Thank you to everyone who helped make our first annual Wet Your Whiskers fundraiser such a rousing success!
Thank you to everyone who bought tickets and attended the event!
Thank you to everyone who donated items to our Silent Auction!
Thank you to all the Feral Fixers Directors and Officers who worked so hard to plan this event and make it a success!
And finally, a special Thank You to Marc Gunn who provided wonderful music and entertainment for the evening and who donated part of his proceeds from his CD Sales to Feral Fixers!
(Picture thumbnail is of Marc Gunn and Feral Fixers President Tammy McAuley - click on the thumbnail for a larger version of the picture)
Feral Fixers at Bensenville's Music In the Park
The Feral Blog
Written by Ted Semon
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
On Wednesday evening, June 24th, Feral Fixers hosted a booth at the city of Bensenville's Music In the Park festival. This festival is a summer long event, happening every Wednesday, where the Village of Bensenville hosts a music band, booths, a car competition and show, etc. Feral Fixers had a booth at several of these events last year and is again honored to be invited to participate this year.
Feral Fixers enjoys a very good relationship with the Village of Bensenville. We are now the ones the Bensenville Police Department contact when someone in their village calls them with a Feral Cat issue. We have held a TNR Workshop in Bensenville, been on their public TV and have been in their Fourth of July Parade (and will again be this year).
At this evening's Music In the Park, Village Trustee John Adamowski stopped by to say "Hello". John is pictured here, on the right while yours truly is on the left. John was first elected as a Village Trustee in 2003 and has been part of the Bensenville Community Development Commission since 1997. He has also taught science at Fenton High School since 1981, is a Boy Scout Camp Director, a coach, etc., etc., etc. He's one of those people who the term "Pillar of the Community" was coined for. It was a real pleasure to spend some time talking with John about Feral Cats, village issues, etc. and I am very grateful that he took the time to stop by.
The Bensenville Music In the Park concert series continues through August 19th. Feral Fixers will be appearing at some of these event (watch our Calendar) - come by and say hello!
(Click on the picture thumbnail of John and myself to see a larger version)
May numbers...
The Feral Blog
Written by Ted Semon
Sunday, May 31, 2009
May started out slowly in regards to the number of cats we were able to process, but we finished up the month pretty strongly. Overall, we had 55 more cats spay/neutered this month. None of the trips were huge ones, but the pace was very steady. Following is a list of the days and the number of cats we had done:
May 2nd - 7 cats
May 3rd - 3 cats
May 5th - 7 cats
May 7th - 3 cats
May 12th-13th - 7 cats (the cats were brought in on the 12th and picked up on the 13th)
May 16th - 9 cats
May 17th - 3 cats
May 21st - 1 cat (yes, we'll go in with just one cat if we need to)
May 26th - 4 cats
May 27th - 4 cats
May 28th - 7 cats (we brought in 8 but one had already been fixed, so we only counted 7)
So, 55 cats overall for May.
We also were finally able to get Marvin fixed. When we first took him to PAWS a couple of weeks ago, they refused to operate on him, saying that he was dehydrated and that surgery would be risky for him. Tammy has kept him in a cage and has been giving him lots of TLC, not to mention de-worming medication. Marvin is "all-better" now, except for some sneezing and PAWS was able to successfully neuter him this week. This is one friendly, talkative cat and I am very glad that he is going to be able to get a home soon.
With the 55 cats processed in May, we have done 405 this fiscal year (since October 1st, 2008) and 881 overall since our inception. That's a lot of kittens prevented!
The worst case of ear mites I've ever seen...
The Feral Blog
Written by Ted Semon
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Today, we had 3 more cats fixed at the PAWS-Chicago Spay/Neuter clinic. One was a feral while the other two were 'friendly ferals'. One of the friendly ferals was a Siamese cat with a touchy personality. Tammy could pick it up and hold it, but after several seconds it would start growling - clearly saying 'Hey - leave me alone'. Because of this cats touchiness, Tammy wrote a note to the PAWS personnel saying that they should exercise care in handling this cat.
