Berwyn's Colony of 18!

The Adventures of TNR

We got a referral from Animal Care League about a couple of fellas who just inherited a colony of cats from their neighbor. An older woman had been feeding cats for years, but like so many people who are compassionate and feed rather than let them suffer and starve, she didn't realize she could get them to stop having kittens. Most people think it either not possible or they can't afford it - so they multiply.

The Good News is that after she died, her neighbors took over as their caregivers. They've built wonderful winter shelter, have a heated water bowl, and feed twice a day. Knowing they needed to stop the kitten flow, after several calls, they found us. We TNR'd 15 out of the 19 cats this week. 3 of them are 2 month old cuties, now in foster, young and friendly enough to adopt ( TNA's Trap Neuter Adopt) . And 1 is on the enclosed front porch and will be vetted next Tuesday. He or she, a beautiful long haired grey and black tabby with a white crest, was in the yard the day when I returned the males. Fortunately, there was still a trap there (to catch Popeye, who's one of 2 known unsterilized, uncaught cats). Typically, when the cats were returned, they ran for the hills as soon as I opened the trap doors. The guys (caretakers) left food for the returning boys and she was there for lunch. With the boys out of the way, I put food in the trap, took the rest away and it wasn't long before she was in the trap on her way to TNR. Unfortunately, that was Wednesday and next clinic is Tuesday. Not wanting to leave him in the trap for a week, I attempted to put her in one of the large cages equipped with a small carrier in the hopes that she'll run into it. Welllllllllllll, she made a U Turn at the opening of the trap, and in 3 seconds she was on the other side of the room 1/2 way up the wall then, because she was freaked out she hit every wall on the porch until she found a hiding place under a chest. Poor baby has been crying on and off since. The females, were still in their traps on the porch. For the next day, there was a symphony of cat calls. The most vocal group we've done aftercare for. The girls are gone but the Porch Girl l is still loose on a porch. Trap is pre-baiting, she has warm places to sleep but she's miserable. A real downside of doing this is going through things like this. Hopefully, she's comfortable enough by Monday so I can set the trap, get her vetted and returned to her family by next Thursday.

Chances are we won't catch the remaining two. That's why we go for as many cats as we can with the initial trapping. However, good news is, 90% is effective against further growth.

The kitties are being treated for upper respiratory infections and should be ready for in about 1-2 weeks. They're on Clinidrops, Crystal Lungs & Terramyacin eye gel.

And, that's the skimmed version of this weeks TNR report!

Maywood Farmers Market

Cat Vando had a booth at the recent farmers market held every 1st & 3rd Saturday in St. Eulalia's Parking Lot at 9th and the Eisenhower. It was fantastic! Good fruits vegies, wonderful plants friendly vendors, music, people from the Extension Service answering gardening questions and medical students from Loyola addressing health and wellness issues and lots of fun and fabulous people. Pictured is Maywood's own, the uncomparable, Johnny Diggs, documenting every Maywood event we've attended photographing the entertaining, invigorating talent of the Proviso East High School Band - again, excellent!

We were planning on doing the 3rd Farmers Market of the month but after our experience at this one, we plan on attending each Farmers Market of the season. We met many wonderful people, cat people and civic minded people. We'll go into more detail at a later date but we have a grant writer! And, someone to help us with Publisher and Cannon Zoom Browser. We connected with many feeders and were told of many colonies. While we work in other areas, our main interest is to help Maywood make TNR a community effort. We believe that cats are an opportunity to learn respect for life and to help counteract the violence rampant in our society, we want to start that in our own community and to help spread this to other communities.

We're actually working with the U of I Extension Service to bring in a program for animal education. The 4H people to develop a specialized 4H group to build cat houses for feeders yards. The Village is interested in TNR and working on a program to help the cats of Maywood. All is good!

We've been incredibly busy getting this in place while continuing our TNR efforts. We are working on several colonies, with reservations for our limited supply of traps. We're doing a tremendous amount of education. Many of our calls are for 'relocation', which we don't do... most TNR groups don't. There just isn't any place for the cats other than where they are. The most effective method of reduction and control is TNR. Then there are the details of TNR. While the process is similar, each project brings it's own story. And, there's some doozies! Wish I had the time to list the details some of the stories are quite funny. From skunks to missing then found kittens - it's been well worth the story - just don't have the time!

To clarify TNR, Trap Neuter Return is our focus. Not only do we not have the resources for Trap Neuter Rescue, our mission is to prevent the birth of cats that there's no place for. Hundreds of thousands of cats that are wonderful adoptable animals are being euthanized because there's no place for them to go, no one to adopt them and take them into their homes. Rescue takes lots of time, energy and space. and ultimately, keeps us from our mission of preventing the birth of cats that don't have feeders or are creating an overpopulation problem in a neighborhood, jeopardizing the existing cats because neighbors are concerned about the 'numbers' of cats.

Having said that, sometimes it's impossible to Return, such as the case of Sweet Cheeks the stray (who's amazingly identical to the Stone Park Colony but was abandoned in Maywood) who doesn't like cats and ended up disrupting a whole colony of well fed cats and their feeder. She's darling, affectionate and still here! Or, Hoover and her young kittens, or today's addition of the 6-7 week old kitten found stuck in the pipes. Such is the life of a CatVando'r!

Yowza it's The Season

A Stone Park Colony - 6 cats black or black and white except for Scotty. Poor boy, never saw a cat so flea infested. Wasn't doing much itching but there was a 1/16" layer of flea larve & poop under his cage after 24 hours. It was horrible and took an entire morning to deal with. Couldn't bathe him but did give him Revolution for fleas and parasites. Washing would have been great to get rid of the flea crap but wouldn't have done much for the fleas...... He has a great feeder.

Here's where his devoted caregiver delivers food every day. She drives from her home and feeds this and one other colony. This is behind an empty house. The man who use to feed the cats lost his home and had to move. She heard about it and started feeding and contacted us for TNR

We trapped 7 the first day and 1 the second. We did however, trap a skunk (our first and we didn't get sprayed releasing him!) and a possum. The night before we trapped our first raccoon... a banner 24 hours I'd rather not repeat!

CALL FOR ARTISTS!!!

Our newest fundraiser is art created out of cat food cans! We're seeking donations of art created with cat food cans to help withspay/neuter fees, food, vet bills.. Applicationsaccepted by email: catvandotnr@yahoo.com or snail mail: CatVando, c/o Art Gecko, 19 Harrison St., Oak Park, IL 60304.Submit photos or jpgs of your Cat Can Creations withtitles & dimensions by Friday, July 18. Include yourname, address, phone number and email address. Thereis no fee to exhibit, but your work becomes theproperty of CatVando for the exhibit and silentauction.Artists will be notified by Friday, July 25 andarrangements will be made to acquire the work. The exhibit and silent auction runs August 1 -15. Bidding will end at 8:00 pm on Friday, August 15.Each donating artist receives a CatVando t-shirt andthe blessings of street cats everywhere! Info: 708829 6013 You can also help by dropping off your empty clean cans to Sirius Cooks, 142 Harrison St in Oak Park http://siriuscooks.com and while your there, check out some of the other fine shops on the street - Oak Park's Art District has many wonderful places to visit. If you want to create a cat food can masterpiece and need cans, you can pick them up at Sirius Cooks or Art Gecko http://artgecko.com also on Harrison - 19 Harrison St. I am really looking forward to seeing these creations, some of the ideas I've heard are wacky wonderful!