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Clicker, Clara, Wil Shrimpy, D P Coal, D P Oreon, D P
Justine, D P ACDC, D P Fog, Bat Kid, Bat Kiss, L G Blackie, Fair View, Fair
Way, Fair Field, Fair Lady, Fair Haven, Fair Ness, Fair Wood, Swiftly, Liz's
Meow, Liz's OJ, Liz's Sweetie, Liz's O B 1, Bonnie's Little, A Precious, A
Presto, Med Boy, Medster, Cross Post, Cross
 The above are the 32 cats that traveled to the PAWS Lurie Family Spay Neuter
Clinic on October 16th in celebration of National Feral Cat Day. While they
traveled from my garage on that day, in the previous two days they came
from: Keeneyville, Darien, DesPlaines, Batavia, WillowSprings, Downers
Grove, Lombard, Naperville, Elgin, Addison, Medinah and Wheaton. Some of
these town names may be unfamiliar to you, tiny municipalities that they
are, they still have feral cats. And, yes, Feral Fixers is based in DuPage
County and is trying to concentrate in DuPage County, but when someone calls
and they have cats and need help quickly, we can’t turn them away.
Three of the cats were what we call “friendlies.” Adoptable, hoping to get
into a shelter. One of the ferals, Swifty, announced his willingness to be a
“friendly” after he was neutered as a feral, a good thing, too, as he seems
to have a problem with dry food or any food that has grains and who knows
how long he would have survived outside? Most of the food that caretakers
can afford does have a high amount of grain. He’s going for longer and
longer periods without throwing up and we hope he will be in a foster and on
to adoption soon. Having ferals turn out to be friendly is wonderful, but a
huge responsibility, too. We simply do not have the resources for the number
of cats that are turning out to be tameable. Some day, all cats will be
 wanted, and this will be much easier.
Several of the groups of cats came from first time trappers. We try to
enlist the aid of the caretakers themselves. They have the greatest
likelihood of success, the cats know them, their sounds, their smells and
will still come around even if their caretakers insist on putting dinner
inside this strange metal object (i.e. a trap!). We had planned on 25 cats that day and I
was worried that we would not make our target, and then the cats just kept
coming in! That can happen; on the day with the worst weather, cats can seem
to jump in the traps, while on a balmy, nice day, no action whatsoever. We
could not be helping so many cats without so many dedicated caretakers!
You might be curious as to how such a large number of cats is processed.
A month before NFC Day, we reserved space at PAWS, asking for a minimum of 25
slots. Once approval was given, we started scheduling, returning the many
phone calls, holding some sites back for that day. In the week before, we
passed out traps, trained caretakers, everyone set up their schedules to
have time to trap their ferals, transport them to us if they were able. We
started picking up and receiving cats on the 14th and the last one came in
around 10 PM on the 15th. Each cat gets a name that helps us identify where
it came from, a microchip assigned to it, and we fill out
 check in forms to
help PAWS’ staff with data entry.
October 16th, 6 A.M. - Loading up! We have a wonderful volunteer
who loans us her van when we have large loads of cats and another who is
willing to drive into PAWS constantly. We are so lucky! Try as we might that
day, we were only able to fit 28 cats in that van, so we had to take a
second vehicle!
The trip into PAWS was uneventful, and we got parking places in front of
the building! Yea!!!
 See the mound of ferals in the picture? And, there were other feral
“people” there besides us, now I’m drawing a blank, but I think there were
15 more – fabulous for National Feral Cat Day!
Checking in went very smoothly, the vet on duty saw our friendlies and we
were on our way back home, to return later that day to pick up our felines,
where once again we got great parking spaces!
The cats returned back to my garage to spend the night and then go home
the following day, neutered, vaccinated and ready to live out the rest of
their lives in the place they are comfortable. Of the 32 cats, 19 were females.
I’m very glad we were able to make such a significant contribution on
this day! And, I’m very, very, glad that we have such wonderful volunteers
and caretakers who made this possible! |