Cat Track Mews Archives
Cat Ranch Inc News
Dale
Winter is here!
Maintenance of the sanctuary is a big job for the two of us. If you would like to help don't hesitate to contact us.
This winter we have several big jobs to do.
We will be clearing off the fence line in the next week. We could use some help piling the brush. We have plenty of gloves and will give you a CRR tshirt for helping!
Another big job will be fixing our large pond. It will require a large 20 ft piece of pipe. If you know of anyone who could donate a used piece I believe it needs to be 15 in black corrugated pipe. I'm still working on a plan to fix this so it is no longer a problem.
New building in 2012
We would like to build a new building for the FIV+, feral, kittens and new intakes. If you know anyone who will donate supplies or labor to help us please let us know. You can go to the Contact Us page and email us.
Adopt A Highway trash pickup scheduled
It's a new year and we have 4 trash pick ups to complete as the contract states.
We are planning our next event for January 26 at 10 am. Participants will receive a free CRR Tshirt for participating. If you would like to join us please email us at catranchrescue@yahoo.com.
Networking to Save Lives
We have taken many calls from people all over the US asking us to take in cats. Unfortunately we are committed to helping our community first and have had to turn these down. We are also currently full.
We do, however, help to connect people with other rescues in their area or other rescues with available room and those who might be willing to adopt a cat. Go to our adoptable pets page for more information.
We have also had a few calls for people looking for cats to adopt.
Since we do not adopt out, we put them in contact with people we have on file that have cats available that we could not take in. Those who contacted us wishing to adopt that were far away from us , we found local rescues with available animals to choose from. This networking is very time consuming but we do free of charge in hopes to save one more life.
January 2012
Maintenance of the sanctuary is a big job for the two of us. If you would like to help don't hesitate to contact us.
This winter we have several big jobs to do.
We will be clearing off the fence line in the next week. We could use some help piling the brush. We have plenty of gloves and will give you a CRR tshirt for helping!
Another big job will be fixing our large pond. It will require a large 20 ft piece of pipe. If you know of anyone who could donate a used piece I believe it needs to be 15 in black corrugated pipe. I'm still working on a plan to fix this so it is no longer a problem.
New building in 2012
We would like to build a new building for the FIV+, feral, kittens and new intakes. If you know anyone who will donate supplies or labor to help us please let us know. You can go to the Contact Us page and email us.
Adopt A Highway trash pickup scheduled
It's a new year and we have 4 trash pick ups to complete as the contract states.
We are planning our next event for January 26 at 10 am. Participants will receive a free CRR Tshirt for participating. If you would like to join us please email us at catranchrescue@yahoo.com.
Networking to Save Lives
We have taken many calls from people all over the US asking us to take in cats. Unfortunately we are committed to helping our community first and have had to turn these down. We are also currently full.
We do, however, help to connect people with other rescues in their area or other rescues with available room and those who might be willing to adopt a cat. Go to our adoptable pets page for more information.
We have also had a few calls for people looking for cats to adopt.
Since we do not adopt out, we put them in contact with people we have on file that have cats available that we could not take in. Those who contacted us wishing to adopt that were far away from us , we found local rescues with available animals to choose from. This networking is very time consuming but we do free of charge in hopes to save one more life.
January 2012
CRR is now certified in
Pet CPR and Emergency Care
We attended the Red Cross pet CPR and Emergency Care class in Asheville, NC and are now certified. We hope this helps not only our own rescue but others we hope to train . It will also help us with disaster relief efforts too. Thanks to all who donated and made this possible. We are very grateful for your support
2012
2012
2011 Robbinsville Christmas Parade
This years parade was a success and we had a great time. Not only did we throw candy for the kids but we took this opportunity to throw fliers that told of our sponsor program, donation wish list, our website, the local SNIP program for low cost spays and neuters, and our Christmas light show.
If you wish to ride in any of the local parades or help with a float please contact us.
If you wish to ride in any of the local parades or help with a float please contact us.
Cat Track Mews for September/October 2011
Felicity our FIV+ kitty
I am so sorry to not have written a September newsletter. It completely slipped my mind as we have been so busy running the rescue. I will update you for the last 2 months until now.
Since September we had many new intakes. Sweet Pea was the first and was found under a car in town during the local homecoming parade. She was just about 6 weeks old , sickly and hungry! Next we went to trap several ferals at our local dumpsters. We were told there were 3 but ended up with 5! Then we had all but one escape from the quarantine room. We caught 2 back but 2 vanished. We were sick.
While we were trying to trap the 2 escapees we ended up trapping 2 more (Jake and Percy) that were dumped out. Jake was pretty ornery acting and did not want us touching him at first. After getting him vetted he decided he wanted to be petted some but you have to watch him as he turns around and attacks your arm with no warning. Percy is a love bug. . One of the escaped ferals, Felicity, actually came back and I caught her by hand and Jilly Boo was re trapped in the trap. I was thrilled as I felt both of these could be worked with.
After getting them all FIV tested all but Felicity were negative.
Then we had to decide what to do with Felicity. Since she was young and showing no signs of sickness we have opted to keep her.
In the meantime we found Elizabeth in our ditch by the house, apparently dumped out. Shes about 4 months old and a bundle of love!
The tiny black feral kitten who was the youngest at about 3 months old (Molly) has become a little sweetheart and stays in my lap.
Then at the end of October we found another dumped kitty across the rd. We named her Zeva. She has permanently damaged ears from ear mites and a yeast infection which we immediately got treated and found she was already spayed so that saved a little. She was also neg FIV .
About that same time a man drove up to our house with a trapped feral male cat. He was huge and very scared. The man while we were talking to him and trying to figure out where in the world we could put him kept poking him through the cage. I knew I could not leave this cat with him so we put him in the tool shed which doubles as an extra cat room when we need it. I was worried we had gone totally mad taking in the huge growling beast of a cat. I had no idea if I could ever get him to trust me. Eventually, with the help of some kitty treats, wet food and a glove on the end of an ax handle! I gradually petted him and he just seemed to growl and cower like someone had hit him. He did have lots of scrapes on his head when we got him but we weren’t sure how he got them assuming it was from him jumping around in the trap. I managed to get him in a carrier and get him to the vet to get neutered and shots. He sadly tested FIV+ but was good news in a way as Felicity now had a companion. Since then he has turned around the quickest of any feral I have ever seen. Within 2 to 3 weeks he now jumps down to come see me and loves me to pet him .We have a long way to go but this in itself is amazing. He even purrs for me! We have just started teaching him how to play with a cat string. Felicity is helping him with that. She is much friendlier now and we hope to get her spayed soon.
We put both the FIV+ cats on Blue Buffalo cat food and Mega C Plus to help boost their immune systems. They seem to be doing great.
Since we do not have a FIV ward we are having to use our quarantine room for now until we come up with another solution. If we had the funds we would build a building on our land in the back but to date don’t have enough. We did receive just this month a $3000 grant from the Larkin Foundation and hope to save it towards a building.
We currently have 92 cats and 2 dogs now. Vetting has really been a big burden. We had several very large bills due to spays/neuters/ FIV tests. Barney recently got sick with liver infection and was a $400 bill alone. We were lucky to get another 2 pallets of dry food from ASAP. We went to the Purina plant in Atlanta to get this. We could use more sponsors to help keep us going to please spread the word.
We worked the festival in Stecoah Valley and got a pretty good response and about $200 in donations. I received donated fleece material which I made into pet beds to sell for extra money for the rescue. We also sold a good many of our cat calendars. We even picked up a sponsor!
We got our Halloween light show up and running and it was a successs. We handed out candy on Halloween night and had a lot of fun. We are currently working on the Christmas light show.
The local newspaper did an article on us and we were on the front page. We tried to spread the word about the SNIP program in Andrews for low cost spay and neuters. Oh and we also did another Pennies-4-Paws calendar of hope and got another $679.99 in donations. Sadly this money doesn’t go as far as I would like. It costs us at least $60 a day to operate.
We also raised the funds to fix the wiring at the cat house. We ran a larger wire to carry the electrical load where we run heaters in the winter. This was $450 and we dug the 120 ft ditch to save money. Its all done and working puuurrrfectly. Thanks to all who donated!
We also had lots of visitors this summer. I almost forgot the 3 cats we took in for Casey Costigan. She came to visit us and later we found out she had cancer and had to give up her babies. We took them in and they are doing fine.
All in all its been a very busy 2 months for us and we don’t see it letting up anytime soon!
Thank you everyone who is sponsoring and please spread the word. We appreciate you more than you know. We hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving and I’ll update you at the end of the month.
Thank you!
Marianne & Troy
And ALL the critters at the Cat Ranch!
Cat Track Mews November/December 2011
New arrivals: Benny, Fierce Fred, Tucker and Lucy
This is such a very busy time of year for all of us at The Cat Ranch. With the holidays to deal with on top of all the everyday upkeep and happenings, parades to enter, and regular chores to do it has really kept up hopping!
Our newest intakes since our last letter was a little gray girl named Pheobe who was just abaout 10 wks old when she came to us from a lady who found her dumped at her driveway. Another kitten about 3mos old (Mcgee) was found at the EMS base. We had 3 that were left in a carrier at our gate (Jethro, Abby, and Darcy) who we just got vetted today 12/15/11 along with Felicity.
The other FIV+ kitty, Hoss, developed a bad UTI and did not respond to treatment so after 3 days of IV therapy and not eating for 4/5 days, substantial weight loss and possible kidney failure looming we had to make the painful choice to end his misery. It broke our hearts. Barney had liver disease and due to his liver failure we finally had to have him put down in November.
We have been gearing up for Christmas with our 4th annual Light Show and its given us so much trouble this year. We were late getting the lights up. We don’t get any help and it took the 2 of us forever due to rain and Troy working and then we had lighting problems and malfunctions of some of the LOR boxes. We managed to get 3 songs programmed so far and are still waiting on another LOR box to get the arches working. It’s still a very pretty show and we added lots of new features. We not only have the 18 ft mega tree but added 2, 10 ft ones and 10 mini trees. We also added some new inflatable decorations. Santa in his helicopter for the kids to enjoy as well as Garfield by our sign. You KNOW we had to have him!
We were also in the Christmas parade and were hoping to place in one of the 3 prizes for 300,200 or 100$ but again we didn’t even place. We had a really cute sled (the trailer) and the truck was made to look like a huge cat. First place went to Hosanna Church as is tradition and second went to another float (I forget!) and 3rd was the chamber of commerce which we didn’t think was fair. First for best decorated vehicle went to a pony and cart. It was really cute but how it got qualified as a vehicle is beyond me. Still we had a great time and froze to death while we tossed out candy and 30 fliers I made up telling of our rescue, sponsoring, the SNIP program in Andrews and our light show. I hope word gets around!
