Practicing and promoting Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) in DuPage County, Illinois

We're a 501c3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting and practicing Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) in DuPage County, Illinois. We believe that TNR is the only effective, humane and long-term solution to the problem of cat overpopulation.


The Feral Fixers e-Newsletter - Issue #8 - May, 2009


Save the date!

June 27th is the date of the first annual Feral Fixers

Wet Your Whiskers

An evening of fun and frolic and music for all of us who love cats!

 
 

Live music will be provided by Marc Gunn, a fellow cat lover and musician specializing in the celtic culture of music.

 
 

This event will be held from 7:00pm to 11:00pm at Fitz's Pub
located at 172 N Addison in Elmhurst, IL

 

Fill the Van!

 

One of our volunteers, Sue, loans us her van whenever we need to transport a lot (10+) of cats to the PAWS-Chicago Spay/Neuter clinic.  Thanks Sue!  Some of you may remember this picture from last March when we stuffed 21 cats inside of it for transport.  For Wet Your Whiskers, this van will be parked outside the event and we are asking all attendees to help us Fill The Van by bringing a donation of cat food, newspaper or anything else from our Wish List.  Each person who donates will receive a raffle ticket for a Wine Basket which we will be giving away to a lucky winner.  So, bring a donation, help us help the cats and perhaps you'll take home the prize!

 

More details coming soon!


Message from the President...

When you do TNR, when you work in Rescue, when you have a non-profit, heck, when you do anything, there’s always something!

  • Just when you haven’t received a call in a week for help with ferals, and you don’t know if you can fill the slots that you have arranged for that week, Bam! 5 phone calls, a total of 50 cats, and most of your traps are already out trying to get the last one or two of different colonies. Oh, and most of these new calls have potentially pregnant females, so you want to get to them as soon as possible.
  • A colony that is “done” Bam! they start having health problems – a upper respiratory, an abscess, possible broken limbs, diarrhea that simply will not go away! A marauding, intact male that just stops by to pick fights every once in awhile!
  • You’ve scheduled and coordinated and gotten the cats to the spay/neuter clinic and Bam! they have a day filled with difficult surgeries and have to hold over the 10 cats that you brought until the next surgery day and on that day you have no available transport, or you already have another 10 scheduled and no way to transport 20 cats back!
  • The wife/husband/friend of the caretaker says, “This is cruel, how can you keep them in those traps, why aren’t they in carriers?” “They can’t stay in those traps, can’t they go in cages?”
  • The cats show up in carriers and now you have to transfer an agitated, enormous, male cat into a trap and he has every claw dug into one of the airholes on the carrier!
  • You’ve been watching your bank balance carefully, Bam! “I have 8 cats in my house, none have been neutered and I have no money.” “I have 15 ferals, neither of us have a job, please help us prevent kittens.”

But, then there’s...

  • “Thank you for doing my cats, I’m never going to need these again, will you please accept the donation of my two traps?”...

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Read more about what our President, Tammy McAuley, has to say about 'Bam! It's always something!' at Feral Fixers here.


Want to help?

Interested in helping Feral Fixers?  We are looking for a 'few good volunteers'!  Specifically, we're looking for someone to help us transport cats to and from PAWS (the Spay/Neuter clinic we use) in Chicago.  We need transport both in the morning and the afternoon.  If you're interested in helping, call us at (630) 881-FXRS (3977) or
email us at info@feralfixers.org.


Upcoming events - come and see us!

May, 2009

  • Saturday and Sunday, May 2nd and 3rd, from 9:00am to 4:00pm, Feral Fixers will be at the PetsMart Adoption Event.  This event will be held at the PetsMart store located at 111th street and Rt. 59 in Naperville, IL.  We are appearing here at the invitation of Rachael Resk, founder of PURRS-Naperville.  Thanks Rachael!
  • Friday, May 15th, from 10:00am to 2:00pm, Feral Fixers will be appearing at the Molex Pet Fair.  This event will be held at the Molex corporate headquarters located at 2222 Wellington Court in Lisle, IL.  Note that there is a 'rain date' of May 22nd for this event.
  • Saturday, May 16th, from 11:00am to 3:00pm, Feral Fixers will have a booth at the DuPage County Animal Care & Control 2009 Multi Shelter Pet Expo.  This event will be held at the County Shelter located at 120 N County Farm Road in Wheaton, IL.  This event has been held for many years and is always a good time.  Come by and say hello!

