Sick kitten on the mend

Meet sweet little Coda. A 3-4 month old kitten rescued from the street last week, we didn't think he was going to make it. Coda was trapped along with two siblings, but for some reason they had been managing ok on the street with support from our feral team, and Coda did not. Our vet, volunteers, and Coda's dedicated foster mom Laurisa had never seen a kitten so emaciated. He needed to be hand fed every hour for the first few days, and Laurisa carried him around in her shirt. And she has a new human baby too! Finally, Coda has begun to show some signs that he is rallying. He is taking more of an interest in his surroundings, and he is even trying to play a little. However, he is still such a little skeleton that he isn't able to walk and keep his balance very well, so he still has a long road back to health. When I met him today his skin is still hanging on his frame, and you can feel his bones in his arms and legs. Heartbreaking.
Thank goodness for our feral team, rescuing vulnerable creatures in all kinds of weather. And thank goodness for Laurisa, from Prairie Animal Assistance, who gets full credit for saving this sweet little kitten.

-Sarah

Another girlfriend for Bugsy

My beloved rehabilitated tomcat, Bugsy, is a rather famous character in PFA circles. He lived at a feeding station for a long time, and we think he had been on the streets for even longer. When we finally succeeded in trapping him his injuries were so severe that he eventually needed 3 surgeries. Very timid to begin with, Mr Bugs is now Mr Purrsonality, the welcome ambassador to my home. Bugsy loves hanging out with young females (like many older males do!). He always takes my female foster kittens under his proverbial wing, and sweet Belle has proven to be no exception. In the photo above they are enjoying a comfy snooze on a cold winter day.

-Sarah

Volunteers needed!

Do you want to help homeless animals right here in Regina? Through no fault of their own, many abandoned and stray cats and kittens suffer daily. They need your help to survive. We are a non-profit, charitable, volunteer run pet rescue organization that has rescued hundreds of homeless street cats and kittens from bad situations. We provide food, veterinary care and shelter. All cats are sterilized in an effort to lower the number of street cats, now at crisis proportions.
We are looking for cat loving people who can commit to volunteering one to two hours once a week to help feed the outside feral (wild) cats residing in our established colonies.

Can you help us? Our existing volunteer team members are being run ragged, trying to ensure that none of our wild feline charges suffer because we are low on help.

Volunteers need to have their own transportation, be able to supply cat food, and be willing to go out to feed even in inclement weather. Some of our volunteers do this valuable work with a friend to share the load, and really enjoy this weekly time together!

Please email saskpeopleforanimals@gmail.com if you might be interested.

Thanks so much.
-Sarah

A happy ending for best buddies

Last fall, two tiny kittens were discovered in two different locations on the street on the same night by our dedicated feral team. These little guys were way too small to survive on their own, especially with the cold fall nights.

Delee, another dedicated member of our feral team, took these two babies in to foster, named them Wally (black one) and Lola (grey and white), and quickly decided to adopt them. 6 months have now passed, and these two rescued kitties are thriving with lots of love. Although they are not actually related to each other, they are as close as litter mates, as evidenced by the photos above! Wally and Lola would have either died on the street, or grown up to be feral street cats. Instead, they are happy housecats with a wonderful family, and they are getting sterilized this week.

-Sarah

Bottle fed babies thriving

These five lovable kittens are being capably fostered by Darlene. They were rescued from the street by our feral cat team about two weeks ago now. Their feral momma was trapped and spayed, and returned to her home territory where she will be supported as part of the colonies that we maintain in North Central. However, these kittens will have a much different life!

All five are happy and healthy, and will be very trusting, loving cats as they have been hand raised by humans. They will all be available for adoption at the end of this month.

-Sarah

PS. The larger siamese kitten in one of the photos is another kitten that Darlene fostered and saved, and ended up keeping :)

PFA continues practicing Trap/Neuter/Release in the inner city of Regina

Paloma - tame (now adopted)
Myrtle - tame (now adopted)

Heinz - feral - released back to colony

Grimalkin - feral - released to colony


Another update from Dona, one of our fearless feeders and trappers!
"Just a few of the ferals we've trapped so far. Two were T/N/R (Heinz and Grimalkin), the other two were pregnant females who've been adopted."

When we trap these cats, they are all sterilized. The tame ones are placed in foster care and adopted out, the feral ones go back to their home territories where we support them with food, water, shelter, and medical care in their colonies. If a female is pregnant when we trap her, we abort the kittens - a hard thing to speak of, but necessary when dealing with the kind of cat overpopulation crisis that we are seeing in Regina.