We have been selling our CRR calendars I made up for our rescue and have a new online yardsale tab for items donated and for sale for our rescue. I even made cat beds from donated material to sell as well as cat nip bags. This is going well and really helping out with a few bills. We also did a photo contest for October for Halloween and had a donation requirement per photo of $10. We had about 5 entries for that and gave away a calendar as a prize. Then we did one for Christmas and had 11 entries and are giving away a $50 walmart gift card as the prize. The winner will be announced today. Due to low entries we most likely will scrap this idea from now on. It was a lot of extra work for very little benefit to our rescue but we really appreciate all those who did enter!
Having enough litter is always a concern for us with over 90 cats now in our care. To combat this problem we are starting a CRR Kitty Litter Club and those who want to be in this can let us know. It’s a commitment to buy at least one box of litter a month for our rescue off our Amazon wish list. We will make a page to post the names of those who wish to do this on our website. Please consider helping with this expense!
Please don’t forget us during the holiday season. The care for the kitties still goes on and we have many vetting expenses. Just this last week we have spent over $600! Any amount you can help us with is greatly appreciated. Please spread the word.
We hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas this year and a Happy New Year!
Merry Christmas from all of us to all of yours!
We look forward to an even better New Year!
Marianne & Troy Grindstaff (Founders/operators)
And ALL the kitties and doggies (of course!)
Cat Track Mews- August 2011
Stanley aka Radio
This last month we seemed to be bombarded with stray kitties.
It started with Danno who some kids found in the street. He was so tiny and the police didnt know what to do with him so they called us. We took in this little tiny black and white kitty that was so scared he bit the cop trying to get him out of the car. He is a sweet little bouncy boy that is growing up fast
. The next was 3 small grey (Russian Blue mix) kittens a friend of ours found wandering the streets. Some cruel person had cut off their little tails and they were very sore. We named them Gracie, Mozzy and Bonita Faye. They are all healed now and growing like weeds. Then came Stella who was found under a porch. She had no tail either but was born that way. She has manx/Russian Blue in her.
Yet another emergency call came in, this time with 4 grown cats in an abandoned trailer with no electricity. The owners had gotten divorced and moved away leaving the father in law feeding them. They were covered in fleas and very frightened. All but one (Twitch) has gotten friendly. The others, Barney, Patches and Ling Ling are doing great and are much more social now. Twitch is attached to Barney and does much better when he is close by. Luckily these cats were already vetted and just need a updated Rabies shot.
Another call from the vet office to rescue a pretty grey tabby from being euthanized by his owners. They said he attacked them and they didn't want him near their granddaughter. He has not once attacked any of us. He loves to just sit in your lap and purr.We named him Nick because we got him in the NIck of time!
Then came a call for a kitty that was dumped at the dumpsters. We went to see if we could find it and at the last minute we hear a distant meow. After rushing back to get our humane trap before dark we finally got it in place and by the afternoon of the following day we had him! He was very shy at first but took right to the other babies and is now one of the "gang".We named him Skeeter. I've worked with him and now he if very affectionate to me but still is a little scared of Troy. Hes growing very fast and is a very pretty boy.
Last but not least we got a call from the Stanley Furniture plant. They had a cat under the security guards truck and had been there for 2 days. They thought he had been hit by a car as he staggered. I rushed to see what could be done to find a pretty flamepoint Siamese that was very emaciated and full of fleas. He could barely walk. A trip to the vet revealed he had Cerebellar Hypoplasia which is where the mother cat comes in contact with distemper while pregnant. It affects the brain on kittens causing them to have loss of balance. He will need to be a house kitty from now on. He was also very anemic. He is filling out now and very happy. He loves to run around the house and play with the other kitties. We named him Stanley but my kids called him Radio and it seems to be sticking!
With all these additions we have tried to gather up more sponsors to help cover costs. We did manage to acquire vetting costs for each of the little babies before we took them in so they are covered. It won't be very long we will be getting Skeeter neutered. The rest should be done by Christmas. We got all the other 4 boys neutered and they are doing great. (Alvin, Simon, Theodore and Spencer) Buttercup is doing very good and her tummy healded up without surgery.
Thank you to all of you new sponsors that joined our little family. We could not continue without you.
We have worked tirelessly on the sanctuary grounds and have had several visitors so far. Everyone has been very kind and seemed to really enjoy their visit. Some even stopped after driving by and seeing our sign. Please if you do decide to visit us, make sure you contact us so we can be sure to be here and have a better time visiting. We had a few come by without calling and we weren't home.
We are working very hard to get in much needed funds for our rescue. We entered our rescue in a contest for$1000 this month. We also got to choose another rescue for an additional $250. After posting night and day for weeks and encountering many voting issues we finally got in the lead and stayed there winning by over 650 vote lead! We just got the money today which we hope will help pay for any arising vet bills and heat for the winter . Earlier we won a $50 gift certificate to amazon and it got us 5 boxes of kitty litter.
We did a fundraiser with Pennies4Paws and raised over $1500 for our rescue! We hope to get another day in September. We will post when we get on the calendar.
We have started taking fresh step paw points to get even more free litter.
We partnered with SureFlap cat door and get a percentage for every one sold. This is on our website.
Amanda has an Etsy store called DelVIntage and has kindly offered 30% of all her sales to our rescue for September. Please be sure to check out her store on our website.
UPDATE: We NEVER received any funds from her so beware if she contacts your rescue!
Fall is also upon us and we are finding ourselves rushing to get our Halloween display ready. We hope to have it up and running a week before Halloween. Plan to come by and see our computerized light display! We will also have it for Christmas and run through New Years.
Well we will see what September brings! We are looking for grants for a spay and neuter in our area and also for grants for a disaster trailer. If you know of any grants please let us know.
Thank you all for your support. It really means so much to us. Thanks to your support we have saved 12 cats bringing our total to 81 residents. Any help with their care is appreciated.
We look forward to your continued support!
It started with Danno who some kids found in the street. He was so tiny and the police didnt know what to do with him so they called us. We took in this little tiny black and white kitty that was so scared he bit the cop trying to get him out of the car. He is a sweet little bouncy boy that is growing up fast
. The next was 3 small grey (Russian Blue mix) kittens a friend of ours found wandering the streets. Some cruel person had cut off their little tails and they were very sore. We named them Gracie, Mozzy and Bonita Faye. They are all healed now and growing like weeds. Then came Stella who was found under a porch. She had no tail either but was born that way. She has manx/Russian Blue in her.
Yet another emergency call came in, this time with 4 grown cats in an abandoned trailer with no electricity. The owners had gotten divorced and moved away leaving the father in law feeding them. They were covered in fleas and very frightened. All but one (Twitch) has gotten friendly. The others, Barney, Patches and Ling Ling are doing great and are much more social now. Twitch is attached to Barney and does much better when he is close by. Luckily these cats were already vetted and just need a updated Rabies shot.
Another call from the vet office to rescue a pretty grey tabby from being euthanized by his owners. They said he attacked them and they didn't want him near their granddaughter. He has not once attacked any of us. He loves to just sit in your lap and purr.We named him Nick because we got him in the NIck of time!
Then came a call for a kitty that was dumped at the dumpsters. We went to see if we could find it and at the last minute we hear a distant meow. After rushing back to get our humane trap before dark we finally got it in place and by the afternoon of the following day we had him! He was very shy at first but took right to the other babies and is now one of the "gang".We named him Skeeter. I've worked with him and now he if very affectionate to me but still is a little scared of Troy. Hes growing very fast and is a very pretty boy.
Last but not least we got a call from the Stanley Furniture plant. They had a cat under the security guards truck and had been there for 2 days. They thought he had been hit by a car as he staggered. I rushed to see what could be done to find a pretty flamepoint Siamese that was very emaciated and full of fleas. He could barely walk. A trip to the vet revealed he had Cerebellar Hypoplasia which is where the mother cat comes in contact with distemper while pregnant. It affects the brain on kittens causing them to have loss of balance. He will need to be a house kitty from now on. He was also very anemic. He is filling out now and very happy. He loves to run around the house and play with the other kitties. We named him Stanley but my kids called him Radio and it seems to be sticking!
With all these additions we have tried to gather up more sponsors to help cover costs. We did manage to acquire vetting costs for each of the little babies before we took them in so they are covered. It won't be very long we will be getting Skeeter neutered. The rest should be done by Christmas. We got all the other 4 boys neutered and they are doing great. (Alvin, Simon, Theodore and Spencer) Buttercup is doing very good and her tummy healded up without surgery.
Thank you to all of you new sponsors that joined our little family. We could not continue without you.
We have worked tirelessly on the sanctuary grounds and have had several visitors so far. Everyone has been very kind and seemed to really enjoy their visit. Some even stopped after driving by and seeing our sign. Please if you do decide to visit us, make sure you contact us so we can be sure to be here and have a better time visiting. We had a few come by without calling and we weren't home.
We are working very hard to get in much needed funds for our rescue. We entered our rescue in a contest for$1000 this month. We also got to choose another rescue for an additional $250. After posting night and day for weeks and encountering many voting issues we finally got in the lead and stayed there winning by over 650 vote lead! We just got the money today which we hope will help pay for any arising vet bills and heat for the winter . Earlier we won a $50 gift certificate to amazon and it got us 5 boxes of kitty litter.
We did a fundraiser with Pennies4Paws and raised over $1500 for our rescue! We hope to get another day in September. We will post when we get on the calendar.
We have started taking fresh step paw points to get even more free litter.
We partnered with SureFlap cat door and get a percentage for every one sold. This is on our website.
Amanda has an Etsy store called DelVIntage and has kindly offered 30% of all her sales to our rescue for September. Please be sure to check out her store on our website.
UPDATE: We NEVER received any funds from her so beware if she contacts your rescue!
Fall is also upon us and we are finding ourselves rushing to get our Halloween display ready. We hope to have it up and running a week before Halloween. Plan to come by and see our computerized light display! We will also have it for Christmas and run through New Years.
Well we will see what September brings! We are looking for grants for a spay and neuter in our area and also for grants for a disaster trailer. If you know of any grants please let us know.
Thank you all for your support. It really means so much to us. Thanks to your support we have saved 12 cats bringing our total to 81 residents. Any help with their care is appreciated.
We look forward to your continued support!
Cat Ranch Receives Animal Resuscitation Kits for Fire Dept.
To better ensure the safety of pets during a fire Cat Ranch Rescue applied for a free resuscitation kit for the local fire department from Invisible Fence. After receiving this wonderful kit our local EMS director applied for 3 more , one for each ambulance. This is the first animal rescue equipment that our county has received and we hope it will save many pets lives. We are glad to be a part of bringing pet safety awareness to our area. We thank Invisible Fence for giving us this wonderful opportunity to help our community. If you would like to apply for one of these free kits please go to
the Invisible Fence Website by clicking HERE.
