Feral Fables

As the winter progressed we had so many absolutely hesterical moments watching the kittens in the yard. Everything was new of course. I remember the first snow....... they jumped at the flakes, pawed them, tried to catch them in their mouths.....there were little kitten paw prints all over the deck! Snow, the mother, had her moments of spunkiness as well. But-----one thing we worried about---------when is a kitten ready to mate? (5-6 months of age) and do they mate with each other? (they sure do) and how many cats could that potentially be? (thousands, literally thousands within a couple of years). So we began to panic. How are we going to get these cats neutered? I made some phone calls thinking I could find a vet with reduced rates with no success. I also called the Wisconsin Humane Society thinking they could give me some vet referrals. I was so surprised when I described my situation and WHS worker told me, "why, we do that here." The next thing we needed to know was how? That is when we learned all about Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR). Our humane society had a TNR program. We could rent traps from them for a small amount. They would neuter the cats, vaccinate them, micro-chip them and return them to us to be released back into our yard as long as we agreed to care for them by providing food and water. I went through the short training and we enthusiastically began.

You may wonder why we didn't trap the cats and then take them to a shelter for adoption. The fact is most feral cats are afraid of humans and so they do not make suitable pets. Some of them can be socialized, but it takes an extremely long time and a lot of dedication on the part of the caretaker. The cats are actually happier outside, even in the middle of the Wisconsin winter. Even being enclosed inside a warm house, with no way out, will panic a feral cat. That doesn't mean they don't want our help in the form of a shelter and food and water. Over time, if you are lucky-------they will let you into their world, not the other way around. To learn more about feral cats and TNR you can go to:

•  www.alleycat.org         
•  www.bestfriends.org
•  www.wihumane.org