To read more about feral cat colonies, please see our website.
-Sarah

More feral cats sterilized by PFA

From Dona on the Feral Cat Team:

"After sitting in a damp car for 3 days straight, waiting for a cat to appear (they have more sense to stay out of the rain), I finally trapped two females (one pregnant) yesterday - all within about 15 minutes. They come from Garnet St. They were spayed yesterday and I will pick them up and release them later today. Their names are Jennie and Jemima. Attached are photos. (Jennie is the pregnant one)"

Thanks so much to our hardworking trappers who are working to stabilize the population numbers at our feeding stations!

-Sarah

A sad kitten story with a surprisingly positive ending

Astro Girl
Xander

Rocky, now deceased.

Another photo of Rocky.

Recently, we wrote about a young female cat that we had rescued from under a deck with NINE kittens. As a feral cat, Mary was sterilized and sent to an approved farm home, and we placed her nine kittens in foster care. Because there were so many kittens, and they were older and wild (needing lots of hands on work to tame up), we decided to separate them into smaller groups for fostering. Two went to Jennifer (Rocky and friend), one went to Sabrina (Howie), two went to Roxanne (Astro Girl and Xander), two to Rayelle (Charles and Freda), and two to Laura (Batman and Robin).

After several days, I received a couple of reports that some of the kittens had diarrhea. I didn't find this terribly out of the ordinary, as they had been quite stressed, and hadn't been dewormed yet. However, a few days after that I received a phone call first thing in the morning from Jennifer. When she had risen that morning she discovered Rocky, the sweet male tabby who had tamed up the fastest and been incredibly active and playful, lying unresponsive and sick in his room. We rushed Rocky to the vet, but sadly, it was too late to save him. Rocky passed away that morning.

Based on Rocky's symptoms, and the quick progression of his illness, our vet felt that this was a case of distemper, and my heart sank. In our past experiences with kittens with distemper, it has always been incredibly virulent and generally fatal. We quickly contacted all of the other foster homes with the kittens, and sent everyone in to be examined and treated by the vet clinic. Most of the kittens had one or two signs of illness, like vomiting or loose poops or dehydration. But none were as sick as Rocky had been. And the two kittens at Laura's proved to be the exception, staying completely healthy the entire time.

I authorized antibiotics, deworming and sub-q fluids for the 6 kittens at the vet, all the while feeling like this could be an exercise in futility. I couldn't imagine any kitten surviving exposure to distemper. But, Dr Soucy felt that we could try to support them as their little bodies battled the illness. The foster parents all took their charges back home, and began dosing them with the medications.

That was 13 days ago today. And I am AMAZED to report that all 8 remaining kittens are alive and doing very well. We did have one scare with little Freda last week that required an overnight hospitalization, but with some more veterinary attention, she has continued to improve. While she was at the vet, we decided to do more testing, and the blood tests did conclusively prove that it was distemper.

Tomorrow, the kittens will be done their course of antibiotics, and we will be able to say that they survived distemper! Sadly, we had to lose Rocky to discern what we were dealing with. But we are grateful to have saved these remaining 8 kittens.

-Sarah

4 little kittens

These four adorable kittens were rescued from the warehouse just east of downtown where our feral cat team has been working to stabilize a colony that we recently discovered. Their feral momma cat was trapped, spayed, and returned to the colony, and these kittens were taken into foster care. When we rescued them, they needed to be taught how to eat and drink, as they had never done anything but nurse.

Their transitional foster mom, Carol, provided this report:

"They're doing very, very well - eating and drinking very well, pooping and peeing equally well, and developing hourly it seems! In the little over 24 hours I've had them, they have already grown leaps and bounds in their confidence and play.
Here are some photos, which I hope you understand are rather hard to get!
Oreo is the most timid, by far. The rest are fine, calm, and becoming more friendly and more affectionate all the time. Of course one, Leopard, stands out as the boldest.
They're very healthy, and I think were likely taken at just the right time - big enough that being separated from mom has not affected their growth negatively at all, but small enough that their temperaments are entirely mouldable. "

Many thanks to Carol, who worked hard to ensure that these kittens were healthy and eating on their own before they went to their longer term foster home with Amanda.

-Sarah

An update on sweet Molly and her kittens

Molly's foster home shares: "She is a lovely cat - tame but quite timid and very, very protective of her kittens. She still hisses and spits sometimes if you get between her and the kittens. She might make a good indoor cat if we can find the right placement for her.

