Paws and Pumpkins Rescue

03/26/2025

We’re starting a weekly giveaway called Wishlist Wednesdays! Here’s how it works:
-Every Wednesday we’ll have a new featured item from our Amazon Wishlist. We’ll post each week’s item on our social media.
- Anyone who orders that specific item will get a FREE $20 e-gift card to use either on our website or in person at our cat lounge!
Even if you aren’t local, you can still use the gift card on our website for anything we sell on our website, including special event products like our keychains designed by the cats.
- To enter: DM us a screenshot of your order with your name and a good email to send the e-gift card to if you are selected as the winner. It also helps if you add a note to be included with your order on Amazon telling us this is a Wishlist Wednesday order.
- All order entries MUST be made on Wishlist Wednesday to count for the giveaway.
- Winners will be announced the following Wednesday on the next item’s post.
This week, the featured Wishlist Item is the Purina Kitten Kibble 14lb bag! Good luck to everyone who enters!
We hope you enjoy this fun little giveaway project! This is our way of showing our gratitude to all of you who support our mission!

https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/LK944VCKV0ZL?ref_=wl_share

03/26/2025

Very last minute but if anyone wants to volunteer for morning cleaning today, I could use the help. A few of the cats have Giardia again and it just takes me a long time to medicate them. Morning cleaning is from 9-11 but you don’t have to stay the whole time!

03/24/2025

We have been struggling ever since the cats got Giardia a few weeks ago. Thankfully, we have received many wishlist supply donations so we have enough food and litter for the rest of the month but we are about $1,000 short on funds this month to cover all our expenses. We couldn’t be more grateful to everyone who donated supplies the last few weeks! It means a lot to us that we can focus our efforts on paying the bills since we can rest easy knowing the cats have enough food and litter to keep them going for a while longer. Between Giardia, losing the grant opportunity we were pursuing and Rose’s passing, it has been a rough two weeks. We are working on some big projects in the background that will hopefully serve as good fundraising opportunities but until those are ready, we are fully reliant on the support of the community to keep our rescue going. You can donate on our website, GoFundMe, Venmo, Cashapp or PayPal if you’re able to support us! You can also bring in bottles/cans to donate that we can turn in for funds as well. If you’re on Facebook, you can also send us Stars, subscribe to our page for only $2.99/mo or just simply interact with our posts. Thank you all for your support! 💜🐾
Pawsandpumpkinsrescue.com/donate

03/24/2025

Victory is ours! With 4 hours and 2 people working to clip his nails, it finally got done! After all the chaos he took about a 3 hour nap and was back to normal again. 🤦‍♀️ Hopefully we can slowly get him more comfortable with the whole process and make it less of a battle in the future. One thing’s for sure though, his name suits him well! We win this round though Dynamite!
How do your cats feel about nail trims? We have some that are completely unbothered by the experience and then we have…well, we have Dynamite 😹

03/23/2025

What was the coat color of your first cat? Or, if you’ve never had a cat, what’s your favorite breed/coat color? I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for calico cats. Amber is the first cat I’ve ever had and, if you can believe it, I only got her a little over 3 years ago. I’ve never had a cat before her but she made such an impact in my life that it led to me to start all of this! Now, as the owner of a rescue, I’m very cautious when people come in saying they’re looking for a cat with a specific coat color or a certain breed of cat. Yes, certain breeds have stereotypes but take those with a grain of salt. Take Amber for example. People say calico cats are moody, sassy, spicy little things that don’t often accept affection but Amber comes to cuddle with me almost every morning. Let me be clear, there is absolutely nothing wrong with having a preference for certain breeds or coat colors as long as that’s not the only thing you care about. Each cat is going to have its own individual personality and preferences, regardless of breed or coat color. If you want an orange cat, that’s great! But do you want a cuddly orange cat, a more independent orange cat, an orange cat that gets along well with kids, dogs, other cats, etc.? Prioritize finding a cat with the personality you’re looking for first. I guarantee you’ll find a cat with the personality you want with the coat color you like, you just might need to take some time and look around a bit. You can’t rush adding to your family 💜

03/23/2025

Subscribing only costs $2.99 a month and your subscription helps us continue our rescue work to save more cats like Knuckles! As a subscriber, you also get special access to a subscriber only group where we post exclusive content, discount codes for our cat lounge and gift shop items and host special giveaways! Subscribe today to become a part of our mission to rescue kitties!