Below is the front page article in our paper.
May 28,2011
the Invisible Fence Website by clicking HERE.
Below is the front page article in our paper.
May 28,2011
Archives
Cat Track Mews- July 2011
Heritage Festival
We got off to a great start this July1 and 2nd with the Robbinsivlle Heritage Festival. We took in $177 in donations which was really good considering the small turnout we had. The economy has really taken its toll on everyone. With NC raising our gas tax it isn't encouraging travel. Still we met some really nice people. One lady came running to our table , her sole intention to, as she put it, give us some money for those kitties! She had met us last year and was looking for us. She also was the winner of our hand made clock that Troy made for our raffle. She donated it back to the rescue so we can raffle it again.
In other news, Danno, our new baby kitten has been sick for the last week. He has had diarrhea and now vomiting for the last few days. He's looking fairly weak and we plan to rush him to the vet in the morning. Until then he's still in quarantine where he's been since we found him. Buttercup and Maddy got spayed but Buttercup may have a hernia that needs to be fixed. We are waiting 2 weeks as the vet said and then rechecking her.
The "boys" are growing and seem to be getting along just fine. All the other kitties are doing great too.
The garden has kept us particularly busy this year and we have been busy putting up vegetables. We hope to start getting in some tomatoes soon. We have squash, okra, pumpkins, watermelon, cantaloupe. eggplant, parsely, sage, rosemary, rhubarb, bell peppers,jalepenos, blueberries, blackberries, grapes and corn. Gosh that's a lot!
We have had several visitors recently. There was one couple that came who really had a good time. Another from Ga came who were thinking of doing what we do. They wrote us a wonderful thank you. The man who lost his cat camping up the road from us in the Nantahala Forest found his kitty after 3 weeks. She was just 5 lbs and he now has her microchipped. He came and toured our place on his way to go find his kitty and really liked our set up. We are so happy he found his kitty.
With summer in mid swing we are starting to think about Halloween and have some really good ideas on some new items to add to our computerized light show. If all goes well it will be even better this year. We are also working simultaneously on Christmas, making our mega tree taller is the first order of business. We will do a little different set up and hope to add more lights.
October we will be doing the Royston Fall Festival in Ga if all goes as planned and then later that week we will be doing the Harvest Fest at Stecoah Valley Center. We hope to do more face painting to help with donations.
We have our second trash pick up to schedule this month for our adopt a highway program. We should have a definite date on the website tomorrow. This usually only takes about an hour or so to do and its a nice way to give back to the community. Its a 2 mile walk one way so we get our exercise!
We are really concentrating on getting more sponsors so we have more to depend on each month to operate. We have added a link that explains the expenses we have to run our rescue. Please check it out on our website.
Thank you for your continued support!
Cat Track Mews- June 2011
New food storage shed.
This month has been a particularly busy one for The Cat Ranch. We have been gearing up for the coming festival on July 1 and 2nd. We hope to make many new contacts and pick up some much needed donations too. Our funding has run out and we have been struggling to keep our heads above water. If it weren’t for our wonderful sponsors and one time donators we would not be able to continue.
One major addition we made to our rescue was adding a dry food storage building. We had been storing our donated food in our carport but sometimes when it rains we get water on our floor and we didn’t want the food to ruin plus we could no longer get our truck inside.
We had a perfect spot to put the building and 2 walls were already up. We had some of the materials already, a large 6x6 post and some odd lumber and my mom donated the tin for the roof. It was used and in pieces but we made it work. It has worked out wonderfully and we only were out of pocket $350 which we are trying to recoup so we can pay the credit card off.
The little mommy kitty (Buttercup) and her kittens are doing great. We have weaned her and shes scheduled for her spay along with another kitty whose owner never claimed, on June 29th. We are still raising funds for this expense which will run about $220 with FIV testing. We also took in another stray , Sylvester who is about 2 yrs old and he was just recently vetted.
Last night we got a call from the sheriffs department . Seems some kids found a small kitten up town and didn’t know what to do with it so they turned it in to them, then they in turn called us. We have named him Danno after Hawaii five-0 character. We thought it was appropriate lol. He is just about 4 to 5 wks old and so cute. He was terrified when he first came her e and since he was not in a kennel when they brought him to us he was hiding under the seat. Seems he bit both the officer AND my husband. For a tiny guy he sure was fierce. But he was just scared and in a few hours he was sleeping in my lap. In fact hes purring away as I write this!
We didn’t have time to pick up trash this month in our adopt a highway and have pushed the date back to sometime in July after the festival. We will post when we set a date.
We have had a few visitor too this month. Our vet came out and gave over 20 rabies and checked many of the kitties for us. He was very impressed with our place and is sending his new vet to work with us in a month. 2 other people came by to visit us and we have another couple scheduled for next week.
All said and done we have run non stop . In between all this we have our regular chores and plus upkeep of the sanctuary grounds. I have planted new plants and worked continuously on the flower beds. I have also hand painted many things such as the inside of the kitty condo. I really enjoy usuing the acrylic paints to add a little interest to our place. I have posted lots of pics of my projects some of which were bulding and painting new benches for the porch with cat cubbies underneath, and some photo walls inside the isolation room.
We hope we can count on everyones continued support . We appreciate all your help. Those of you who have not sponsored in the last month or 2 and have not replied to my emails unfortunately will have to be taken off the website. If it is just an oversight on your part please message me and we can get you reinstated immediately. We want to try to keep our website up to date as much as possible and we hope you understand. Thank you everyone for believing in us and helping us to save more lives.
One major addition we made to our rescue was adding a dry food storage building. We had been storing our donated food in our carport but sometimes when it rains we get water on our floor and we didn’t want the food to ruin plus we could no longer get our truck inside.
We had a perfect spot to put the building and 2 walls were already up. We had some of the materials already, a large 6x6 post and some odd lumber and my mom donated the tin for the roof. It was used and in pieces but we made it work. It has worked out wonderfully and we only were out of pocket $350 which we are trying to recoup so we can pay the credit card off.
The little mommy kitty (Buttercup) and her kittens are doing great. We have weaned her and shes scheduled for her spay along with another kitty whose owner never claimed, on June 29th. We are still raising funds for this expense which will run about $220 with FIV testing. We also took in another stray , Sylvester who is about 2 yrs old and he was just recently vetted.
Last night we got a call from the sheriffs department . Seems some kids found a small kitten up town and didn’t know what to do with it so they turned it in to them, then they in turn called us. We have named him Danno after Hawaii five-0 character. We thought it was appropriate lol. He is just about 4 to 5 wks old and so cute. He was terrified when he first came her e and since he was not in a kennel when they brought him to us he was hiding under the seat. Seems he bit both the officer AND my husband. For a tiny guy he sure was fierce. But he was just scared and in a few hours he was sleeping in my lap. In fact hes purring away as I write this!
We didn’t have time to pick up trash this month in our adopt a highway and have pushed the date back to sometime in July after the festival. We will post when we set a date.
We have had a few visitor too this month. Our vet came out and gave over 20 rabies and checked many of the kitties for us. He was very impressed with our place and is sending his new vet to work with us in a month. 2 other people came by to visit us and we have another couple scheduled for next week.
All said and done we have run non stop . In between all this we have our regular chores and plus upkeep of the sanctuary grounds. I have planted new plants and worked continuously on the flower beds. I have also hand painted many things such as the inside of the kitty condo. I really enjoy usuing the acrylic paints to add a little interest to our place. I have posted lots of pics of my projects some of which were bulding and painting new benches for the porch with cat cubbies underneath, and some photo walls inside the isolation room.
We hope we can count on everyones continued support . We appreciate all your help. Those of you who have not sponsored in the last month or 2 and have not replied to my emails unfortunately will have to be taken off the website. If it is just an oversight on your part please message me and we can get you reinstated immediately. We want to try to keep our website up to date as much as possible and we hope you understand. Thank you everyone for believing in us and helping us to save more lives.
Cat Track Mews-May 2011
Buttercup with her babies
With the warm weather came the usual summer chores which we rush to get a jump on. Troy is in charge of mowing and weedeating while I work tirelessly on the flower beds, walkways and ponds. All of this is done in addition to our kitty chores.
We took in a pretty momma kitty and 3 babies after receiving a call from a business in Andrews. They said a stray mama cat gave birth and no one they contacted would take them in. We rushed to get her before dark and found her under a holly bush in some wood chips covered in ants. She looked relieved to see us as we put her in the kennel. We took her home and got her cleaned up in the quaranteen room in a soft warm bed for her babies. She seemed to really appreciate everything we did for her. She got plenty of clean water and food. We named her Buttercup and her 3 boys are Theodore, Simon and Alvin.
Then a week ago my husband had a friend show up who had found a tiny baby at the dumpsters. They could not get it to eat as it was still nursing so I took it to Buttercup. I told her we had done her a favor and needed her to do us one now. I rubbed one of her babies all over the new little guy to get their scent on him and then let her see him. She didn’t seem bothered at all and took him as her own. He is thriving and growing like a weed. Even though he was several weeks younger and the other kittens were a little rough he toughed it out and now romps and rolls with his new brothers. We are very blessed to have these babies and are glad they will grow up together and never be separated. As soon as they are weaned it will be Buttercups turn to be spayed.
We got through our wellness check day with our vet Dr. Ackerman. He came out after doing a rabies clinic in Cherokee and gave 21 of our kitties their 3 yr rabies. We showed him around our facility and he seemed really impressed. He told us we had a regular kitty paradise here. He really liked our kitty condo and we sat for awhile under the gazebo when he got done checking everyone. He said hewants his new vet that is coming to work with them to come over and work with us too as part of her training program. We are glad to help. He was so impressed he only charged us for the rabies shots and no come out fee. This was a tremendous help! We only had to pay $10 each for the 21 shots. Gabby got away from us and we had to take her to his office a few days later for her shot.
We have also been asked to mentor some of the high school kids for their senior projects next year. We hope we can reach more younger people and make a change in our community.
We are working on getting everything together for the july 4th festival that will be held July 1-2. We will be having a booth and will have our literature to hand out as well as tshirts to sell. I plan on having my photos on display too which we donate 10% of those sales back to the rescue.
This coming month we are going to be needing funding for a small project we are doing. We plan to build a small shed with concrete patio bricks for the floor in hopes to store our cat food in and get it out of the carport. I estimate it to cost hopefully under $400. The main expense will be the patio bricks depending on how many and how much we get them for. Lowes gives us a 10% discount through Troys VA card so that helps some too. I’ll be posting a chip in for this once I get all the figures in. As usual we will do the labor ourselves.