Molly and kittens are doing fine over here. The kittens are growing like weeds and are getting very active and starting to eat soft food and Mammalac. We have 3 boys (Ziggy, Ming and Muggins) and 3 girls (Sylvestre, Tatem and Tweety). They are all cute as buttons and their various personalities are really starting to come out. For example, little Tweety (who is the spitting image of mom) goes around chirping constantly, just like a little bird."

Mary the incredible momma

PFA has been blessed to encounter some amazing momma cats this season. And Mary, the lovely young black female, is another example. She not only successully raised her own 6 kittens outdoors under a deck in Glencairn until we trapped all of them, but she had adopted 3 orphaned 8 week old kittens and was nursing them too. What an incredible cat.

Mary and her NINE kittens were taken to a foster home for assessment, where it quickly became clear that while the kittens were very healthy and tameable, Mary was totally feral. Since the kittens were no longer nursing, we took Mary to be spayed today and she is on her way to an approved farm home to be reunited with some of the other adult cats from her colony.

-Sarah

Another Molly and her warehouse kittens

PFA's intrepid feral cat team recently discovered a cat colony in a warehouse close to downtown Regina. This group of cats was being fed by some of the people in the area, but many of the cats were ill or injured, and they were all reproducing. We have begun a trapping project in this warehouse to sterilize and return all of the wild adults, and rescue and foster the mommas and their kittens. This one momma cat is named Molly, and she has 6 babies who are about 6 weeks old. The whole little family is now in foster care. Molly was suffering from a nasty bite on her side that she has received veterinary care for, and the babies are being treated for eye infections. Molly is showing signs of taming up, which is a treat for her foster care provider! She is already letting us handle her babies. More to come on Molly and her kittens...

-Sarah

Bugsy almost a year later

Bugsy is one of PFA's shining success stories. In fact, his whole family are a great example of a happy ending.

After being trapped at a feeding station last summer by our feral team, Bugsy was neutered and treated for a horrible looking eye infection. Bugsy had never given any indication of tameness, but he was so calm that we brought him to my house for a few days for assessment. While he was still very timid, Bugsy quickly allowed me to handle him, and I fell in love. Flash forward a year, and Bugsy is a very contented housecat, adopted by me and my brood. He has had two eye surgeries, with the costs assisted by many PFA friends. Bugsy has gone from hanging in the basement and only allowing me to touch him, to being the king of the entire house and greeting all visitors with his distinctive siamese meow and rubbing his considerable backside against their legs. He loves to be cuddled and brushed, and he has even made peace with my hyper Korean chihuahua.

I took this video with my blackberry last night while watching TV, Bugsy on my lap, Blue (PFA foster cat) at my elbow, Atti (my rescued Korean dog) on the couch opposite, and Chopper (my rescued 15 year old chihuahua) beside us. Domestic Bliss!

-Sarah

Trapping Blitz Update

The PFA feral team recently undertook a spring trapping blitz to try and prevent the births of unwanted kittens on the streets of Regina, especially surrounding our feeding stations in North Central and the Warehouse District.

The blitz began on March 20th. So far, we have rescued 48 cats.

TOTAL CATS RESCUED AND STERILIZED ON FERAL ROUTES: 45 (17 females, 28 males).

3 SINCE DECEASED: Hoss (taken to RHS by private citizen, probably a car hit), Simon the kitten (euthanized due to multiple disabilities and health problems), Clement (Warehouse cat severely injured, thus, humanely euthanized).

TOTAL FERAL CATS TNR'D (trap/neuter/release): 32 - 12 females (would have had litters on the street), 20 males.

TOTAL TAME CATS RESCUED: 6 (4 females who would have had litters on the street), 2 males. Plus Jade's 5 babies, now socialized = 11.

TOTAL TAME CATS IN FOSTER CARE OR BOARDING: 4. Honey, Stroller, Jana, and 1 of Jade's babies left (Dusty).

TOTAL TAME CATS ALREADY ADOPTED: 6: Buffy, 3 of Jade's kittens, Peaches and Shawn.

We also worked with a private citizen to trap, neuter and release three feral cats in the Glencairn area. All 3 have now been relocated to a screened and approved farm. 2 males, 1 female.

Total rescues = 48.

Thanks so much to all of the volunteers who have worked so hard to make this happen, and to all of our wonderful supporters and donors who understood the importance of this blitz. We have prevented the births of literally hundreds of cats this spring!
-Sarah

Jade is back in her home territory

Jade is a female feral cat that we trapped from one of our trapping stations almost two months ago. She has been in foster care with her five kittens since then. However, the kittens are old enough to do well on their own now, and it has become very clear that Jade would be much happier being released to her home territory where we would support her with shelter, food, water, and medical care if needed. Yes, a life on the street can be rough, but for truly feral cats, they much prefer it over being forced to live with people in a house.

