Friday Featured Clinic - Project CatSnip

Low cost clinics like this are good for those who don't have the money for a conventional vet or for rescue groups who do high volume. Remember that for the average pet owner, going to the regular veterinarian is the best route. This is because many of the low cost clinics don't have time to take extra special care for your pet, many don't even do vaccinations. My vet always takes a quick peek around, checks to see if there were cists on ovaries and always does a complete checkup on the animals. This can sometimes give you a good understanding if there will be potential problems in the future.
That being said, here's your Friday Featured Clinic:

Ok, so I read the name of this and couldn't help but laugh! Project CatSnip ... that's awesome!

Cat Neuter
$40
Cat Spay
$60

This is a service provided in Atlanta, GA. For those of you who are in the Atlanta area, check it out! Perhaps you will consider neutering one of your own cats? Or if they are already done, why not donate the cost of neutering a local stray or feral cat!?

Cat Food Recall

Nutro Natural Choice Complete Care and Nutro Max dry cat foods has announced a voluntary recall of select varieties. If you feed this food, please read the following article for more information.

Popular Pet Food Recall

I posted this entry on my other blog, Dogs Deserve Freedom, as well

Friday Featured Clinic - Spay Now Inc.

After last week's post about a low cost spay neuter clinic, I thought I'd make this my Friday Feature and I will post one every week. Low cost clinics like this are good for those who don't have the money for a conventional vet or for rescue groups who do high volume. Remember that for the average pet owner, going to their regular veterinarian is the best route. This is because many of the low cost clinics don't have time to take extra special care for your pet, many don't even do vaccinations. My vet always takes a quick peek to see if there were cists on ovaries and always does a complete checkup on the animals (we've found some weird things on some of the cats going in!). This can sometimes give you a good understanding if there will be potential problems in the future.


That being said, here's your Friday Featured Clinic:


Spay Now Inc. is a clinic in Grasonville, Maryland that offers low cost spay neuter. Below are their prices. Please note that shelters, rescue groups and feral groups should contact them for special pricing.


Cats
Female $55.00
Male $45.00


Dogs
Female
0-50lbs $85.00
51-80 lbs $98.00
81 - 129 lbs $150.00
Over 130 lbs $200.00


Male
0-49 lbs $75.00
50-99lbs $85.00
99 - 150 lbs $100.00
Over 150 Lbs $150.00


Rabbits
Male $65.00


Check out their website for more details and contact information.

Feral Cats - Handling 101 Ed.2

If you have not read the first Edition of Feral Cats - Handling 101, I encourage you to do so before reading this post. It may explain a bit.

Ok, so now you have Mr.Feral Cat in a crate instead of in the live animal trap. Now what? Well, now you will have to move him and get him situated in a holding location until you can get him in to the clinic for the good-ol Clip-N-Snip.

Here are a few pointers to keep in mind when working with this guy ...

First off, DO NOT stick your fingers in the cage and say what a cute kitty he is! He is NOT a cute kitty. He is a wild, savage feline who will not hesitate to take your arm off. Keep your limbs on this side of the bars and don't tempt him. This will keep him safe because the more you are close to him, the more stress you put on him. Stress is not good for his health and if you are going to be prepping him for surgery, you want minimal stress.

Secondly, DO NOT try to pick up or move the cage without covering it with a blanket or towel first. You'll scare the crap right out of him (yes, literally). If you have a true feral, he may have already expelled his anal glands at this point from the stress. TRUST ME ... stress is not good for these guys!! It smells. If you ever need to prove that stress is a tangible thing, go get a feral cat and hold him in your arms. You'll see and smell what stress really is. Not to mention that he can probably fit his paws through the bars and get your hands if he chooses to go on the offensive and you are trying to move the cage without the protection of a blanket.

Thirdly, DO NOT open the cage and try to put food/water/litter box in there with him still inside. If you did not think to put one in before putting him in then DON'T try to work around him. Again, trust me. What you do is you move him to another crate first (refer back to Handling 101 for specifics), then put litter box/food/water in and move him to the crate that has these things already fully furnished (unless he's going for surgery within 12 hours, then just put litter box with no food/water).

101 Reasons to Neuter Your Cat

So many times I am asked why people would bother to neuter their cat. Don't you know it costs money? The people sometimes don't care if their cat reproduces because if its not their problem, why should they care? Over the next few weeks, I am going to post 101 reasons to neuter your cat.

Reason # 1

If you don't neuter your cat, he may begin to spray in your house to mark his territory. Neutering will prevent this impulsive behaviour from beginning and it will often stop it from occurring if it is already present.

Sometimes cats will spray in your house (and outside, but I bet you won't mind that as much!!). Did you know that hormones play a big part in the spraying cat? If you neuter him, you may find that he doesn't spray as much.

Low Cost Neuter Clinic

Attention Baltimore residents!

The Annaoplis SPCA is holding a low - cost male cat neuter-a-thon on June 27th.

The cost is $40 per male cat.

If you live in this area and are looking for a low cost neuter clinic, I encourage you to look this up! Who knows, give them a call and find out if they will take ferals! If we all paid for one feral to be neutered (at the cost of $40) then there would be so many less cats out there.

I strongly encourage everyone out there to go to this event and have their cat neutered. There are so many benefits to getting him neutered! And hey, if you can afford it, take your neighbour's cat too!

April Showers Bring May ... Kittens?

Well, I haven't TNR lately because of the large amounts of cats having kittens. Too busy trying to work with the nearly popping mama's coming in! There are so many ... and the available homes are so few ...

Available foster homes are even less. We have managed to keep the numbers at our house down to just the one litter but at this point, there are cats with litters in crates at volunteer houses. There just isn't enough room for all of them.

I know of seven cats with litters that are in the care of volunteers right now and there are many more out there that are still living under sheds, behind dumpsters and around town. I don't want to know the exact numbers ... it will just make me depressed. The unfortunate thing is that those cats who are raising their kittens out there ... well, it means the kittens will be feral.

We have a spare room so we keep them in there and keep the door closed so the other animals don't get in. Mama cat can be pretty snarly and has already attacked one other cat who came into her space (not at our house - we tried to have her sent somewhere else so we could take a younger litter).

The nice thing about fostering the kittens is that I get to have a "kitten fix" because I get to play with them each and every day (they need lots of gentle, loving handling to ensure they like people)! Then, I don't have to keep any (including mama cat); they are all adopted out between the 8 - 10 weeks marker and I get to help out in my community in a big way for a short time!

If you can provide a quiet room (perhaps a spare bedroom or a home office?) in your house for a litter of kittens I encourage you to contact your local Humane Society, SPCA or Rescue Organization.

TNR #4 Pictures

So here are some pictures of our TNR #4 who turned into a Trap, stay at our house and have babies, care for babies until they are old enough to go to new homes, Neuter and Release into the care of someone who wants to keep Peaches in their home.

Funny how plans change as you go along, eh? Oh, and by the way ... a momma cat feeding kittens eats a LOT of food and drinks a LOT of water! She's going through almost a pound of kitten food

every day plus two dog bowls of water.