Adopt a River Cat

11/12/2024

We have 2 new intakes, including this handsome semi-feral fellow from my neighborhood. We have reached out to the barn nearby to see if they recognize him. The newest intake yesterday was ANOTHER black cat ❤️ he was trapped while trapping for a kitten. We do not want to put him back out because he is a mellow fellow, and we think he can be an indoor cat. However, we CANNOT offer these options to colony cats if we do not have foster homes. if you know anyone who can foster we need homes ASAP. I am also going out of town early December for the weekend for my son’s soccer tournament. I would like to have a few cats in the garage shelter as possible that will need to be taken care of. Please message us if you can help foster or know someone that can help.

Heather Abraham
President

11/11/2024

😀

403.3K likes, 399 comments. “My cat can speaak English 🤣😂”

11/11/2024

FOSTERS NEEDED! The foster for Garfield our 16 year old fell through due to a car accident. If any one is looking for an apartment with a roommate let us know the roommate of the individual who got in accident (who is ok thankfully) needs to fill the roommate spot asap so she can stay in the apartment.

Jasper our 18 year old colony cat also needs a foster, these 2 sweet fellows pictured need a foster (the 6 month old is ready to place right away he is fully tame but we are spending some time checking lost pet ads to see if he is a lost pet), Murek the other fellow just needs more interaction than we can give him at the house. The third ALSO black cat is an approximately 1 year male colony cat that will need to be crated with supervised time outside of the crate learning how to play, seek out pets (he accepts pets now and is really starting ti enjoy them.

Jasper and Garfield will be ready to go next week after their dentals, everyone else can go a.s.a.p. That is 5 foster homes we need! This also opens up space for more intakes, we have a couple of litters we need to get to and some remaining kittens we have had a hard time trapping and will likely need to drop trap. Please - if you can - consider fostering and help us keep doing what we do (focus our energies on TNR activities/ preventing births of outdoor cats.

Thank you to fosters Eileen and Tony who are fostering and picked up a kitten this weekend AND adopting another kitten from us. They not only are volunteering to foster but they are just wonderful people.

11/03/2024

Two new intakes, Murek is on the left. We TNR’d him 2 years ago, he moved to another location and became friendly with his new feeders and they brought him to the vet and found our microchip. He is currently hanging out in the basement but is now not hiding and is accepting pets - he will not be returned outside! The little boy on the right is an older kitten ar a site a resident has been trapping at (her grandmother’s house). He is as sweet as can be. There is still mom and one remaining kitten at this location we are working on getting with the residents help. We are happy for these colony boys that they have chosen human affection and will live indoor lives.

10/30/2024

More intake updates coming soon - in the meantime Princess the dilute torti and fussy b&w kitten went to foster. He was a bonus addition to the foster kitten pick up (“Can we help with another?”). We are so thankful for this wonderful foster family. They seem to work magic on feral kittens, but how could they not with these 2 helpers (and there is another human sister in the home too who loves the fosters just as much). The picture on the left is his brother who is completely tame and he is just waiting for a spot with a shelter partner. Their 4 siblings are already at our amazing shelter partner A.D.O.P.T. Pet Shelter.

10/25/2024

The two senior colony cats we intaked Garfield (16yo) and Jasper (18yo) are at their check up, vaccinations and “work up” appointment at our wonderful new vet Bristol Veterinary Clinic in Oswego on Orchard Rd. Jasper had to come in a wire transfer carrier and be sedated to be handled because he is not big on being handled. As you can see Garfield really liked being at the vet! We will see what their bloodwork and dental exams show. Once they receive the necessary treatment they will be ready for adoption.

10/22/2024

A reminder to cut these plastic rings before tossing. You can also avoid buying things with these on them whenever possible.❤️

Update: we safely trapped the kitty Mon afternoon & the kitty was admitted at the Ebensburg Animal Hospital with some really bad wounds from the plastic ring

This poor Kitty has one of those plastic rings from bottle sodas around his neck

We are helping to get him

Make sure to cut these plastic items into pieces so small animals do not get their heads stuck.

10/22/2024

We need to find a foster home for this sweet single kitten to break her out of the crate. She needs playing and to learn how to be in a house and around multiple people in a house setting. We would love for her to build her confidence as well to make her adoption ready! Please message us if you can help foster this sweet girl.

10/17/2024

This young fellow is lagging behind his siblings who are already complete tame. He scratched his foster mom when he got some free time outside of the crate. Towel holding only outside of the crate it is, with wand toy playing inside the crate. We neutered him because that will often help with the taming process especially for males but after over a month it hasn’t seemed to work. We hope some extra attention in a foster home will work, we don’t want to have to put him back out but he is ear tipped in case we have to. What we love about this picture is his foster mom (and her roommate) have given him an “emotional support box”. We are so thankful for the wonderful people we meet who step up to foster. Thank you Miriam and her roommate.

We will be doing a fundraiser soon, we are almost completely through our emergency savings. Our 2 senior intakes are getting checkups and blood tests next week which will use up the rest of the money in our account. This is due to having to spay/neuter most of the kittens in our care which typically we leave to our shelter partners to handle, as well as losing our low cost clinic and paying 3x the amount per surgery. Not to mention the cost of litter right now! Even clay litter which we use in the garage shelter! *Which reminds me - if you are a low income family and having trouble affording cat litter or finding it at local pantries please let us know. We can help you get litter.* Most likely it will be connecting you with a an individual donor who will provide litter donations until prices go down. We know that food pantries do not always have litter.