June, 2009

  • Sunday, June 7th, from 1:00pm to 3:00pm, Feral Fixers will be holding a TNR workshop at the BowWow Playground located at 400 St. Charles Road in Villa Park 60181. Call (630) 501-1777 for more information.
  • Saturday, June 27th, from 7:00pm to 11:00pm, is the date of Feral Fixers' first annual Wet Your Whiskers event at Fitz's Pub located at 172 N Addison in Elmhurst, IL. Visit our website for more details.

July, 2009

  • Sunday, July 26th, from 11:00am to 3:00pm, Feral Fixers will host a booth at the DuPage Animal Shelter Alliance (DASA) Dog Wash N' Walk. This event will be held on the ITT campus in Wheaton, IL. Visit the Friends of DuPage Animal Care & Control website for more information.


How many cats?  839 !!

Feral Fixers was founded and incorporated in late September, 2007.  In our first fiscal year (through September, 2008) Feral Fixers had 476 cats spay/neutered.  So far in our second fiscal year, Feral Fixers has had 363 more cats spay/neutered.


Shop & Share is back!

Yes, the Shop & Share program is back!  This is a program set up by Jewel-Osco which gives the designated organization 5% of whatever you spend in their stores on the designated dates.  Last year, Feral Fixers received over $230.00 from this program and this year we'd like to do better.  If you click on the Shop&Share button, to the left, you'll be able to download coupons good for June 15, 16 and 17 of this year.  Just bring one of these coupons to any Jewel-Osco on one of those three dates.  Sign it and give it to the cashier when you pay for your groceries and he/she will fill in the amount of your purchase that day.  Jewel-Osco will then donate 5% of your total purchase amount to Feral Fixers - it's that simple!  And don't forget to make copies of these coupons and send them to your friends so they can support us to - thank you!


Donate to Feral Fixers

Feral Fixers offers its TNR services to all colony caretakers, without charge.  While we ask for donations from colony caretakers, we recognize that for some of them, any additional cost is just too much.  Therefore we rely on donations from other individuals to make up the difference and allow us to continue our work.  These donations allow us to spay/neuter additional cats, keep a 'bank' of traps and trap dividers we loan out for free, hold workshops and provide other educational benefits.  You can help us continue our work by clicking on the Donate button, below.  This will take you to the PayPal website where you can donate to Feral Fixers via PayPal or Credit card.  Feral Fixers is a registered 501c3 charitable organization and any donation is deductible to the fullest amount allowed by law.  Any amount you care to donate is gratefully received.


Website updates

Visit the updated Resources page on our website.  There we have now listed Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) groups from DuPage, Cook, Will, Grundy and Kane counties, along with the leading national TNR action and advocacy groups.  We now also show where you can order feral cat traps and trap accessories and have also listed the location of the two low-cost spay/neuter clinics we are aware of.

If you know of a resource that we should be listing, please email it to us at info@feralfixers.org.  Thanks!


Shop for Feral Fixers!

Want to purchase something purr-fect for your cat-lover friends and help out Feral Fixers at the same time?  Just visit our Café Press store and Buy Something! In addition to the Coffee Mug shown to the right, we have T-shirts, Hoodies, Coffee Mugs, Pet food bowls, etc.

A portion of each sale goes to help us in our TNR efforts. To visit the store, just click on the Coffee Mug or visit our website and click on the 'Want To Help -> Buy Something' button at the top - Thank you!


Visit us on the Web!

Visit our website at www.feralfixers.org.  There you can donate to us (via PayPal or Credit card), visit our store, read the latest news, and learn more about Feral cats.  If this newsletter has been forwarded to you, you can also sign up to be on our mailing list so you don't miss a thing!


What is TNR (Trap / Neuter / Return)? TNR is a full management plan in which stray and feral cats already living outdoors in cities, towns, and rural areas are humanely trapped, evaluated, vaccinated, and sterilized by veterinarians. When space is available, adoptable cats and kittens are transferred to sheltering organizations to be adopted into good homes. Healthy adult cats unsocialized to humans are returned to their familiar habitat under the lifelong care of their original caretakers.


Feral Fixers, NFP, is a certified 501c3 corporation - EIN Number 13-4364615