We had some kitty vetting done this month . Danny was discovered to have some gingivitis and after a 2 week course of antibiotics it was not responding so we did a biopsy and got the correct meds for his infection. He is currently still on them and hopefully it will go away. We also got Dumpin spayed as well as Charlie Girl. They were the last ones to be done besides Buttercup. The kittens will not be ready for awhile as we don’t neuter until they are around 6 months old.
We were asked to beta test a new program for records keeping and so far we have really been impressed with it. This will allow us better record keeping for our cats.
We have networked several cats and found homes for them in the last few months and will continue to do so every chance we get. Every time someone contacts us with a kitty needing a home we try to find it a new home asap by networking and putting them in touch with people who contact us looking for a kitty to adopt. This has been working out very well.
This month has kept us hopping and we hope June will see all our kitties healthy and happy. A big thanks goes out to all who sponsor us and keep us going. We hope to provide forever homes for as many kitties as we can for as long as we can. Thank you for all your support!
We took in a pretty momma kitty and 3 babies after receiving a call from a business in Andrews. They said a stray mama cat gave birth and no one they contacted would take them in. We rushed to get her before dark and found her under a holly bush in some wood chips covered in ants. She looked relieved to see us as we put her in the kennel. We took her home and got her cleaned up in the quaranteen room in a soft warm bed for her babies. She seemed to really appreciate everything we did for her. She got plenty of clean water and food. We named her Buttercup and her 3 boys are Theodore, Simon and Alvin.
Then a week ago my husband had a friend show up who had found a tiny baby at the dumpsters. They could not get it to eat as it was still nursing so I took it to Buttercup. I told her we had done her a favor and needed her to do us one now. I rubbed one of her babies all over the new little guy to get their scent on him and then let her see him. She didn’t seem bothered at all and took him as her own. He is thriving and growing like a weed. Even though he was several weeks younger and the other kittens were a little rough he toughed it out and now romps and rolls with his new brothers. We are very blessed to have these babies and are glad they will grow up together and never be separated. As soon as they are weaned it will be Buttercups turn to be spayed.
We got through our wellness check day with our vet Dr. Ackerman. He came out after doing a rabies clinic in Cherokee and gave 21 of our kitties their 3 yr rabies. We showed him around our facility and he seemed really impressed. He told us we had a regular kitty paradise here. He really liked our kitty condo and we sat for awhile under the gazebo when he got done checking everyone. He said hewants his new vet that is coming to work with them to come over and work with us too as part of her training program. We are glad to help. He was so impressed he only charged us for the rabies shots and no come out fee. This was a tremendous help! We only had to pay $10 each for the 21 shots. Gabby got away from us and we had to take her to his office a few days later for her shot.
We have also been asked to mentor some of the high school kids for their senior projects next year. We hope we can reach more younger people and make a change in our community.
We are working on getting everything together for the july 4th festival that will be held July 1-2. We will be having a booth and will have our literature to hand out as well as tshirts to sell. I plan on having my photos on display too which we donate 10% of those sales back to the rescue.
This coming month we are going to be needing funding for a small project we are doing. We plan to build a small shed with concrete patio bricks for the floor in hopes to store our cat food in and get it out of the carport. I estimate it to cost hopefully under $400. The main expense will be the patio bricks depending on how many and how much we get them for. Lowes gives us a 10% discount through Troys VA card so that helps some too. I’ll be posting a chip in for this once I get all the figures in. As usual we will do the labor ourselves.
We had some kitty vetting done this month . Danny was discovered to have some gingivitis and after a 2 week course of antibiotics it was not responding so we did a biopsy and got the correct meds for his infection. He is currently still on them and hopefully it will go away. We also got Dumpin spayed as well as Charlie Girl. They were the last ones to be done besides Buttercup. The kittens will not be ready for awhile as we don’t neuter until they are around 6 months old.
We were asked to beta test a new program for records keeping and so far we have really been impressed with it. This will allow us better record keeping for our cats.
We have networked several cats and found homes for them in the last few months and will continue to do so every chance we get. Every time someone contacts us with a kitty needing a home we try to find it a new home asap by networking and putting them in touch with people who contact us looking for a kitty to adopt. This has been working out very well.
This month has kept us hopping and we hope June will see all our kitties healthy and happy. A big thanks goes out to all who sponsor us and keep us going. We hope to provide forever homes for as many kitties as we can for as long as we can. Thank you for all your support!
Cat Track Mews- April 2011
Charlie Girl
With the warmer weather we have been able to get out and get our spring jobs underway. Some of the things we have done was to do spring cleaning on the kitty Condo house and revamp our bedding. We have found lots of old pillows at the thrift store which I am now putting into vinyl cases. I then use old pillow cases and top off with a towel or small baby blanket. That way we can just wash the towels and not the pillow each time which saves on laundry. I have covered the mattresses in plastic too keeping them much cleaner. We scrubbed the walls and floors and everything looks really nice. We fixed the cat trees putting better perches on them with no carpet so I don't have to vacuum them anymore. I put up fans, one in the upstairs, one down that are on timers so I don't have to keep cutting them off at night. The kitties love them. We have been cleaning up the grounds too and have fixed one of the ponds and are hoping to fix the big pond. we pay for this ourselves so right now we just don't have enough. We had to pay a man to cut one of the large trees down so it wouldn't pose a threat to our house and also put new gravel in our driveway. We used the extra gravel in our sanctuary on the walkways.
I also built benches for the porch with cat beds underneath to better keep them warm in the winter. Boomer has his own big one and at least 6 cats can sleep in the others. You can see pics on our FB page. I'll try to add them to our website soon.
We have been busy mowing and weed eating. With all the rain it seems we never get done. I have also done a lot of whimsical painting just for fun. Some I did in the cat condo and some around the ground. I had to repaint the front of the kitty condo and Troy hopes to spray the rest soon. We graveled under the 2 equipment sheds to keep the equipment off the dirt and out of the mud. I had to do the spring pond cleaning which is always a job. I hope one day I will get a pond vacuum to save my back from all the much that accumulates in the bottom.
We also took in 3 new kittes. Buttercup and her 3 little ones were found under a bush at Andrews Internam Medicine. No one would take them in and she had just given birth so I couldn't say no. We named the three babie which we believe are all makes, Alvin, Theodore and Simon. They are all doing well and have their eyes open.
Charlie finally got spayed after dodging a fever. She was tested and found to be a carrier of Panaleukopenia (distemper) but thankfully she will be ok but her immune system is not too good. She may always be on and off antiboitics. Dumpin finally got cured from her diarrhea which we believe now may have been caused by Charlie. SHe has since been vaccinated and we are keeping all up to date on vaccines because of Charlie as the vet advised.
Dumpin Do is scheduled for her spay May 11th. Tasha had an allergic reaction just the other day and we rushed her to the vet. He believes she may have bitten a toad. Shes doing fine now.
We are continuing to work on the sanctuary and improve it all we can to keep the cats as healthy as possible. We are spraying for fleas around the ground and in the kitty condo as well as in our home to keep them at bay this summer. We do not have the funding for flea drops for them all and really don't believe they are good for them.
We got another donation of dry cat food from ASAP which we are so thankful for. We have enough dry food for at least 5 to 6 months. We have to drive 3 hrs to Atlanta to pick it up at the Purina plant and pull a trailer to get the 2 pallets on.
We still need wet food and litter which are our biggest expenses.
May 21 Dr. Ackerman is coming out for a wellness check and giving rabies shots and checking all the kitties out. This will be a large expense but we really need it. This and all the other vetting is what your sponsoring helps us with. We so appreciate all your help . If you know of anyone else who can sponsor please spread the word. We hope one day to have at least one sponsor for each kitty. Thank you for all your support!
I also built benches for the porch with cat beds underneath to better keep them warm in the winter. Boomer has his own big one and at least 6 cats can sleep in the others. You can see pics on our FB page. I'll try to add them to our website soon.
We have been busy mowing and weed eating. With all the rain it seems we never get done. I have also done a lot of whimsical painting just for fun. Some I did in the cat condo and some around the ground. I had to repaint the front of the kitty condo and Troy hopes to spray the rest soon. We graveled under the 2 equipment sheds to keep the equipment off the dirt and out of the mud. I had to do the spring pond cleaning which is always a job. I hope one day I will get a pond vacuum to save my back from all the much that accumulates in the bottom.
We also took in 3 new kittes. Buttercup and her 3 little ones were found under a bush at Andrews Internam Medicine. No one would take them in and she had just given birth so I couldn't say no. We named the three babie which we believe are all makes, Alvin, Theodore and Simon. They are all doing well and have their eyes open.
Charlie finally got spayed after dodging a fever. She was tested and found to be a carrier of Panaleukopenia (distemper) but thankfully she will be ok but her immune system is not too good. She may always be on and off antiboitics. Dumpin finally got cured from her diarrhea which we believe now may have been caused by Charlie. SHe has since been vaccinated and we are keeping all up to date on vaccines because of Charlie as the vet advised.
Dumpin Do is scheduled for her spay May 11th. Tasha had an allergic reaction just the other day and we rushed her to the vet. He believes she may have bitten a toad. Shes doing fine now.
We are continuing to work on the sanctuary and improve it all we can to keep the cats as healthy as possible. We are spraying for fleas around the ground and in the kitty condo as well as in our home to keep them at bay this summer. We do not have the funding for flea drops for them all and really don't believe they are good for them.
We got another donation of dry cat food from ASAP which we are so thankful for. We have enough dry food for at least 5 to 6 months. We have to drive 3 hrs to Atlanta to pick it up at the Purina plant and pull a trailer to get the 2 pallets on.
We still need wet food and litter which are our biggest expenses.
May 21 Dr. Ackerman is coming out for a wellness check and giving rabies shots and checking all the kitties out. This will be a large expense but we really need it. This and all the other vetting is what your sponsoring helps us with. We so appreciate all your help . If you know of anyone else who can sponsor please spread the word. We hope one day to have at least one sponsor for each kitty. Thank you for all your support!
The Cat Track Mews- February 2011
Miss Holly Dumpin Doo
Dumpin Doo was diagnosed with Coccidia after having diarrhea for a few weeks. Shes on Albon and hopefully will recover SOON before we go crazy from her stinky stool. ha
The "herd" is doing pretty good and I've only seen about 2 runny eyes and hopefully will clear up in a few days. If not we'll have to get some eye drops for them. When you have this many the Rhinovirus kind of comes and goes being as it never goes away. Hopefully we can keep any outbreaks at bay and THANK GOD so far this winter have not had the dreaded kitty cold that we had the winter before which had us with 4 quarantine rooms and medicating everyone for weeks. Needless to say we are anxiously awaiting spring.
We've had a few warm days here and the cats you can tell are very appreciative. They have been running all over, climbing the trees and lounging in the sun.
