04/04/2024
This includes an update about a local effort to help some cats that are in need of vetting and support.
Donate if you can....
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Update 4/3/24: Rescue friends, our cat team has now trapped and vetted 26 cats from the cat colony behind a shopping area in Hampstead. **That's 26!!!! ** A lot more than we realized were there when we were asked to start helping. Two of the recent cats were riddled with bite wounds from fighting and our vet team cleaned, flushed, and medicated those cats. They are currently on antibiotics and cage rest. We hope to find a sanctuary for these 2 so they never have to fight for food or safety again. We'd appreciate any support in medical bills, food, or donations towards a sanctuary intake fee. - thanks, Margaret
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Update 3/8/24:
So far we have done Trap/Neuter/Return for 8 females and 6 males.
There are likely 3 generations of cats in this colony. Several volunteers are assisting on site, 2 are Fostering a few of the more tame cats in hopes of finding them indoors adoptive homes. The vetted cats receive several days of indoor recovery after surgery, and we make sure they are eating well and active when released back to their known environment. We know there are more than originally thought to be here....THANKS to everyone who is supporting this community effort!!đ
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Friends I know we write a lot about dogs on our page. But I want to tell you a little bit about our Cat side and what weâve been doing since the first of this new year. We have a very small TNR team that consists of Karen Boone, Margaret, Godwin, and myself in the Hampstead area. In the last two weeks we have trapped 13 cats in a single location (we started out looking for one injured cat here,), 6 in another (we started looking for four here )with more to go!
At minimum each of these cats cost us between 80 and $100 depending on their general body condition when we take them for TNR unless we use our county shelter who is overrun with animals themselves to fix.
Out of these 19 cats nine were females and 10 were males. Weâre getting to the last of them at one location and these cats are in desperate shape. They are approximately 5 to 6 months old are desperate for food because the older ones will fight to the death for the same food, the younger ones dont have a chance. We see the same scenarios over and over and over again because people are giving free kittens away on Facebook and craigslist and marketplace, people giving these kittens homes had very good intentions to give them a home, but the newness soon wore off. They were put outside when they started soiling in the house or the people had to give them up so they could move and they just left them behind. This has created a crisis for all of us. You cannot un-see some of the things that we see . You cannot not do something either. You are all in or out, there is no middle ground. There is not a shortage of rescues in Wilmington, but there is a shortage of volunteers. Volunteer to hold a feral or shy cat overnight before surgery and for a couple days after surgery. We have a shortage of volunteers that can transport these cats to and from the clinics, because we work full-time jobs too and often work late into the evening to make up for the time that we have to spend in the morning and early afternoon getting them to and from the clinic. We give up our days off, our vacations, $ for nice dinners out to pay for neuters and vaccines just to give that cat one more chance. itâs hard to do this when we see so many animals overlooked. We have a shortage of volunteers that will call and make clinic appointments so weâre texting with the clinics and emailing the veterinarian hospitals before we start our full days work like I said, youâre either in or youâre just out and as we get ready to fall into kitten season, the season that keeps on giving, the same people are out there setting traps, buying sardines, clearing the dollar tree of canned food so that we can leave some behind for those we didnât get to eat. We have a crisis in Wilmington folks not just in my backyard but your backyard, in your communities yard under your sheds and in your car engines. We canât do it all on our own. We need more help or countless animals are going to continue to die in your backyard, in your community, in your car engines, if you follow this page is because you care about animals. Both the cat and dog side of our rescue does every thing it can but we canât do it all by ourselves. 18 faces are waiting for us to make sure that their colony caregivers have enough food on hand, someone to fill-in when they need a night off. All it takes is a dollar a day from half the people on our page to help get us over these humps that seem to never end. I saw a new Starbucks is opening in Hampstead. I was tickled to death about that and then I had to stop and think for that five or six dollar a cup coffee thatâs an indulgence how many animals are going to die this week or be desperate enough for food to come out in the middle of the day when itâs not their thing because I didnât set aside 50 Cent in a coffee can.
So tomorrow weâre gonna start a coffee can chronicle. Weâre going to post every day a picture of a cat that has been saved through TNR.
We are gonna try to describe for you where they came from without telling you the exact location weâre gonna ask you to put aside $.50 in a coffee can every day and at the end of the week call up our veterinary hospital and make that donation toward our medical account.
Number 19 didnât make it, so tonight Iâm throwing a dollar in a coffee can for cats like number 19 to maybe catch them early enough and give them another chance.
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