cowichancatrescue.org

Back to work…

Jean — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 21:50:27 +0000

The stream of new kittens has stopped (we hope) and now we can go back to work trapping. We have made excellent progress in a couple of places — there are parts of this colony where *all* the cats have been fixed. There remains one area where there are still a number to go, including some big kittens. We will be heading back out nexr week to try to get those under control before out time is up and the PetSmart grant money is all gone. Keep your fingers crossed for us — some of these cats have got very smart about the traps!

There are still some kittens from this colony in foster care and they will be available

for adoption from their foster homes now, or from Duncan Pets next

month, after the little kittens have been adopted out.

These boys are brothers who had some health issues but are now healthy,

friendly, playful and ready to go to a new home. We would like to see them stay together.

PetSmart kittens! And more kittens!

Jean — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 02:09:54 +0000

Long time, no report! The delay has been for several good reasons, including the little cuties pictured here. We had to stop trapping for a while, because there were momcats who had kittens that we could not find. We can’t trap and spay the moms if they are nursing tiny kittens, so trapping was cut way back while we gathered in as many kittens as we could find. The first ones have been adopted out and more will be arriving at Duncan Pets later this week. Those who followed the adventures of the wood pile on our Facebook page will know these next ones as the “woodpile kitties” and will recognize the little panda faces when they see them.

Progress report

Jean — Sat, 28 May 2011 03:17:23 +0000

Well, the trapping has slowed down considerably. There are momcats with kittens out there and we are concerned that we will catch a mom and take her away from her little ones. We have to find the kittens before we can safely trap the moms. Of course we have found some kittens. The two little “woodpile” kittens are doing extremely well now. There have been some pictures of them on our Facebook page and we will try to get some here. We also have the three kitties who came in with their mom. She has now been spayed and her adorable little kittens have been placed in foster care to finish growing big enough for adoption. They are just over one pound each now, and they will be ready to head out into the world at two pounds. Still a ways to go! Here is what they look like today.

We are rolling!

Jean — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 23:02:49 +0000

Four more kitties in the traps ready for tomorrow’s appointments! This is going very well indeed. This morning the first two were caught having breakfast and when we picked them up we left two more traps. Within half an hour the lady had those traps filled, too! If only it always went this well! For those who are keeping score, we will have 16 of the colony cats done as of Wednesday this week — not bad when the goal is 80 cats by November.

Sure wish we could get a few more traps. Then we could set up again in the morning and not have to wait for these traps to be emptied. Not complaining, just sayin’…

And in the meantime, the regular program goes on. Cobble Hill Clinic, Duncan Animal Hospital and Prevost Clinic have all done other feral spays and neuters for us last week and this. It is shaping up to be a very busy year!

Three down!

Jean — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 21:49:08 +0000

And about 80 more to go! But we have finally hit a sunny spell just long enough to get the spays done and the cats back out before they have to deal with cold rain and wind. We have more appointments lined up for next week and the targeted cats selected. Soon this will — we hope — settle into a routine. We are so grateful for the traps we have been able to borrow and for those that have been donated. At this time we have traps located in several spots and will be trapping in rotation so the cats do not get too wise to us!

For those who missed the spot on Shaw TV, we have been told it will show up on Shaw’s Facebook page. When that happens we will post the link here and you will be able to see some of the cats we will be fixing this summer. For those who saw Baddcatt and Baddsister on our Facebook page we can tell you that their mother and brother are on our list of targets. And so is Sweetheart’s lovely mother, the fluffy white with black cat who does a walk on in the Shaw TV spot.

First day!

Jean — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 19:31:09 +0000

The sun finally came out! Wednesday was the day! The van was loaded with traps and off we went — with a very nice lady from Shaw Cable TV along for the adventure.

We have traps at the first two feeding stations — with one more to go on this first round of trapping – and we are in the process of setting up appointments so we can start the real work next week. Wish us luck as we try to get half a dozen cats in for their surgeries next week!

The lady from Shaw? She interviewed and filmed and got up close and personal with several of the cats we will be trapping. You might see some of them on Shaw Channel 4 (Duncan) on Wednesday and Thursday next week, the 30th and 31st of March! We will be watching for it!

About this weather…

Jean — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 03:50:42 +0000

Waiting for Spring

It is cold. It is wet. It is windy. It is not the sort of weather than allows us to trap, neuter, and return feral cats. This is very frustrating.

It looks like it will be Spring Break before we can start setting up our traps. Did I mention that this is very frustrating?

We have traps now, although we will need more as our regular trapping activity gets underway. We have cooperative residents of the target community. Now we just need some warmer and drier days.

The rain dances have been very successful. Does anyone know how to do a sun dance?

Gathering steam — and traps

Jean — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 01:04:27 +0000

Well, we think we got to all of the houses that are affected by the colony we will be working with. We sure tried! If you have seen a bright lime green poster hanging near your mail box, or found a lime green flyer stuck in your door, please stop to read it — it is a message from me and I want to hear from you!

Now we are gathering traps and so far we have a little more than half of what we will need, some borrowed and some purchased by a volunteer. The plan is to start setting up the traps at feeding stations by mid-March — surely the snow will be finished by then! — and trapping can start very soon thereafter. We are hoping to be able to trap at least two days a week and will be chatting with our friendly vets to arrange that. It is vital that we have appointments arranged before we trap any cats!

If you can help out with traps or transportation or you just want to chat about this project or want to learn more about managing feral cats, please feel free to send an e-mail or call us and leave a message for a callback — 250-743-6500.

Starting out!

Jean — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 01:11:59 +0000

Saved from that colony

The Cowichan Citizen has published an article about our latest project — using our PetSmart grant to TNR as many cats as possible from a huge colony in the Cobble Hill area. Today I started the ball rolling. Armed with a bundle of information brochures I printed up, I started out to deliver one to every house in the target area. Amazing how many driveways I had never noticed before! About half way through the area my faithful van (the catmobile?) died and I had to call a tow truck! Well, maybe tomorrow I will get to the rest of the neighbours…

And then we will be seriously looking for traps, so we can provide traps to everyone who is feeding some of those cats and we hope to be doing that by early March. We would really like to stop the kittens before they start! If you know of anyone who has raccoon traps we could borrow for a while we would love to hear about it! We can do simple repairs on damaged traps, so really, any live trap is interesting to us.

Heard a very sad story at one of the houses, about a litter of kittens born just before the big snow a couple of years ago. Let’s try to make sure that such stories do not happen again in that colony.

We Got a Grant!

Jean — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 04:30:51 +0000

PetSmart Charities of Canada has awarded Cowichan Cat Rescue a grant in the amount of $8,500.00 for a targeted TNR project. There is a colony in the Cobble Hill area that has been causing us a lot of stress in the last couple of years and now we have the funding to do something about it. There is a lot of organizing to do — and in the next few weeks we will be attempting to contact the homeowners in the area to get some meetings set up so we can start trapping as soon as the weather warms up. The plan is to spay/neuter a minimum of 80 cats from that colony before the end of November — while carrying on with the rest of what we do in the rest of the Valley! I think we are going to need some help — and quite a few more traps!