We are thinking about doing something for Giving Tuesday to fund our operations through the end of the year, either finding a donor willing to match a certain amount raised or providing gifts based on tiered donations. Gary likely will need an entropion surgery which will be $600+ which we will do a separate fundraiser for. We ran out of funds last year as well because of our hacking fiasco. We are optimistic as always. We are a small organization because I work full time and cannot manage a complex organization. But the good news is with TNR a huge impact can be made in the animal community even being a small organization. We will share our stats from the last 13 years over the Winter when things are slower for us.

10/13/2024

😂

His face says that he was not aware

10/13/2024

One of the two males of the litter of 6 from the apartments we still have (4 have gone to a shelter partner), he has started purring and meowing but is still is a bit scared.❤️

10/12/2024

❤️

One of the tabby guys was on our side of the new “backyard pond” this morning, he gobbled up food and seemed fine, no sign of his brother though…

I know behind us is a lady who feeds cats too, so hoping he’s just over there, I will investigate, I’m sure he’s fine though, other colony cats all were, they are smart and hunker down to stay safe ❤️

10/10/2024

Christian and his mom Christie (who we named after their rescuer) are thriving in their foster home. Christian has finished his booster series and is ready to place with a shelter partner once our shelter partners process through their back up of kittens. Christie is still cautious of humans, she is gaining weight and looking healthier. Her third eyelids have not retracted, this may just be a permanent condition. She will need an adoptive home that is patient with her - we know she will come out of her shell in time with continued TLC. Thank you to fosters Kim and Larry who have helped us previously with special need cats. It is because of fosters like them that we can continue to do our work helping outdoor feral cat populations - not friendly “dumped” pet cats aka stray cats) although we do what we can if we have space with this population of cats and in the past especially after the economy downturn in 2008 pulled many very sick stray cats from the streets - but as we have mentioned the second largest city in Illinois really needs an ASPCA type group to help dumped pet cats and Aurora/Montgomery does not have this. We also need more shelters in the area I pull cats directly from the streets. Thankful Aurora Animal Care and Control does a fantastic job with stray cats managing intake timing based on their available space, providing vet care and adoptions for this vulnerable group. Christie is a feral community cat, who has had some interaction with humans feeding her which opened the door to her trusting humans. We believe she can be fully socialized.

10/04/2024

Got this little guy tonight. Saw him cross Second St. The other day when I went to speak with an upset neighbor to explain all but 2 of the cats (and this baby) in the 5 square block area have been fixed. A caretaker had sent me pics of him previously and we put him and his mom in our list. We don’t have much trapping help, as I mentioned I am still the main person trapping and I can no longer commit the time I previously committed to trapping for personal reasons. So we get to them when we can and I ran into this guy by coincidence picking up 3 cats from a resident we we are providing pro bono spay/neuter for. Waayyy too friendly to be outdoors, and crossing streets like that mid-day when I saw him the other day? That is why we pulled him - I am concerned his is going to be hit by a car by the way this tiny guy just strolls across the neighborhood. And thanks to our amazing shelter partner ADOPT Pet Shelter we are 9 kittens lighter after this week so we have space. Normally we no longer get involved in friendly strays and friendly kittens situations and send residents (within city boundaries to Aurora Animal Care and Control to help where the cat or kitten will adopted through the facility or pulled by shelters or non-profit foster base organizations that focus on pulling animals from high kill settings are able to help.

Trap and euthanize programs don’t get these two types of “typical” remaining cats after initial TNR work. The remaining 2 are a roaming tom and a queen momma. This is one of many reason why TNR programs works. We make sure to get the elusive ones who know how to quickly repopulate areas 😀. And we make sure cities under their obligation to treat their community cats well.

10/01/2024

We have a dog now! We can now tell our shelter partners whether the cats and kittens are ok with dogs. This girl is from a litter of 5 that will be going to Paws and Purrs Humane Society, who are as overfull with cats and kittens as we are but graciously has accepted this sweet group so we can intake more feral kittens from the streets. We provided spay surgery for these 5 thanks to our supporter’s annual fund and regular donations through our wonderful new vet Bristol Veterinary Clinic and these gals (all 5 are female!) are ready to go. We usually try not to bother Paws and Purrs Human Society as the only other cat group in Aurora, but our shelter partners in the area are also overwhelmed with kittens right now so it up the two cat non-profits in Aurora to process through this overflow of kittens. Paws and Purrs Humane Society does a fantastic job not only pulling cats from high kill shelter settings (and have been for many years) but as a Humane Society they work to provide education to pet owners and the community on the importance of spay/neuter/vaccination of pet cats and annual vaccinations and checkups with veterinary providers or low-cost clinics.

09/29/2024

Jasper and Garfield are quite photogenic. 18 and 16 years old looks good on them. Who wants to adopt a senior colony cat? Garfield is extremely friendly. Jasper is a little spicy but doesn’t mind hanging out with humans.

09/28/2024

All veterinarians are to be cherished but this man sure is special!❤️

Renee Rydberg Grieco

I’m Renee Rydberg Grieco (Badger class of ‘78) I’m Dr Marvin Rydberg’s daughter. My father has been a veterinarian in Lake Geneva since I was a little girl. My sister Dana Rydberg Pease (class of ‘81) and I are putting together a SURPRISE project for my father’s 91st birthday coming up soon in October. I know that many of you have probably seen my father at one point over the years to care for your animals. Cats,dogs, horses, cattle, critters…you name it, he’s done it all! We’re searching for any photos that you may have of our father caring for your animals or pictures with you. My father is so passionate about what he does that he is actually still practicing medicine at 91! When we suggest retirement his response is “what else would I do? This is my entire life…my social life. These people are my friends and family”. He truly loves caring for his clients animals. If you have any photos you’d like to share we would really appreciate it! You can email them to [email protected] or text them to 610-334-5607. Thank you so much for anything you can contribute to make this a really memorable experience for our wonderful father!