The defendant doesn’t even dispute that he shot the cat with a rifle, and even boasts of shooting many other cats he found on his own property. However, this man runs a commercial bed-and-breakfast establishment targeted at bird enthusiasts, so it could easily be proved that he had a pecuniary interest in killing cats. Instead, his defense centers around the idea that the cat was feral and therefore killing her could not be prosecuted under the older state law.

While there’s a good chance the prosecution can prove that the cat, Big Mama, did effectively belong to someone (based on the fact that someone had fed, named her, and provided her with toys and a bed), the essential fact is that someone went out of their way to deliberately kill a cat. Big Mama died in pain, according to a police officer who was at the scene, though predictably the defense attorney attempted to discredit even this witness by saying “He’s not qualified to know what the cat was feeling.”

Perhaps bird lovers have no feelings for other animals, so they find it inconceivable that other humans could. But it doesn’t take much compassion to realize that animals have the right to live. And I bet James Stevenson didn’t name his birdies, either.

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!

Purebred Cat Breed Rescue not all abandoned cats are mixed breeds.

Operation Nobel Foster every time reservists and others in the armed forces are called upon to serve overseas, the drop off rate at shelters sky rockets. This group was formed to help prevent such heart wrenching events. Volunteers foster the cats of military personnel so that when they come home, their cats are waiting for them. No matter what your political leanings may be, please consider helping this worthy cause.

Consider your Local Shelter or volunteer adoption groups. Not sure how to find them? See my blog entry on how to find them in your area. They can always use: money, cat food, litter, beds, blankets, paper towels, coupons to pet stores, pet food coupons. Call and ask what they need. then make a donation in someone’s honor. A gift that serves more than one!

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.

But wait, there’s more!

After getting the mail, he noticed Darkly sitting on one of our cars watching a bird on the ground. The bird, meanwhile, was watching another one of the kittens. Darkly stalked, the bird got nervous and took off, but Darkly landed on it in midair!

She walked off very proudly with her catch.

Our friend “Neko” lives in Tokyo. She and other Neko Obasans (literally, “cat mothers”) foster and neuter stray or abandoned cats that live in a small beautiful bicycle “pocket” park. They provide food, water and medicine. Most of these cats have no other home. See her blog about her cats, some of whom followed her home to be adopted.

Agile is over a year old now. Every morning when I walk into the kitchen, he immediately approaches, loudly meowing for attention. He is not satisfied until I follow him into the living room where he lies down to be rubbed, petted and scratched.

First I scratch his rump, then rub his ears and cheeks. If he is really calm, he will roll on his side and purr happily while I rub his belly and chest. His eyes half-close in delight. All the while I praise him and say how handsome and wonderful he is and how grateful we are that he came to live with us.

By the way, if you want to know the whole story of his early life with us, you can read Birds, Mice and Apple Pie.

Little Kitty also spooks easily, so as soon as she saw me she took off around the corner.

The odd thing about this is that Jennifur usually growls, hisses, spits, or otherwise attempts to convince outside cats to go away. While Jenni has been mellowing lately, this particular habit is pretty ingrained in her purrsonality, so I suspect that either (a) we’re wrong and Little Kitty is a male and Jenni likes him or (b) Jennifur actually deigned to talk to Little Kitty, because that’s exactly what it looked like she was doing.