As for our non profit we are hoping to do something to provide either a low cost spay and neuter program or a free one. I am STILL looking for someone qualified that can run this part of our rescue but so far no one has stepped up. I will continue to look while we are finding funding. Our vet said he would be glad to help but he won't be able to run a full time s/n. Instead we thought of having a spay day once or maybe even twice a month if we can get the funding. He suggested we just do cats since we are a cat rescue and he said the cats seldom get done so I am thinking this will be what we will do.
The pet flier idea that I really wanted to do might not be a go. I'm still checking into it. Its so hard to find first of all someone to do the legwork (finding sponsors for the paper, making calls and getting the pics and info for the newsletter etc) I cannot do all this and do all the work at The Cat Ranch. Volunteers seems to be what is holding us back. I wish I could find someone who I could tell them what we need to do and have them do it and me supervise the project.
Next we are looking into funding for a trailer we can set up like the NC CAMET trailer. (Companion Animale Mobile Equipment Trailer) So that in the event of an emergency we could evacuate our own animals which at the moment is 66 plus 2 dogs. The trailer for the county only has 50 cages and that wouldn't even cover OUR cats. Plus we figure if needed we would use our trailer to supplement the CAMET trailer if needed in other counties or as long as we are not evacuating our own animals. I will have to get estimates on the trailer and equipment and then set up a chip in.
One more thing we are hoping to get is equipment for animal rescue to put on the fire trucks. Again we will need funding for this.
We hope to put together some classes in the near future. Some topics will be animal care to include the importance of S/N. We are looking into other topics so feel free to send some suggestions.
Last but not least, we were thinking of having our own animal awareness day. There is much planning involved to do this and again I'll have to find volunteers. We will need to find a place we can do this, vendors, someone to set up events such as pet parade, look alike etc. I cannot do this on my own so this may be a no go if I can't find anyone to help. We have lots of great ideas though! Hopefully we can actually do a few of them.
Thank you everyone for sponsoring and helping keep our kitty sanctuary going. You just don't know how much it means to be able to buy litter and canned food as well as vetting and not worrying about if we have enough to cover the cost. $20 buys 2 boxes of litter which we go through at least 4 a week. Or a box of canned food, or half of an office visit to the vets! I cannot say thank you enough. Please spread the word if you can and find us a few more sponsors. My dream is to have one for each cat.
Thank you again for all your support!
The "herd" is doing pretty good and I've only seen about 2 runny eyes and hopefully will clear up in a few days. If not we'll have to get some eye drops for them. When you have this many the Rhinovirus kind of comes and goes being as it never goes away. Hopefully we can keep any outbreaks at bay and THANK GOD so far this winter have not had the dreaded kitty cold that we had the winter before which had us with 4 quarantine rooms and medicating everyone for weeks. Needless to say we are anxiously awaiting spring.
We've had a few warm days here and the cats you can tell are very appreciative. They have been running all over, climbing the trees and lounging in the sun.
As for our non profit we are hoping to do something to provide either a low cost spay and neuter program or a free one. I am STILL looking for someone qualified that can run this part of our rescue but so far no one has stepped up. I will continue to look while we are finding funding. Our vet said he would be glad to help but he won't be able to run a full time s/n. Instead we thought of having a spay day once or maybe even twice a month if we can get the funding. He suggested we just do cats since we are a cat rescue and he said the cats seldom get done so I am thinking this will be what we will do.
The pet flier idea that I really wanted to do might not be a go. I'm still checking into it. Its so hard to find first of all someone to do the legwork (finding sponsors for the paper, making calls and getting the pics and info for the newsletter etc) I cannot do all this and do all the work at The Cat Ranch. Volunteers seems to be what is holding us back. I wish I could find someone who I could tell them what we need to do and have them do it and me supervise the project.
Next we are looking into funding for a trailer we can set up like the NC CAMET trailer. (Companion Animale Mobile Equipment Trailer) So that in the event of an emergency we could evacuate our own animals which at the moment is 66 plus 2 dogs. The trailer for the county only has 50 cages and that wouldn't even cover OUR cats. Plus we figure if needed we would use our trailer to supplement the CAMET trailer if needed in other counties or as long as we are not evacuating our own animals. I will have to get estimates on the trailer and equipment and then set up a chip in.
One more thing we are hoping to get is equipment for animal rescue to put on the fire trucks. Again we will need funding for this.
We hope to put together some classes in the near future. Some topics will be animal care to include the importance of S/N. We are looking into other topics so feel free to send some suggestions.
Last but not least, we were thinking of having our own animal awareness day. There is much planning involved to do this and again I'll have to find volunteers. We will need to find a place we can do this, vendors, someone to set up events such as pet parade, look alike etc. I cannot do this on my own so this may be a no go if I can't find anyone to help. We have lots of great ideas though! Hopefully we can actually do a few of them.
Thank you everyone for sponsoring and helping keep our kitty sanctuary going. You just don't know how much it means to be able to buy litter and canned food as well as vetting and not worrying about if we have enough to cover the cost. $20 buys 2 boxes of litter which we go through at least 4 a week. Or a box of canned food, or half of an office visit to the vets! I cannot say thank you enough. Please spread the word if you can and find us a few more sponsors. My dream is to have one for each cat.
Thank you again for all your support!
Cat Track Mews for January 2011
We are excited about what the new year holds for our rescue. We have lots of new projects planned if all goes well.
Last year we lost our local free spay and neuter clinic. We hope to step up and help our community by either starting our own or at the least provide a free spay and neuter day if we can get all the details worked out and the needed volunteers.
We also will be looking for volunteers for a pet finder pamphlet we hope to start featuring available pets for adoption in and around our county.
We have other various projects rattling around in my head. I hope to be able to share them once I get the plans worked out in my head.
We are planning a class on pet care soon. We hope to get good attendance and will post it in the newspaper when we get the date worked out.
We are happy that we have had the funding to help with The Cat Ranch Cats. We have donated much needed items such as cat supplies such as litter and wet food, cleaning supplies and vetting of a few needy felines. We also provided some propane for heating in the fabulous felines kitty house.
We also joined the adopt a highway program and held out first clean up which went very well. We hope to get some volunteers by the next pick up which will allow us to get done even faster. We must do 4 pick ups during the year per the contract. We provide gloves, vests and garbage bags as well as pickers to pick the trash up with. We are proud to give back to our community in this way.
We would like to thank everyone for your support since we have started our rescue. We couldn't continue without you.
Last year we lost our local free spay and neuter clinic. We hope to step up and help our community by either starting our own or at the least provide a free spay and neuter day if we can get all the details worked out and the needed volunteers.
We also will be looking for volunteers for a pet finder pamphlet we hope to start featuring available pets for adoption in and around our county.
We have other various projects rattling around in my head. I hope to be able to share them once I get the plans worked out in my head.
We are planning a class on pet care soon. We hope to get good attendance and will post it in the newspaper when we get the date worked out.
We are happy that we have had the funding to help with The Cat Ranch Cats. We have donated much needed items such as cat supplies such as litter and wet food, cleaning supplies and vetting of a few needy felines. We also provided some propane for heating in the fabulous felines kitty house.
We also joined the adopt a highway program and held out first clean up which went very well. We hope to get some volunteers by the next pick up which will allow us to get done even faster. We must do 4 pick ups during the year per the contract. We provide gloves, vests and garbage bags as well as pickers to pick the trash up with. We are proud to give back to our community in this way.
We would like to thank everyone for your support since we have started our rescue. We couldn't continue without you.
Cat Track Mews-December 2010
Captain Jack
We have been so busy getting our annual Computerized Christmas Light Show ready I haven't had time to think! We had loads of technical difficulties but hopefully tomorrow when we get our 2 new LOR boxes (one is a replacement from a defective one) the show will be up to full power.
I posted on our website and I'll tell you in this newsletter in case you haven't been to our site since we updated it, that the light show is all our expense. Cat Ranch funds have never gone to our equipment or lights. Troy said I needed to clarify this just in case anyone thought that is where there donations were going. The light show is something me and Troy started doing years ago just for something nice to be in our town for the young kids to come and have something to do. But because of the expense is so great to do this we have asked for anyone who wanted to donate lights to the show to help with this expense. Used or new we don't care. Twinkle lights in red, green and clear 100 ct boxes, green wire. Its's too late for this year but if you have any you don't use we can use them for next year.
All the kitties are doing fine. Pearl, Oliver and Charlie finally got over the virus. Just lately Oliver started sneezing again but it seems to have gone away (fingers crossed). Captain Jack and Katie started getting sicker so they went to quaranteen and are getting baytril. Hopefully they will be able to come out next week.
Our newest baby (Holly Dumpin Doo) is doing great.. She is growing fast and is turning into a little chunk. She is also spoiled to death. I have lots of pics and video of her on our FB page in case you havent' seen them yet.
We received a wonderful donation from the Lakin foundation for $3000 which was a God send
I hope all of you have the best of holiday's!
I posted on our website and I'll tell you in this newsletter in case you haven't been to our site since we updated it, that the light show is all our expense. Cat Ranch funds have never gone to our equipment or lights. Troy said I needed to clarify this just in case anyone thought that is where there donations were going. The light show is something me and Troy started doing years ago just for something nice to be in our town for the young kids to come and have something to do. But because of the expense is so great to do this we have asked for anyone who wanted to donate lights to the show to help with this expense. Used or new we don't care. Twinkle lights in red, green and clear 100 ct boxes, green wire. Its's too late for this year but if you have any you don't use we can use them for next year.
All the kitties are doing fine. Pearl, Oliver and Charlie finally got over the virus. Just lately Oliver started sneezing again but it seems to have gone away (fingers crossed). Captain Jack and Katie started getting sicker so they went to quaranteen and are getting baytril. Hopefully they will be able to come out next week.
Our newest baby (Holly Dumpin Doo) is doing great.. She is growing fast and is turning into a little chunk. She is also spoiled to death. I have lots of pics and video of her on our FB page in case you havent' seen them yet.
We received a wonderful donation from the Lakin foundation for $3000 which was a God send
I hope all of you have the best of holiday's!
Cat Track Mews- November 2010
Charlie Girl
Several of our kitties have been passing around a virus . Oliver is finally looking better. Charley is the one I was worried about the most as she has been sick off and on since she was born. So much so that I have had to put off all her vaccinations until her nose will stop running. Oliver got neutered and his rabies last month so he's in good shape. We will be needing some funding to get Pearl and Charley done in the future. I will probably get pearl done first and wait on Charley till we can at least get one set of vaccinations and pray she stays well and doesn't come back down with anything. THe others seems to be getting well on their own for now. I only had to put a few on Baytril. I hope the worst is over and none get sick this winter but you never know!