Jade has now been spayed, and she will never again have unwanted kittens, or suffer from endless heat cycles.

To see photos of her babies and read more about her family, please click HERE.

And here is an excerpt from the email that Dona, a member of the feral team, sent along with this photo of Jade right before her release:

"The release went very well. Pat & I got there first and filled a bowl with tuna, raw duck and another smelly tin of something; also set out some fresh water. We moved the feeding dishes onto a pallet and put a small board partially over the hole - the wind was whistling in and Jade will be fragile for a while. We didn't want her to get a kitty cold or a chill. She still has room to get in and out because we released her in the garage and she bolted through the little hole. Attached are photos of the lovely girl just before her release. Whatta beauty."

-Sarah

Another momma

Introducing Chika, Piglet and Roo!

Chika is the tortie momma cat, Piglet is the white kitten, and Roo is the orange kitten.

Chika had been living outside the home of one of our friends and volunteers for the last year or two, sheltering nearby and surviving on the food and water that Pam provided. Pam had never been able to touch her. Last night, Pam was finally able to trap Chika and her two babies (about 2-3 weeks old) and bring them over to my place. Sadly, we do believe that Chika actually had four babies to begin with, but that two of them were killed by the tomcats in the area. Thankfully, this will be her last litter, and her babies will not be condemned to a life on the street. Tomcats were already trying to mate again with Chika before Pam was able to grab her, so we know that if we hadn't intervened, she would have had at least one more litter this season.

Now, she will stay at my place in safety and warmth until her babies are weaned, at which point we will have Chika spayed. If she has shown any indication of taming up by then we will continue working with her, but if she is still feral we will release her back to her home territory. So far she is remarkably calm, and the babies are nursing well. They are so chubby!

-Sarah

Farm homes needed for Feral Cats

A colony of thirteen cats residing in Glencairn recently came to the attention of People for Animals.

These are cats who have been abandoned or lost, and have banded together in an area where residents have been feeding them. People for Animals is determined to prevent further reproduction among this colony, so the cats are being trapped and sterilized beginning today (May 5).

We urgently need good farm homes to take some of these cats who will no doubt turn out to be feral. The cats will all have been sterilized and treated by vets. If you can help by giving any of these poor cats a place to call home, please call 569-9730, or email pvogt@sasktel.net or luvcats@accesscomm.ca. Thank-you so very much!

Jade's little family

Jade is a female cat with lovely green eyes that had been living at one of our feeding stations in North Central Regina. She was targeted early in our spring trapping blitz, as it was clear she was pregnant. However, we didn't get to her in time, and she carried her litter to full term. Thankfully, we were then able to trap her and catch the kittens, only a few days old at the time, and place the whole family in foster care with Ken. Jade is a wonderful momma, and her babies have thrived. Yesterday Michelle was able to visit with them, and get some photos of the babies, although Jade was camera shy. We had first thought that Jade was feral, and had planned on releasing her back to her territory as soon as the kittens were 4 or 5 weeks old and she was spayed. However, she has made amazing progress at Ken's, so she will remain there for a while longer, while he assesses her chances for taming down. The kittens will be available for adoption in about three weeks. All but one of them are Manx!

-Sarah

The spring trapping blitz continues

The feral cat team and additional volunteers are continuing their hard work of trapping and sterilizing the many intact cats on their feeding routes. Any tame cats that are trapped are sterilized and then placed in foster care. Feral cats who are trapped are sterilized and returned to their home territories where we support them with food, water and shelter.

The photo above is of Camilla, released back into her home territory yesterday by Pat and Dona.

Many thanks to all of our donors who have sent in funds to assist us in this effort, and to all of the volunteers doing the extremely hard work of trapping!

-Sarah

Honey the chatty girl

This past Sunday, the feral cat team succeeded in trapping two homeless female cats. One of them is a feral cat who will be released back to her home territory once she is recovered from her spay, and the other was Honey. Honey is about 11 months old, a lovely slight female orange tabby with a very long, stripey tail. Once she figured out that she was safe in my fostering room, she came out and had a great time visiting with me. I couldn't get her to sit still! Honey is recovering from her spay, and I hope to deworm and vaccinate her in the next few days. And, hopefully a foster home will open up for her soon! One more lovely cat that will not be reproducing and suffering on the streets of North Central Regina any longer.

-Sarah