03/21/2025

The promised update post! Last week was incredibly rough for us here at the rescue. We were clearing the last few stubborn cases of Giardia out of the rescue, we lost the property we were looking at buying to another offer and, because of that, also lost the ability to apply for the grant that would’ve made buying that property possible. On top of all that, Mr. Rose, one of our senior resident cats, passed away on Sunday evening.
Financially we are hurting after dealing with the Giardia outbreak since we put a lot of money into making sure they got the best treatment we could realistically give them to clear that out as soon as possible. We’re about $1,500 short on paying our bills next month so we’re really cutting it close to the end of the month.
On a more positive note, our Panda Express Fundraiser earned $44.56 and our Chipotle Fundraiser Night earned $248.28! Thank you to everyone who participated in the fundraiser and we hope to see you again at our future fundraising events!
I’m hoping this next week is better than the last, we could use a change of pace around here 🐾 💜

03/20/2025

What could be a better stress reliever than cuddling kittens?? We’re open 11am to 5pm everyday except Mondays and the kitties are ready for cuddles and playtime! Today (3/20) through Saturday, show your student ID and get $2 off your cat lounge visit! See you soon!

03/18/2025

Best pizza in the state! Go vote for them every day until April 4th!

We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve been nominated for Best of the Willamette Valley in three amazing categories:

🍕 Monmouth/Independence Restaurant
🍕 New Restaurant
🍕 Pizza

Our unique NYC Sicilian Pizza is what sets us apart, and we couldn’t have done it without YOUR support! 🥳

Help us bring home the win by voting once a day from March 17th to April 4th. Let’s show our community what makes our pizzeria special!

👉🏼 Vote here: www.votebowv.com

Click on EAT and DRINK and select categories we’re nominated in. Every vote counts!✨

Thank you for supporting local! Together, we can make it happen! 💪❤️

03/17/2025

We said goodbye to one of our resident cats, Mr. Rose today. He was always on the more medically fragile side and he’d been declining physically for about a week and a half. We booked an appointment for him to be put down a few weeks from now since we’d just given him a steroid shot and we wanted to see if that would turn things around for him. Unfortunately it didn’t do enough for him and today, when we came in to feed the cats in the morning, it was clear that today was going to be his last day. We gave him a couple hours at the shop since we wanted to give him the chance to pass in a comfortable environment and he hates going in carriers but by almost 5pm, we made the call to take him to the emergency vet. He passed away just after we got inside, before we had the chance to euthanize so he was very ready to go. He’s not suffering anymore and I hope he’s eating all the yummy chicken treats in heaven.

03/16/2025

I’ll be making a full update post soon. This week has been one of the worst weeks I’ve ever had and I haven’t even had time to slow down and process everything yet. Hope you’re all having a better week than we are! 🫠🫠🫠

03/15/2025

One of our most frequently asked questions is “How can I support the rescue?” so we’ve made a list of all the ways you can support us!
- Engage with our posts! We get paid for engagement on our posts so you can support us completely for free just by watching our videos and interacting with our posts!
- Donate time: Volunteer with us! Sign up on our website today!
- Donate Supplies: Even if you don’t live near us, you can send in supplies through our Amazon Wishlist. Orders will get sent directly to us so it’s easy to support us from wherever you are! If you do live nearby, we take donations of cat food and supplies in our adoption center in Monmouth as well!
- Donate your vehicle: Have an old vehicle that you don’t need/use anymore? Donate it for a tax write off for the value of the vehicle! Email us at [email protected] if you have a vehicle you’d like to donate.
- Subscribe to our page! It’s only $2.99/mo and you get access to a special subscriber-only group with exclusive content and discounts for the cat lounge and our gift shop!
- Bring us your bottles and cans! We are a registered nonprofit with Oregon BottleDrop so you can bring us your bottles and cans OR you can donate through your BottleDrop account balance on the BottleDrop website
- Send stars to us on Facebook!
- Donate financially: We have many virtual and in person donation options so donors can pick the platform that’s easiest for them to access
🐾 Website: pawsandpumpkinsrescue.com/donate
🐾 GoFundMe: https://gofund.me/afb7b1ee
🐾 Venmo: https://www.venmo.com/u/pawsandpumpkinsrescue
🐾 Cashapp: https://cash.app/$PawsandPumpkins
🐾 PayPal
🐾 Cash, Check and Card payments in person at our adoption center in Monmouth
- Spread the word! We are still a relatively young, small rescue. We’ve only been around about a year and a half now but we have grown so much during that time. With over 15k followers between all platforms, we’ve made huge strides in sharing our mission with others. We have huge plans for our little rescue so share our page with your friends and family, tell them about our mission, any fundraisers we have, tell them how they can participate. It truly does take a village and we’ve been blessed with pretty amazing one so thank you all for your continued support!

Help make life better for our cats!We are a 501c3 non-profit cat rescue so we operate entirely from donations and any sales we make at our physical location. Without the kind contributions from people who have come to visit the cats, we wouldn’t be able to keep our doors open. All donations are ta...

03/15/2025

Our page has officially been accepted into Facebooks Content Monetization program! From now on, we can get paid for engagement on our posts which means you can support us completely for free just by interacting with our posts! You can also go interact with some of our recent posts and our stories to help support us!