Mary drove the cats in to PAWS this morning while I picked them up this evening. When I arrived at the clinic, one of the PAWS staff, Chris, brought out our cats to me. He remarked that the friendly had the 'worst case of ear mites I've ever seen'. He said that they couldn't even get a Q-tip in to clean the ears, it was so packed with mites, dead and alive. They did manage to clean out the ears and gave it medication to rid it of any 'leftover' mites, but Chris said that whoever the new owner was would have to be sure and keep an eye on this problem to make sure it didn't resurface.
Let's hope that this severe infestation was also the reason for the cats touchiness - it certainly could be. I know I'm pretty grouchy when I'm in pain (as are most people) and it could be affecting this cat the same way.
With these 3 cats, plus the 9 yesterday, Feral Fixers has now processed 382 cats for this fiscal year and 858 overall since our inception.
We Need You!
From The President
Written by Tammy McAuley
Monday, June 01, 2009
Good news - please be sure to read the update at the end of this article!
This month Feral Fixers is asking for your help in several ways.
We have Jewel Shop & Shares scheduled for June 15th – 17th. This event requires no additional money out of your pockets, just remembering to hand the cashier the slip when you check out. Even if you forget, if you return to the store before the week is out, they can usually send your portion in with the rest. We’ve had great results with this fundraiser before, please pass this information on to co-workers, friends and family, as anyone who shops at Jewel can contribute in this way.
We have a TNR workshop scheduled for June 20th at Bow Wow Playground, 400 W St. Charles Road, Villa Park from 1PM – 3PM. Please pass the word, we will be showing how traps work, answering questions and it should be very informative!
We have a fundraising event coming this month – “Wet Your Whiskers” - on June 27th – please consider attending, donating if you cannot attend, and passing the information on to anyone who might be interested. It should be a lot of fun, a first time event for us and one that we hope we will be able to repeat.
We also need your help in a way that we have never asked for before. One of our favorite stories is about the nursing home colony. Well, nothing lasts forever and the nursing home is expanding and building on the property that the colony stands on. We have been given several weeks to relocate the cats – June 20th would be the date by which we need to move the cats out. Until today, May 26th, we had been assured that the cats and their housing were welcome and no problem. So this comes as a bit of a shock. We will try to go up the corporate ladder, but with the short time frame, we must start on alternative plans. And it still comes down to a building standing where their shelters are now.
We do not support relocation normally, there are too many hazards to the cats – coyotes, the way they tend to return where they came from, even if its 30 miles away, unfamiliar roads, etc. If we can find alternatives, we will certainly explore them. These cats have been fed exclusively by a Feral Fixers volunteer for the past year, they hang out on that property, they do not seem to venture into the surrounding neighborhood – they haven’t had to. This colony had been merely surviving at the nursing home for several years, until we stepped in there were many kittens born every year that did not survive and the adults were not really healthy. It was a sad state of affairs. The residents of the nursing home brought cafeteria food out to them, it was poor cat nutrition and it was sporadic, leaving the cats to dumpster dive – garbage from a health care facility could have some really horrible things in it.
Hello humans! It's time for me to share some feline wit and wisdom with you. This is part of my ongoing efforts to educate you humans on your proper role and the correct way to interact with your feline companions.
This first item is one of the posters in the "Be Prepared" series, hosted by ICanHazCheezburger.com. The lesson in this poster is, besides being prepared, is "You can never have too much cat food on hand".
This next item is a video and was suggested to me via email earlier this week. It's a classic and is part of the best-selling feline instructional video entitled "How to train your human - the basics". The lesson here, of course, is to not ignore your cat when they want breakfast. Doing so will only lead to grief...
Finally, we have another video clip from the "How to train your human..." series. This is of a similar theme and will show the measures we will resort to when you humans don't feed us dinner. Again the lesson is clear - ignoring us is a stupid thing to do.
Well, I hope you enjoyed this week's lessons! I'll be posting new items next week. In the meantime, if you have any ideas about what you'd like to see in this column, just email them to
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