Sadly we lost one of our sponsors due to economics. We desperately need to either get more donations in or more sponsors if we can so please ask everyone you know.
We have been very busy this month trying to get our light display ready for Thanksgiving. I hope we can get it done soon and maybe relax a little this Christmas.
.
Sadly we lost one of our sponsors due to economics. We desperately need to either get more donations in or more sponsors if we can so please ask everyone you know.
We have been very busy this month trying to get our light display ready for Thanksgiving. I hope we can get it done soon and maybe relax a little this Christmas.
.
Cat Track Mews- October 2010
Thank you everyone who is helping us. We are getting very little donations in except for the sponsor money and things are a little tight for us right now. If you know anyone else who might be interested in sponsoring please put in a good word for us.
I am going to be vetting Oliver soon as he's the only male not neutered. Charley is still plagued with being sick all the time so I can't give her her shots till she gets better and I'm going to wait a long time to get her spayed. We also have the neighbors little kitty who refuses to stay at their house and climbs the fence to be with us. Not sure if they are going to let us keep her but shes been here over 2 weeks now and they haven't come by to get her. They have a sick child in the hospital so I'm thinking maybe they either don't want her or are too busy to take care of her right now. Either way she would just get run over so shes safe with us. In the meantime she's been sick too as well as a bunch of my others who are just passing around this cold back and forth lately. I have been giving clavamox all I can to keep any pneumonia at bay.
We have recieved another donation from ASAP for cat food and are going to pick it up on the 20th in Atlanta. We will be needing gas money for this trip and I have a chip in on my page. Please spread the word. We hope to borrow a trailer from a friend to haul the 2200 lbs of food. This will take us through the winter we hope on dry food although we still need wet food and litter as well as propane gas for our tanks. We were hoping the local gas company would run a special this month like they did last year for $40 a tank but so far haven't heard anything. It usually runs us a little over $76 a tank. We have 2 100 lb tanks we swap out every month.
On another sad note we have been sad to have had several deaths this month. First our beloved Beanie who was found dead on our kitchen floor cause unknown. She was a runt of the litter and always a little sick. Then Autumn who developed FIP and lost her battle. Then Fat Cat who aspirated after throwing up and died so fast that we could do nothing to save her. We are devastated by these loses.
In other news...October is the month of the harvest fest in Stecoah Valley, just over the mountain, where we will have a booth this Saturday. We hope to sell some tshirts and some of my post cards and pictures as well as my hand made jewlery. You can view these at www.curiouscatphotos.weebly.com .
Other than that we are preparing for winter and expecting some really cold days. I am winterizing the cat house and putting out the winter bedding. I hope to build a few more cat cubbies in the upstairs to give a few additonal places to sleep on cold nights. I'm hoping to make these out of scrap lumber which I have a little of and Im checking around for more. I've been going to the thrift store in hopes I can find anything I can repurpose into cat bedding. If you have any old towels you can donate we could use them as the local thrift stores are getting higher and higher on prices.
Thanks to Roberta and the other lady (can't remember her name!) who donated and allowed us to get our new linoleum in the isolation room! I can now mop it and keep it disinfected.
Thank you everyone for your support. It means so much and without you we couldn't keep doing what we do. THANK YOU!
I am going to be vetting Oliver soon as he's the only male not neutered. Charley is still plagued with being sick all the time so I can't give her her shots till she gets better and I'm going to wait a long time to get her spayed. We also have the neighbors little kitty who refuses to stay at their house and climbs the fence to be with us. Not sure if they are going to let us keep her but shes been here over 2 weeks now and they haven't come by to get her. They have a sick child in the hospital so I'm thinking maybe they either don't want her or are too busy to take care of her right now. Either way she would just get run over so shes safe with us. In the meantime she's been sick too as well as a bunch of my others who are just passing around this cold back and forth lately. I have been giving clavamox all I can to keep any pneumonia at bay.
We have recieved another donation from ASAP for cat food and are going to pick it up on the 20th in Atlanta. We will be needing gas money for this trip and I have a chip in on my page. Please spread the word. We hope to borrow a trailer from a friend to haul the 2200 lbs of food. This will take us through the winter we hope on dry food although we still need wet food and litter as well as propane gas for our tanks. We were hoping the local gas company would run a special this month like they did last year for $40 a tank but so far haven't heard anything. It usually runs us a little over $76 a tank. We have 2 100 lb tanks we swap out every month.
On another sad note we have been sad to have had several deaths this month. First our beloved Beanie who was found dead on our kitchen floor cause unknown. She was a runt of the litter and always a little sick. Then Autumn who developed FIP and lost her battle. Then Fat Cat who aspirated after throwing up and died so fast that we could do nothing to save her. We are devastated by these loses.
In other news...October is the month of the harvest fest in Stecoah Valley, just over the mountain, where we will have a booth this Saturday. We hope to sell some tshirts and some of my post cards and pictures as well as my hand made jewlery. You can view these at www.curiouscatphotos.weebly.com .
Other than that we are preparing for winter and expecting some really cold days. I am winterizing the cat house and putting out the winter bedding. I hope to build a few more cat cubbies in the upstairs to give a few additonal places to sleep on cold nights. I'm hoping to make these out of scrap lumber which I have a little of and Im checking around for more. I've been going to the thrift store in hopes I can find anything I can repurpose into cat bedding. If you have any old towels you can donate we could use them as the local thrift stores are getting higher and higher on prices.
Thanks to Roberta and the other lady (can't remember her name!) who donated and allowed us to get our new linoleum in the isolation room! I can now mop it and keep it disinfected.
Thank you everyone for your support. It means so much and without you we couldn't keep doing what we do. THANK YOU!
Cat Track Mews- August 2010
Beanie RIP sweet girl. You will be missed.
This last month was especially sad one for us with the unexpected passing of our beloved Beanie. We loved her dearly and she will be missed.
We also took in a new resident, little Oliver whom we held a contest for naming him. Sheri Loon won with his name, Oliver! Hes been a very energetic boy and we are hoping his little runny eyes will clear up soon. We brought little Charley to the house since they were the same age and they are great buddies. Another new kitty, Dozer, plays with them as he is a very obnoxious young man. Even Earl, our new boy with the broken leg, has been seen playing with them. Earl was taken in with a broken leg and we thought we were going to need surgery on him but on his scheduled surgery day was told by the vet that he believed it had healed so much it would be setting him back to do surgery now as they didn't want to re break the leg. He is walking on it now with only a slight limp and we are very happy about this!.
We have been trying desperately to get more sponsors for our kitties with no luck. I you know of anyone who would be interested in helping please tell them about us.
Our donations are very few and small. Everyone is struggling right now and every dollar is appreciated.
We have several needs right now: Flooring for our isolation room, collars for the cats, flea spray,.a new cat tree, new cat boxes built for our upstairs on our cat house before winter, gas will be needed for heating, wet cat food and litter are a constant need. Even the floors on our home need re doing. After 7 years of constant mopping teh laminate has just about had it. We hope to tile it one day if we could just get the money for material we might try to do the labor ourselves as usual but for now we just cannot do it. Even though our house is small it still adds up.
We are getting ready for our booth at the Stecoah Valley Center in Oct. I am really excited about it and we hope to get the word out there. We are also planning a Halloween computerized Light Show in our yard so be sure to come by and see them.
That is about all our news for now. Thank you for supporting us!
We also took in a new resident, little Oliver whom we held a contest for naming him. Sheri Loon won with his name, Oliver! Hes been a very energetic boy and we are hoping his little runny eyes will clear up soon. We brought little Charley to the house since they were the same age and they are great buddies. Another new kitty, Dozer, plays with them as he is a very obnoxious young man. Even Earl, our new boy with the broken leg, has been seen playing with them. Earl was taken in with a broken leg and we thought we were going to need surgery on him but on his scheduled surgery day was told by the vet that he believed it had healed so much it would be setting him back to do surgery now as they didn't want to re break the leg. He is walking on it now with only a slight limp and we are very happy about this!.
We have been trying desperately to get more sponsors for our kitties with no luck. I you know of anyone who would be interested in helping please tell them about us.
Our donations are very few and small. Everyone is struggling right now and every dollar is appreciated.
We have several needs right now: Flooring for our isolation room, collars for the cats, flea spray,.a new cat tree, new cat boxes built for our upstairs on our cat house before winter, gas will be needed for heating, wet cat food and litter are a constant need. Even the floors on our home need re doing. After 7 years of constant mopping teh laminate has just about had it. We hope to tile it one day if we could just get the money for material we might try to do the labor ourselves as usual but for now we just cannot do it. Even though our house is small it still adds up.
We are getting ready for our booth at the Stecoah Valley Center in Oct. I am really excited about it and we hope to get the word out there. We are also planning a Halloween computerized Light Show in our yard so be sure to come by and see them.
That is about all our news for now. Thank you for supporting us!
Cat Track Mews-May 2010
We have been working on our new website. With so much going on, it’s been hard to find the time to not only LEARN how to do it but to get the information written up and on the page. It’s finally starting to look more like a website.
We have been working on our sponsor program and just recently got a new sponsor for Little Red. We appreciate so much everyone who has become part of our sponsor family and who has given generously through one time donations. Without you we could not afford to do this.
This year has been a particularly hard one to start a rescue and donations have been rather rocky as people are struggling to pay their own bills. Many owners are forced to give up their beloved pets. We wish we could take them all in but until our bank account is where we are not just struggling to pay vet bills and feed bills we will be very limited in what we can take in at this time. We currently care for 63 cats and 2 dogs so as you can imagine, it takes its toll on our finances. Any amount donated is greatly appreciated!
We hope to be able to expand what we do and do more within the community. We are looking into some kind of vehicle to make our own emergency disaster rescue truck. We need to have at least enough cages for our own facility. There are a few other ideas we are working on and will post in future newsletters when we get them off the ground.
One of the things we are glad to help with is crossposting on our facebook page to help find homes or rescues for animals in need. Just last week a lady called desperately searching for a home for her daughters 2 boxers who were left with her x husband in the divorce. He abandoned them and she was left with the boarding bill and no hope of finding a home for them was facing having to euthanize them. Luckily after some frantic postings from me, a boxer rescue in NJ contacted me and took in the two dogs. The owner volunteered to drive them up so we were very happy about this. I also do courtesy postings for animals in our area who are looking for homes since we cannot take them all in ourselves and hoping to keep them from going to the shelter.
We have a few needs and one of them is a new piece of linoleum, 12x12, for our isolation room. The one we used was very old and worn out but all we had at the time. We will be making a chip in for this once we get a price on it. If you can donate towards this it would be greatly appreciated! We estimate it will run around $200 but will get a price from Lowes to be sure.
