Cat Rescue Network?

Where in Michigan does the cat need to go and which kitty is it? I hate to say it, but with winter coming on I don’t know that this would be the best time to make a long road trip, but maybe in spring if you still have a cat or cats needing transport to the Midwest… My husband and I have talked about taking a trip outside of Wisconsin. We enjoy traveling together, seeing new things. He drives truck for a living so he doesn’t mind driving. And I’d get to meet Furby!

Right now I’m not being paid from the school I teach music at. It’s not the school’s fault. It’s a choice school and DPI just refused to send the check. It’s going through the courts. We’ll win. This has been done before to other choice schools. We believe it’s an attempt to shut us down because the people in charge of distributing our funds don’t like school choice. The strategy is to not pay us and by the time it goes through the courts we’ve had to shut down for lack of funds. Teachers have not been paid since November 1st, but they’re still all there, coming to work every day. This happened right after I hit a dry spell with the medical staffing company. I want to send more money to help your kitties, but what I earned from teaching was just enough to pay bills and now it’s not there. I’m working as a PTA again and things are turning around slowly. So I haven’t forgotten about you and your kitties. How the other teachers are managing, I don’t know. I know if the school closes the kids will be devastated. They are the happiest bunch of kids I’ve ever met. They love their school.

It’s says a lot about a society when you look at how the weakest are treated, i.e. kids and animals. We’re not doing a good job caring for either. It all comes down to money. Michael is right– someone is making money off dead cats, so there is an incentive by some to preserve the status quo of too many animals. And in my situation, school choice threatens another status quo in which people are getting wealthy while little of the money allocated for public schools actually reaches the classroom. I know public school teachers who spend thousands of dollars per year on supplies for their classrooms, yet the taxpayers spend, I think about $14,000 per pupil right now in our public schools. Greed is out of control on one hand, but then you have others who will struggle against insurmountable odds to do the right thing– like you with your cat rescue and all school teachers, but especially the ones I work with who will come to work every day not sure when they’ll get paid, because in the end, they are doing it for the children.

There are homes waiting for cats if you can get them a 10 plus hour drive up north to the tip of the east coast. Things are more rural where I live. Lots of farmland. Ferals thrive because everyone either puts food out or throw out table scraps. I just took in a fat little chunk of a kitten found up a tree. After running an ad and taking it to the vet to have checked for a chip I found myself wondering how Baby, with his feral growl, became so fat. My daughter told me all the neighbors put out food. This is how I fed the strays in the 1980s. I have one kitten needing to go to Michigan. 7 hours and no way to get him there. I’ve started a closed support group on Facebook called We Rescue Cats. I’ve learned we’re all in the same situation, especially those of us in the southern states. The low cost clinic in my area is closed due to the death of its vet. I do feel the support group I’ve started will help. At least I see I’m not alone in this situation. On the other hand, I’m learning I can’t depend on other rescues to help because they’re all as full as I am.

I’ve seen lots of request via Facebook for people to transport animals from one state to another. In these situations, the home has been found for the cat, but getting him there is another issue. My friend Ruth drove six hours to bring a cat named Dorian to her home. (I think she should adopt a few more cats and name them Mixolydian, Phrygian and Lydian.) I told her that, but I don’t know if she got it. It’s a musician’s joke, and she’s a librarian.

I think in the end we are all much more guilty of sins of omission than commission. It’s the things we should do and don’t do that are usually more serious. I see those desperate pleas and what would it take to just once help transport an animal from one state to another? If we all did it just once… And I know I should send Elisa some money toward her rescue again. I haven’t been working as much through the medical staffing company and the teaching gigs I’ve managed to land barely paid the bills. But often times I simply forget to give money where it’s needed even when I have plenty coming in. Or I’m spending it on going out to eat again, when that’s the last thing I need! I guess almost every one of us is a little more responsible for the problems of animals in this world than we would like to admit. Then there are others, like Elisa, who have carried more than their fair share of the burden for far too long.

I’d also like to say that barn cats don’t really have it too bad unless there are too many. Then competition for resources and disease can make their lives very hard. My grandma always put down food and water for her barn cats. But she didn’t have people constantly dropping off cats at her gate. How many farmers can afford to help their barn cats if there are just so many?

However, I do think Monty would love to be a barn cat. I could just see him out on grandma’s farm, exploring all over the place, climbing trees (getting stuck up there), catching little animals (always a good day when he gets to kill something)and sniffing around the barn. If there aren’t too many I think barn cats live the way cats were meant to live, with much more freedom than Monty will ever have, but they also have food and water provided and a warm barn to sleep in. It always comes down to that though– there are just too many cats period.

I live in Central Florida and the cat population is enormous. I am an individual and not an organization but I do massive caretaking and rescues. I have been caretaker for as many as 6 feral cat colonies at one time. My home is at capacity right now, filled with strays and ferals needing homes. I have had only small success adopting out over the past year.
Because this area is saturated with horse farms, there was a time when these farms were options. Although, a barn cat’s life isn’t the greatest, it still offered food and shelter to many. However, that option is gone now that the economy has pinched animal owners to give up their pets. In lieu of taking them to our KILL SHELTER, many owners opt to drop them off at the farms. I am told that these farm owners frequently find dogs tethered to their gates, cats and kittens in crates at their gates, and many free roaming cats and dogs.
I am clueless as to where to turn anymore.
I’m sorry that I have no answers but I am anxious to hear what others may have to say and what they may be doing.

Yes, Ruth, a good point. I know distance is a barrier to transporting cats. On a financial basis alone there must be a limit but I think it would be helpful to know if there are places where there is a need for rescue cats and then see if something can be rejigged to fill that need.

Everything you say in this article is true, Michael, but there was one thing that reminded me that you live in England and not the United States. Certainly, it is true that where Elisa lives there may be a greater surplus of cats than in other areas. But if there were potential adopters 100 miles away she’d have found them already. She drives that far for work sometimes because she works for a company that places her with various clients. I am in a similar situation, but in a different field. This week I’m scheduled to work one day 80 miles from my house. One hundred miles is not far with our interstate highway system. To really find homes for cats Elisa might need to look 600 miles away or more. My thought is that there are more feral cats surviving in the south than in places where the winter is more harsh, like where I live. This could contribute to the surplus of cats in general, I don’t know.
I read somewhere once that the difference between people in England and people in the USA is that the person from England thinks 200 miles is far away while the person from the USA thinks 200 years is a long time ago.