03/15/2025

Don’t forget! Our fundraiser night is tomorrow, Saturday March 15th, from 5-9pm at the Chipotle on Commercial st in salem. Show the flyer when you order in person (a physical or digital flyer works perfectly fine), or you can order online using our special code to have 25% of your order donated to our rescue! 💜🐾

We’ve got another fundraiser night coming up this Saturday! Join us Saturday, 3/15 from 5-9pm at the Chipotle on Commercial St in Salem to have 25% of your order donated to our rescue! Just show this flyer (digital or physical) when you order in person or use our code VGC9B6W when you make an online order between 5-9pm. Thank you for the fundraiser opportunity!!

03/13/2025

Don't Let Perfect be the Enemy of Good

A few years ago, we heard from "Nanette" who was feeding a mom cat and 6 older kittens. "Can you take these cats and find them good homes? I can't keep them."

We explained that we could help her get them trapped and fixed free, but if they were feral they would have to come back. She replied that the mom was feral, but she could sometimes get close to her while she ate. Her 8-month-old kittens, however, were totally wild and wouldn't eat until she went back inside. "But they can't come back!"

When the volunteer came out with traps, she knew that the first order of business was getting Nanette to accept having them come back after their spay / neuter. There was no place to take these cats. The property looked like a kitty paradise. There were several heated cat houses, comfy blankets on the porch furniture, cat toys and big bowls full of clean water and cat food. The property was away from the road and had a carport, deck, a large garden and a shed that provided additional shelter. She seemed to like and care for the cats, so why was she so adamant about them needing to go?

Nanette explained that a cat rescuer had come out earlier, but didn't take the cats because they were too feral. She gave her a link to a low cost spay / neuter clinic and explained that it would "only" cost about $75 per cat including vaccines and flea treatment. Then she gave Nanette an earful of advice on proper cat nutrition. Nanette had been buying inexpensive food from the local grocery store and the cats seemed to love it. But when the rescuer spotted the bowl of colorful kibble, she explained that the dry food was complete garbage. "No cat should have to eat that." It had grains and artificial additives that were bad for cats. She should ONLY be feeding them quality grain-free canned or raw food.

Nanette knew that even the low cost spay / neuter fee was totally out of the question. It would be over $500 to get them all fixed! But she did buy some canned food. It was expensive and the little family went through about $5 of food every day. There was no way she could afford that on an ongoing basis. She loved the cats and enjoyed watching them play and cuddle together on her deck furniture, but it was all beyond her limited budget. Nanette didn't want to get rid of the cats, she wanted them to have a GOOD home. She just needed someone to show her that they already had a good home!

People who love cats want the best for them, so we understand when people see cats and want to improve their lot in life. But don't let perfect be the enemy of good! There is no perfect in the rescue world and every kindness you give to an animal in need is priceless. Nanette was feeding the food she could afford and that is good enough. Now the little family is TNR'd and living happily in their back porch paradise. And best of all, Nanette loves her little backyard cat family.

03/12/2025

So, in case you haven’t noticed, we’ve been a lot quieter on social media lately. The reason for that is a lovely little Giardia outbreak in the rescue….for both cat rooms. Medicating 21 cats and deep cleaning both rooms daily takes me about 7 hours and when you add in running the shop, finishing up a massive grant application and 3 smaller applications on top of all that, I’m pretty sure I need 50 hours in a day and more coffee than anyone should consume to manage all of it. We are extremely struggling with finances this month and dealing with Giardia has not helped that issue so when I got this Wishlist delivery from Pamela this morning, I almost cried. In the last 6 days we have spent over $500 on litter, medications for the cats, pan liners and cleaner so I cannot overstate how grateful I am to get this donation. Pamela, I’m not sure if you came into the shop and heard about the Giardia issue or if you just sent this in by chance but either way, you have made my week so much easier and I am so very grateful for you.

03/10/2025

We’ve got another fundraiser night coming up this Saturday! Join us Saturday, 3/15 from 5-9pm at the Chipotle on Commercial St in Salem to have 25% of your order donated to our rescue! Just show this flyer (digital or physical) when you order in person or use our code VGC9B6W when you make an online order between 5-9pm. Thank you for the fundraiser opportunity!!

03/07/2025

Don’t forget! Today, March 7th is our very first Panda Express Fundraiser event! Order online or on the Panda Express app today and use our code 9002328 to get 28% of your order donated to our rescue!

Join us at any Panda Express nationwide on March 7th when you use our code on your pickup or delivery order! Use code 9002328 during checkout on their website to contribute 28% of your order cost to our rescue. This is for ALL Panda Express locations nationwide so even if you don’t live in the area, you can still participate! We also have a new section on our website for Events and you can see all our fundraiser nights and their information there. We have Panda Express fundraiser nights on one Friday a month for the foreseeable future so keep an eye out for more to come in the future! Thank you for having such a wonderful program for us nonprofits! It’s incredibly helpful as we’re starting fundraising for a new building!