This month we also built a new gazebo roof over our deck as last winter our old Walmart metal one caved in from the snow. We repurposed the pretty metal corners and with the use of an old trampoline cover made a pretty roof over the other deck to provide some much needed shade over it. It turned out pretty good we think. You can see pictures in our photo albums.
We have been getting everything ready for our booth for the 4th of July celebration here in Robbinsville on July 2 and 3rd. So far we have t-shirts and some CRR photo books as well as handmade jewelry, face painting , home baked goods (we need donations!), some perennial plants (Lillies, hostas etc) I will pot from my yard, and anything else we can think of! All our information and cards will be available. We plan on having at least one raffle item too. Proceeds go to the rescue so come on out and have a great time!
I am also starting my own business selling our photos. The name of it is The Curious Cat: Photos & More. I will have matted photos that we have taken of the cats , flowers as well as scenic ones . We will also have postcards, calendars and note cards for sale. If you see any particular photos you would like to order from our photo albums on facebook you can message me with the one you want along with the size. I can get you a price on request. We will donate 10% of the sales on the photos to the rescue. I will post some pre-matted ones for sale on facebook when I get them made up.
We have been working on our sponsor program and just recently got a new sponsor for Little Red. We appreciate so much everyone who has become part of our sponsor family and who has given generously through one time donations. Without you we could not afford to do this.
This year has been a particularly hard one to start a rescue and donations have been rather rocky as people are struggling to pay their own bills. Many owners are forced to give up their beloved pets. We wish we could take them all in but until our bank account is where we are not just struggling to pay vet bills and feed bills we will be very limited in what we can take in at this time. We currently care for 63 cats and 2 dogs so as you can imagine, it takes its toll on our finances. Any amount donated is greatly appreciated!
We hope to be able to expand what we do and do more within the community. We are looking into some kind of vehicle to make our own emergency disaster rescue truck. We need to have at least enough cages for our own facility. There are a few other ideas we are working on and will post in future newsletters when we get them off the ground.
One of the things we are glad to help with is crossposting on our facebook page to help find homes or rescues for animals in need. Just last week a lady called desperately searching for a home for her daughters 2 boxers who were left with her x husband in the divorce. He abandoned them and she was left with the boarding bill and no hope of finding a home for them was facing having to euthanize them. Luckily after some frantic postings from me, a boxer rescue in NJ contacted me and took in the two dogs. The owner volunteered to drive them up so we were very happy about this. I also do courtesy postings for animals in our area who are looking for homes since we cannot take them all in ourselves and hoping to keep them from going to the shelter.
We have a few needs and one of them is a new piece of linoleum, 12x12, for our isolation room. The one we used was very old and worn out but all we had at the time. We will be making a chip in for this once we get a price on it. If you can donate towards this it would be greatly appreciated! We estimate it will run around $200 but will get a price from Lowes to be sure.
This month we also built a new gazebo roof over our deck as last winter our old Walmart metal one caved in from the snow. We repurposed the pretty metal corners and with the use of an old trampoline cover made a pretty roof over the other deck to provide some much needed shade over it. It turned out pretty good we think. You can see pictures in our photo albums.
We have been getting everything ready for our booth for the 4th of July celebration here in Robbinsville on July 2 and 3rd. So far we have t-shirts and some CRR photo books as well as handmade jewelry, face painting , home baked goods (we need donations!), some perennial plants (Lillies, hostas etc) I will pot from my yard, and anything else we can think of! All our information and cards will be available. We plan on having at least one raffle item too. Proceeds go to the rescue so come on out and have a great time!
I am also starting my own business selling our photos. The name of it is The Curious Cat: Photos & More. I will have matted photos that we have taken of the cats , flowers as well as scenic ones . We will also have postcards, calendars and note cards for sale. If you see any particular photos you would like to order from our photo albums on facebook you can message me with the one you want along with the size. I can get you a price on request. We will donate 10% of the sales on the photos to the rescue. I will post some pre-matted ones for sale on facebook when I get them made up.
Cat Track Mews-April 2010
Dale and Simba
April has been a very busy month for us. We were glad to see some warmer weather so we could finally turn off the heat in the cat house, saving us some much needed dollars. The sun finally came out and all the kitties really are enjoying the outdoors.
We added 3 more to our family. Dale and Simba came from an owner turn in who, due to financial difficulties had to give them up but agreed to sponsor them which is a wonderful help to us.
The other was a little cat I have been working on getting spayed who is owned by someone else. She is the mamma of Stevie and Sabrina and by the time I got her was pregnant again. We agreed to keep her until she had the kittens and when weaned she would be spayed and returned unless they decided she could stay with us. She had just two kittens and one was dead when I went to check on her. The other survivied and is growing like a weed. We are not sure yet if it’s a boy or girl but ITS name is Charlie, that way it works either way! Charlie is the first kitten born at CRR and is already getting very spoiled.
Dale and Simba were both older cats around 7 yrs , declawed and indoor only. They were highly stressed when they first arrived. Dale especially, being a very independent cat and not taking to strangers easily. He bit my hand and it swelled so quickly and severely I had to go to the doctor to get some antibiotics. It has healed but is still sore! Both cats were not up to date on shots so we had to go through the whole health department thing for rabies. They checked on him 3 times the next 10 days and then gave him the OK. We were not worried since we knew he was an indoor cat.
Right as soon as that scare was over with, both Simba and Dale got a UTI and a URI at the same time, most likely from stress and food change, and have been in isolation along with Sunshine who got a horrible URI too .The owner had said they were prone to this if their food was changed.
Sunshine had to go to the vet to get a shot for pneumonia. She was very touch and go for a few days, refusing to eat or drink. We had to force feed her for a few days until the fever broke. She is now eating on her own finally and up and playing which is a good sign. We were very worried about her. She still has some congestion but seems to be doing much better.
Simba had a tough time with the Urinary infection and then the horrible virus on top of that left him drooling and unable to breathe out his nose. We upped his dose of amoxicillin and he responded fairly quickly. He only has a runny nose now.
Dale has a small cough which is getting less as the days go by. He is also much more adjusted and now is the biggest lap cat we have. He follows Troy around and insists on sleeping in the bed. He is still adjusting to all the new cats and we hope soon he might even venture outside for the first time.
We have noticed a few other cats coughing some but so far all is ok. The vet said as long as they are eating and their nose has clear drainage they would be ok. Still we keep a close eye on them for any changes so we can isolate them immediately.
We have been working on our new website. With so much going on, it’s been hard to find the time to not only LEARN how to do it but to get the information written up and on the page. It’s finally starting to look more like a website.
We have been working on our sponsor program and just recently got a new sponsor for Little Red. We appreciate so much everyone who has become part of our sponsor family and who has given generously through one time donations. Without you we could not afford to do this.
This year has been a particularly hard one to start a rescue and donations have been rather rocky as people are struggling to pay their own bills. Many owners are forced to give up their beloved pets. We wish we could take them all in but until our bank account is where we are not just struggling to pay vet bills and feed bills we will be very limited in what we can take in at this time. We currently care for 63 cats and 2 dogs so as you can imagine, it takes its toll on our finances. Any amount donated is greatly appreciated!
We hope to be able to expand what we do and do more within the community. We are looking into some kind of vehicle to make our own emergency disaster rescue truck. We need to have at least enough cages for our own facility. There are a few other ideas we are working on and will post in future newsletters when we get them off the ground.
One of the things we are glad to help with is crossposting on our facebook page to help find homes or rescues for animals in need. Just last week a lady called desperately searching for a home for her daughters 2 boxers who were left with her x husband in the divorce. He abandoned them and she was left with the boarding bill and no hope of finding a home for them was facing having to euthanize them. Luckily after some frantic postings from me, a boxer rescue in NJ contacted me and took in the two dogs. The owner volunteered to drive them up so we were very happy about this. I also do courtesy postings for animals in our area who are looking for homes since we cannot take them all in ourselves and hoping to keep them from going to the shelter.
We have a few needs and one of them is a new piece of linoleum, 12x12, for our isolation room. The one we used was very old and worn out but all we had at the time. We will be making a chip in for this once we get a price on it. If you can donate towards this it would be greatly appreciated! We estimate it will run around $200 but will get a price from Lowes to be sure.
This month we also built a new gazebo roof over our deck as last winter our old Walmart metal one caved in from the snow. We repurposed the pretty metal corners and with the use of an old trampoline cover made a pretty roof over the other deck to provide some much needed shade over it. It turned out pretty good we think. You can see pictures in our photo albums.
We have been getting everything ready for our booth for the 4th of July celebration here in Robbinsville on July 2 and 3rd. So far we have t-shirts and some CRR photo books as well as handmade jewelry, face painting , home baked goods (we need donations!), some perennial plants (Lillies, hostas etc) I will pot from my yard, and anything else we can think of! All our information and cards will be available. We plan on having at least one raffle item too. Proceeds go to the rescue so come on out and have a great time!
I am also starting my own business selling our photos. I will have matted photos that we have taken of the cats , flowers as well as scenic ones . We will also have postcards and note cards for sale. If you see any particular photos you would like to order from our photo albums on facebook you can message me with the one you want along with the size. I can get you a price on request. We will donate a percentage of the sales on the photos to the rescue. I will post some pre-matted ones for sale on facebook when I get them made up.
This month is just the beginning of a very busy summer! With all the yard work, ongoing yard sale, plus the gardening and everyday chores with the kitties, it keeps us on our toes. We hope to plan some more fundraisers in the future but for right now our plates are full! We hope everyone has a really great summer and we will keep you up to date in out next newsletter!
We added 3 more to our family. Dale and Simba came from an owner turn in who, due to financial difficulties had to give them up but agreed to sponsor them which is a wonderful help to us.
The other was a little cat I have been working on getting spayed who is owned by someone else. She is the mamma of Stevie and Sabrina and by the time I got her was pregnant again. We agreed to keep her until she had the kittens and when weaned she would be spayed and returned unless they decided she could stay with us. She had just two kittens and one was dead when I went to check on her. The other survivied and is growing like a weed. We are not sure yet if it’s a boy or girl but ITS name is Charlie, that way it works either way! Charlie is the first kitten born at CRR and is already getting very spoiled.
Dale and Simba were both older cats around 7 yrs , declawed and indoor only. They were highly stressed when they first arrived. Dale especially, being a very independent cat and not taking to strangers easily. He bit my hand and it swelled so quickly and severely I had to go to the doctor to get some antibiotics. It has healed but is still sore! Both cats were not up to date on shots so we had to go through the whole health department thing for rabies. They checked on him 3 times the next 10 days and then gave him the OK. We were not worried since we knew he was an indoor cat.
Right as soon as that scare was over with, both Simba and Dale got a UTI and a URI at the same time, most likely from stress and food change, and have been in isolation along with Sunshine who got a horrible URI too .The owner had said they were prone to this if their food was changed.
