notice of this new star of their television commercials.“

“Morris’ Million Cat Rescue mobile adoption bus will visit Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade between Santa Monica Boulevard and Arizona Street from 12:00 p.m. – 5 p.m. PDT to mark the momentous occasion and to promote pet adoption. The 500,000^th cat will be officially adopted by Audrina Patridge of MTV’s “The Hills,” who will also participate in an exclusive check-donation ceremony. A grand total of $10,000 will be donated in her name to a local area shelter, Feline and Friends, to help them continue in their mission of finding loving homes for homeless cats.

According to Thomas, the Morris’ Million Cat Rescue tour will be making additional stops this year in San Francisco (9/27), Sacramento (10/03), Portland (10/11), Seattle (10/18), and Denver (10/27) before going on winter hiatus. For more information about Morris’ Million Cat Rescue Campaign, bus or van stops, visit www.9Lives.com.”

While I love Maine Coons and Norwegian Forest cats, the daily brushing they require would be problematic for those of us with full-time jobs and other responsibilities.

At a nearby adoption center I have seen what appear to be purebreds (OK, they are not papered), Maine coons, Russian blues, and various Siamese mixes. There’s even an online resource center for people who want to adopt a cat of a specific breed.

My point is, if you want a certain “look” but don’t necessarily want the pedigree papers, and are not interested in showing your cat at highly competitive cat shows, consider going to your local shelters and finding your new friend there. You won’t regret it!

There are three main types of organizations to look for in your area when finding your new pet. Find them using your local phone directory/yellow pages or the Internet. The best place online to find adoption groups from anywhere in the U.S. is Petfinder.com. As they say about themselves:

“You can:
Search 213,653 adoptable pets…
Locate shelters and rescue groups in your area.
Browse our resource library to learn more about pet care.
Post classified ads for lost or found pets, pets wanted, and pets needing homes.
Sign up to be a volunteer to help your local shelter or rescue group.”

City or County shelters take in any and all animals turned in to them as lost, unwanted or “nuisance animals”. You can usually find their listing in the phone book under County Government. They will euthanize ill or unadoptable pets, or those that stay in the facility “too long”.

Humane societies are run by both salaried and volunteer workers and supported by donations. They may be selective in which animals they accept.

Local area fostering groups are often “no-kill” volunteer groups who don’t have a physical location. They make arrangements with pet stores to have “adoption days” each week or even have permanent facilities in larger stores to which the adoptable pets are brought. If they are a big enough group, they may have other programs, such as bringing specially chosen calm pets to nursing homes. These groups will have people that catch strays. The strays are evaluated for health issues, vaccinated, neutered or spayed, fostered, and then put up for adoption. Whatever fees a group charges to finally adopt a pet does not come close to covering the costs they incur in this pre-adoption care.

cat adoptions adopting a cat animal shelters

A very basic checklist before you adopt a pet, no matter where the cat is from.

Know thyself and thy family!

• How much time and attention can you give a new pet? This includes not only basic needs, but play time and purring time. Be truthful!
• Decide in advance the best places in your home for her to sleep, eat, drink, and the equally important (but far less entertaining) needs to urinate and defecate? Don’t carve this in stone; things may be different than what you expect in the beginning while the cat and you get to know one another.
• Who will take care of these basic physical needs every single day? Can several people share the responsibilities on a rotating basis?
• What kind of temperament will fit in with your family? A cuddly quiet lap cat? A high energy talker? One who runs to greet you and demands attention? A cat who likes to run and play and chase invisible things (these are known as greeblings and live in a dimension that only cats can see)? A kitten that will grow up and require lots of attention and training along the way? An older cat that may have some fears or habits that will require you to work with her calmly and consistently to abate them? Even young cats may have become afraid like our Jennifur, who was tormented as a kitten by some vicious school boys. She avoided our older son until he grew taller, seeming to associate a certain height with those bullies.
• Can your cat live indoors with you? It will lengthen his lifespan, keep him healthier, less prone to ticks, fleas, disease and uninjured. There is a myth that cats must live outside to express their wild natures. Baloney. Outside cats get lost, run over by cars, killed by wildlife, badly trained dogs and vicious people. They can unknowingly eat rats or mice that were poisoned by your neighbors. In suburban areas, they can drink antifreeze in someone’s garage and die. In more rural areas cats make great coyote food, and can be killed by rattlesnakes and black widow spiders.Cats can hunt, hide, run, jump, chase, stalk, “sharpen” claws (a misnomer), sleep, eat, and eliminate waste all in the comforts of your home. Or do you want an indoor/outdoor cat? Be clear on how this will benefit all concerned.
• Don’t like litter boxes? There are self-cleaning ones now, both electronic and manual (you roll the container and dump the contents of the tray into the trash). We have two of the latter type; they’re inexpensive, save litter, and turn a 5-minute task into 30 seconds.
• Some cats have been trained to use the (human) toilet. There are books about potty training cats. Jennifur used to do this on her own, except she never did manage to flush the toilet
• Do you want a “barn cat” for killing the mice that eat the grain you need for your horses? Some cats are better for this than others, and a good local animal shelter will know which ones will suit you.
• How will your cat be cared for when you go on vacation? Some cats actually travel well; many do not. Not all vacation spots are suitable for a cat (or dog). There are “pet hotels” or boarding places of various quality. Check with your vet and the phone book.