Upcoming Adoption Event
Kittens do happen and there are times in the year where there seem to be only black kittens on hand. There are also times when there are only gray kittens or orange tabbies, very strange. Black is a dominant color in the cat gene pool and that shows up in multiple litters of only black coats. We currently have 15 wonderful black kittens on our Petfinder – more have not yet been posted. On our Facebook you will see posts from families who have adopted not one but sometimes three of our black kittens at once – they are very passionate in their love and support of black cats! We have an adoption event at the Danada PetsMart on July 24th, check out our black kitties on Petfinder, come in person to the event, fill out an application for pre-approval – we do not do same-day adoptions but pre-approval helps. Many of our fosters will be there in person with their kittens and have the inside scoop on the behaviors of these great kittens – as a recent post said – "Feral Fixers kittens are magic." This will be our first in-store adoption event since the start of the Pandemic – we don't know how these guys will react to the noise and activity, our recent adoption events at our building have been fabulous – no stress there! If you cannot make the 24th, meet and greets can be arranged. As other organizations are experiencing the same immense volume of kittens, we need to say that we do not have "sales" on adoptions – same all year 'round. Visit our Adoptables!
Google And Feral Fixers' Location
We've had an ongoing battle with Google, trying to get our correct address displayed. We did adoptions at the Danada PetsMart and somehow, Google grabbed that info as our physical address. It now displays 330 Eisenhower Ln N, Lombard! We still have a few more tweaks that we hope will take place, but hopefully people will have fewer frustrations as a result of this change. Currently, we still do not have set hours at the new building, everything is by appointment still. We are working on accumulating the right volunteers to staff for open hours but that may still be months away. We do things the right way as much as possible, we're not going to hurry up and regret it. Frustrating for some of our supporters but we are in strange times when it comes to bringing people together in person. We are using the building for meetings, adoption events and so much TNR! Great to have air conditioning, a bathroom, running water and not using my garage!
"As If They Were Our Own" Fundraiser
This year is moving along so quickly! Our next fundraiser is the As If They Were Our Own Fundraiser which raises funds to cover those medical expenses in addition to spay/neuter. These are the costs of additional vaccinations that did not take place at the time of surgery – kittens get a total of three FVRCP injections, and Rabies vaccinations if they were not old enough to receive at the time of surgery. These are the cots of bot fly removals, updates on vaccinations of those previous ferals who have now decided to come inside and find a home, dentals, wound repair, eye enucleations, amputations, antibiotic injections – this list is actually not complete on the wide variety of care that we provide for the cats we encounter. We do our best to keep costs down, we have wide experience with medications that we administer on our own, we have a volunteer who is a vet tech that schedules FVRCP vaccinations on our adoptables, but the Rabies vaccine can legally only be given by a veterinarian. A shout out to Glen Ellyn Animal Hospital for the support they give us, sometimes many visits in a week – not easy in today's vet world! We have neutered over 12,800 cats now – as the cats age outside, their needs increase and we do our best to help them, in addition to neutering and vaccinating.
Our additional vet care costs can average $3,000/month – our total for last year was over $40,000. We promise, we are not doing excessive care, just meeting the needs of the many cats that need extra help beyond spay/neuter! We will be starting our As If They Were Our Own Giving Grid on August 1st, ending on September 12th. We have $7,600 in pledged funds to be matched! That would mean a total of $15,200 to provide care for these cats who need our help! An aggressive goal, but we hope that with your help we can get there! Vaccinations, antibiotics, oh my! Please look for upcoming information about this fundraiser and share with all your friends and family - $10 can make a huge difference in the future of these cats, every dollar can be matched up to $7,600 – how amazing is that!
Animal Care Can Be Stressful All Around
Veterinarians have a higher rate of suicide than many professions. Crushing debt, compassion fatigue and work schedules compound to such a degree that suicide may seem the only way out. This is important information for all who care for animals. While experiencing your own frustrations, please think of those who are doing their best.
Increased social media and society's access to it can push anyone over the edge.
While I did not find much research on the rescue community, I feel that "animal care personnel" could be inserted in place of "veterinarian" in most of this information. This is an old post (2014) but still relevant and isn't that worrisome?
This information from 2015 is the only data I was able to find about animal rescue personnel across the board – animal control to pet-sitters, it happens to everyone. Do not mean to confuse you, at the end of the article it asks for donations for Montgomery Humane Society – we are not intentionally soliciting donations on their behalf but sharing a news article that includes that plea – we didn't want to attempt to take that information out of the article, just did not seem right.
Another 61 Cats!
We've made three more trips for spay/neuter this month so far, two more trips scheduled still in July.
- On 7/1 we sent a total of 32 cats, 23 friendlies, 9 ferals, plus one kitten for a hernia repair only. Cats can suddenly develop unexpected symptoms – 5 kittens did not receive surgery, Upper Respiratory symptoms, sudden explosive diarrhea and one kitten decided being adopted was not in her future and bit a staff member – placed on Rabies Observation. 12 females and 15 males did receive spay/neuter.
- On 7/8, 16 cats were sent plus one for a dental. The dental unfortunately needed a whole mouth extraction, too many hours for DCAS to perform in a high-volume spay/neuter situation. Of the 17, 7 were friendlies, 9 ferals with 10 females and 6 males.
- On 7/15, 18 cats made the trip, 7 friendlies, 11 ferals with 10 females and 8 males. The kitten that had completed her Rabies Observation was included as one of the ferals – with a snap test just in case at the last moment she decided that the inside life was for her – but no, feral all the way.
We've now done 61 cats so far in July, 378 for 2021 and 12,827 since our start in 2007.
July is usually a slow month for us - not this year! Reminder that we will not be making a s/n trip on 8/5. And, due to the volume of calls, we are telling people it will take longer for us to get to them, perhaps not until the week of 8/9 – only so many hours in a day! Very frustrating for us when kittens are involved. Please keep this in mind when you are sharing information about us – the earlier in the year you contact us, the fewer the kittens and the more likely we will be able to get to you before the kittens happen!
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| 32 cats ready to take their spay/neuter trip on 7/1 | And, 32 cats loaded up for the 7/1 transport |
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| Cats being staged for the 7/15 spay/neuter run | Cats being staged for the 7/15 spay/neuter run |
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| At the end of the day, 7/8, when all the cats came back | This is Eureka, she is being fostered by her caretaker, she had just been trapped and who doesn't need kitten pictures? |