Sunshine had to go to the vet to get a shot for pneumonia. She was very touch and go for a few days, refusing to eat or drink. We had to force feed her for a few days until the fever broke. She is now eating on her own finally and up and playing which is a good sign. We were very worried about her. She still has some congestion but seems to be doing much better.
Simba had a tough time with the Urinary infection and then the horrible virus on top of that left him drooling and unable to breathe out his nose. We upped his dose of amoxicillin and he responded fairly quickly. He only has a runny nose now.
Dale has a small cough which is getting less as the days go by. He is also much more adjusted and now is the biggest lap cat we have. He follows Troy around and insists on sleeping in the bed. He is still adjusting to all the new cats and we hope soon he might even venture outside for the first time.
We have noticed a few other cats coughing some but so far all is ok. The vet said as long as they are eating and their nose has clear drainage they would be ok. Still we keep a close eye on them for any changes so we can isolate them immediately.
We have been working on our new website. With so much going on, it’s been hard to find the time to not only LEARN how to do it but to get the information written up and on the page. It’s finally starting to look more like a website.
We have been working on our sponsor program and just recently got a new sponsor for Little Red. We appreciate so much everyone who has become part of our sponsor family and who has given generously through one time donations. Without you we could not afford to do this.
This year has been a particularly hard one to start a rescue and donations have been rather rocky as people are struggling to pay their own bills. Many owners are forced to give up their beloved pets. We wish we could take them all in but until our bank account is where we are not just struggling to pay vet bills and feed bills we will be very limited in what we can take in at this time. We currently care for 63 cats and 2 dogs so as you can imagine, it takes its toll on our finances. Any amount donated is greatly appreciated!
We hope to be able to expand what we do and do more within the community. We are looking into some kind of vehicle to make our own emergency disaster rescue truck. We need to have at least enough cages for our own facility. There are a few other ideas we are working on and will post in future newsletters when we get them off the ground.
One of the things we are glad to help with is crossposting on our facebook page to help find homes or rescues for animals in need. Just last week a lady called desperately searching for a home for her daughters 2 boxers who were left with her x husband in the divorce. He abandoned them and she was left with the boarding bill and no hope of finding a home for them was facing having to euthanize them. Luckily after some frantic postings from me, a boxer rescue in NJ contacted me and took in the two dogs. The owner volunteered to drive them up so we were very happy about this. I also do courtesy postings for animals in our area who are looking for homes since we cannot take them all in ourselves and hoping to keep them from going to the shelter.
We have a few needs and one of them is a new piece of linoleum, 12x12, for our isolation room. The one we used was very old and worn out but all we had at the time. We will be making a chip in for this once we get a price on it. If you can donate towards this it would be greatly appreciated! We estimate it will run around $200 but will get a price from Lowes to be sure.
This month we also built a new gazebo roof over our deck as last winter our old Walmart metal one caved in from the snow. We repurposed the pretty metal corners and with the use of an old trampoline cover made a pretty roof over the other deck to provide some much needed shade over it. It turned out pretty good we think. You can see pictures in our photo albums.
We have been getting everything ready for our booth for the 4th of July celebration here in Robbinsville on July 2 and 3rd. So far we have t-shirts and some CRR photo books as well as handmade jewelry, face painting , home baked goods (we need donations!), some perennial plants (Lillies, hostas etc) I will pot from my yard, and anything else we can think of! All our information and cards will be available. We plan on having at least one raffle item too. Proceeds go to the rescue so come on out and have a great time!
I am also starting my own business selling our photos. I will have matted photos that we have taken of the cats , flowers as well as scenic ones . We will also have postcards and note cards for sale. If you see any particular photos you would like to order from our photo albums on facebook you can message me with the one you want along with the size. I can get you a price on request. We will donate a percentage of the sales on the photos to the rescue. I will post some pre-matted ones for sale on facebook when I get them made up.
This month is just the beginning of a very busy summer! With all the yard work, ongoing yard sale, plus the gardening and everyday chores with the kitties, it keeps us on our toes. We hope to plan some more fundraisers in the future but for right now our plates are full! We hope everyone has a really great summer and we will keep you up to date in out next newsletter!
CRR Quarterly Mews - From our beginning-October 2009- April 10th, 2010
Since this is the first official quarterly update we have done I will start from when we first got our 501c3 number on Sept 20, 2009 to now. Our number got approved a little later than we had hoped but there was a homecoming parade coming up so as a last minute decision we hooked up the trailer and made a really quick float with several balloons and some poster board. Being as our team is the Black Knights and they were playing the Wildcats, we decided to capitalize on that and had our posters read: Go Knights! Neuter the Wildcats! WE had other signs that said Cat Ranch Rescue- Please Spay and Neuter. Everyone thought it was funny so we definitely left an impression. The other joke is how our only mascot is my little rescue dog, Poopers ( a little chihuahua). Our Next thoughts turned to Halloween which was approaching fast. Wondering what we could do to get our name out there some more we decided to use our Light O Rama software that we use on our Christmas light display to do a Halloween Light show. We ran out and purchased some Halloween lights and lighted pumpkins and even a skeleton and made a really cute light show with several Halloween songs. You can hear the music in your car with our FM transmitter when you turn your radio to 88.7. On Halloween night we gave out candy and served hot chocolate while giving out literature on our rescue and our needs list. Even with the rain all night we took in 4 bags of cat food and about $10. Hey it wasn't bad since we didn't even advertise. Christmas was next and we had to hurry to get all the lights up in time to program more songs for Christmas so the very next day after Halloween we took down those lights and started putting up Christmas lights. We strung over 15,000 twinkle lights and over 60 100 ft extension chords. We bought Lowes out of every red, green and clear light strand we could get. We programmed day and night to get 6 songs ready for Thanksgiving day. We placed an add in the paper and they did a big write up for us. We even put out fliers and told we would have a donation box up. We ran the show from Thanksgiving Day to New Years Day and took in around $200. I joined Facebook after New Years and we looked into getting a website of some sort. We settled on RescueGroups.org and applied for a free website. We got approved for this site and began working on getting the cats online. Facebook has been our greatest asset giving us great connections and wonderful people to help us with anything we needed. In February a decision was made to make the small leap from being a rescue that adopt instead to a full time, LIFETIME Sanctuary for cats. We were basically running this way anyway as most people just wanted kittens which we agreed we would not adopt out unless spayed or neutered first making any cat we had for adoption at least 5 months old. We realized the cats in our care didn't need rescuing but rather the ones in the kill shelter so we changed our mission and started our sponsorship program. We have gotten many supporters from the FB community. Our mission was to have at least one sponsor per kitty. We to date have 6 sponsors since starting the program in March. We recently found a wonderful asset in a friend on the internet I had spoken with a year ago about his rescue. He apparently knows all about the internet and how to set up a website to generate the most "hits" and acting upon his advice have just this week gotten our own domain name. We are working very hard to learn HTML and get it up and running. When we do we will be moving to the new location which will be...www.catranchrescue.org. This will allow us to have complete control over website and generate much more traffic to it in the future reaching a much wider audience and hopefully get our rescue off to a much better start. We had to pay for all this out of pocket but we believe you get what you pay for in the end and was a good investment. We have struggled so hard to make this work and financially it has been a toll. We lost our food assistance from Graham Co. Friends of Animals last year which is one reason we were prompted to go out on our own. Then this year we lost our use of the Free Spay and Neuter clinic and that really put a strain on our rescue. Still we have had many understanding and great people that donated to help us get up to date with our rabies shots and to finish the spays we had left to do. In January we had a terrible epidemic of cat flu and if it had not been for the many wonderful people donating to assist us we do not know what we would have done. We had to purchase extra humidifiers, and make quarantine rooms everywhere. All in all only about 4 were spared the terrible illness. We have put in applications for free food with Walmart and applied for any free things we could get from cat food companies such as 9lives and Delmonte all to no avail. We still hope to hear from Walmart but as to date we have not been notified. I also put up an online yard sale on Facebook to help with expenses as well as starting to make pet jewelry too. We hope to eventually have Tshirts and other items to help bring in more for our rescue. Since last October we have taken in 11 more cats bringing our total to 60 in our sanctuary and 2 dogs. Caring for these animals falls on me and Troy as we have no volunteers to help. Troy and I are attending a class in Asheville on April 21 on CAMET training which is helping NC emergency management with animals in time of disaster. This we feel would be a great thing to be able to help with should this occur. We plan to have a booth for the upcoming 4th of July festival and even have a float in the parade. I am also working on an idea of creating a monthly adoption bulletin of available pets from either individuals looking to place their pets in hopes of keeping more out of the kill shelter and maybe getting the shelters to post pets in it also. We would have to get sponsors and I need to look into getting this organized and printed. I hope I might find some people out there who can help with any ideas on this. In the meantime real life goes on too. We have a life outside our rescue which includes babysitting the grand baby, keeping all the grounds mowed, flowerbeds to weed, ponds to clean, and our garden to plant. Then there is the food to put in the freezer or can, not to mention the regular housework that abounds. Still we do this because of the love we have for the furbabies. This is more a dog community and we knew there was a great need for someone to take in the stray cats in our county. Most don't make it out of the shelter for lack of homes and it is our mission to get them before they even go to the shelter. I feel we are doing the animal a service by not letting it be in contact with all the diseases and stress of shelter life. We also promote spay and neuter at every chance we get trying to bring to light and educate on the massive numbers of shelter pets that are getting killed in shelters all over the US. Prior to our applying for our number we cleared and fenced in another acre behind out house to give the cats more room to roam and then started work on our 2 story cat house finishing the inside with more insulation, linoleum on the floors and building 2 needed closets for storage. We heat this building in the winter with gas heat which can be very costly in winters as cold as this winter, even with insulation. Still the fuel tanks lasted much longer with the new walls. We also finished a much needed isolation room for sick or new cats. We used nice big windows to let light in and used every bit of donated material we could find. While we were at it we enclosed the tool shed and insulated it ,so in an emergency such as this winter, it could be used for an extra room. We also built another shelter for equipment and enclosed a little storage room behind the isolation room for even more storage. With a little more work and money, this too could be used for an isolation room. We had several feral cats that we were working with and finally, after vetting and some therapy, we turned them out having done all we could. We didn't have any funding to make a feral house with indoor/outdoor pen and it just wasn't fair to not let them run and play this summer so we let them out. They seem to be doing fine and love to run and play in the yard. Here at CRR we feel it is important for cats to be able to run and play, climb a tree, hide in grass and just be a cat. It has been my mission to provide a little Eden for my kitties to have all to themselves. Even though it is always a work in progress I hope I have accomplished this to a certain extent. Thank you EVERYONE who has helped make this possible. Without you we could not provide this wonderful sanctuary to so many cats. The kitties say Thanks!