As I write this, we have blown past our 2,000th cat! It seemed like time was dragging as we neutered and neutered and then bam! we were at 2,070 in the next week! When we started Feral Fixers we had no idea just how many cats were out there, we are still surprised at the volume of calls we receive. Just think, if half the cats were females and each female had one litter of four... Yea! 

 

 

Read more from our President this month here. 

Help us celebrate our 2,000th cat!

An anonymous donor has pledged $1,000 to Feral Fixers to use in a matching fund drive to raise a total of $2,000 or more!

The donor's wish is to reward the volunteers of Feral Fixers for accomplishing such an incredible milestone of neutering 2,000 cats in just under three years! We could not have achieved this without the hard work of our wonderful volunteers! These funds will get us well on the way to reaching our goal of reducing cat overpopulation and euthanasia in DuPage County!

To donate, just click on the ChipIn! button, above (or on our website). There, you will be able to donate to our ChipIn via PayPal (you can use your PayPal account or a Credit Card to donate).

Once again, ASAP (Animal Services & Assistance Program) has donated food to Feral Fixers.

Cindy Gaffney and her wonderful organization (out of Kishwaukee, IL) have been able to procure several pallets of dog and cat food and then donated them to various animal welfare organizations.

Feral Fixers has been the recipient of donated food from ASAP on many occasions - this time around, Feral Fixers was able to receive two full pallets of cat food from ASAP.  Feral Fixers president Tammy and super-volunteer Mary drove out to Harvard, IL to pick up this donation.

Most of this cat food will be distributed to various feral colony caretakers and will be, we're sure, gratefully received.

Thanks ASAP!

Feral Fixers was founded in September of 2007. In that abbreviated first year, Feral Fixers had 86 cats spayed / neutered. In 2008, Feral Fixers had 525 cats spayed / neutered and in 2009, Feral Fixers had 868 cats spayed / neutered. So far in 2010, Feral Fixers has had 609 cats spayed / neutered.

This brings us to a total of 2,088 cats. Clicking on the calculator to the right will send you to the Feral Fixers 'Statistics' page where you can see our progress, month-by-month, since we've started work.

One of the cats that Feral Fixers had TNR'd this past month was a big old Tom named Ray.  We are informed by super-volunteers Julie and Connie that he was the 'boss cat' in his area but he finally ran into something he couldn't handle. His left rear paw was bleeding and he was limping and Feral Fixers, once again, asked the PAWS vets to do us a favor and take a look at it (and, maybe, see if there was anything they could do with it).

The injury turned out to be a severe bite-wound (confirming our President Tammy's suspicion) and the PAWS vets determined that an amputation was the only option. They took off as little of the paw as they could, cleaned and stitched it up, and gave him a shot of Convenia (a long-lasting antibiotic). They also attempted to fit him with an E-collar (an Elizabethan collar - one of those plastic cone thingys that go around an animals neck after surgery and is intended to prevent them from licking or picking at their wound). However, Ray was having none of it. The PAWS vets thought that he would still have a chance if he would just let the wound heal - but if he bit out the stitches, it was certain to get infected - and then he'd be in trouble again.

So, right now, Tammy is keeping him inside and we're all hoping that he'll cooperate in his own recovery.

He's a really mellow cat (especially so for a feral), letting us pet him while he was in the trap. We're told that the colony caretakers were thinking of bringing him inside anyway, so hopefully, it's all going to work out in the end.

So we owe another HUGE THANKS to the people and especially the Vets at PAWS - they really are heroes - THANK YOU PAWS!

And THANK YOU Tammy for holding onto this cat to give him a chance.

The picture thumbnails (click on either of them to see a full-size version of the photo) are of Ray of course - in the first one, you can see this cat has been through some battles - his right ear is almost entirely gone. The second picture is the best close-up we could get of his amputated paw.

Jewel-Osco stores are now giving away "Reward Stickers" to shoppers who use the Jewel-Osco 'Preferred Card' during their purchase.  Shoppers receive one sticker for each $10 spent on eligible purchase (more details about this program can be found here).  These "Reward Stickers" can be redeemed for Thomas Professional Cookware.  If shoppers would mail these coupons to Feral Fixers (PO Box 1416, Lombard, IL.  60148) instead, we would use them to purchase this Cookware and then make these items as part of the baskets we sell at Silent Auctions.  This is a great way for you to help us without costing you a dime!  These stickers must be redeemed by January 26, 2011.

You can also help us by simply shopping at Gordon Food Services (GFS) and mentioning our name during checkout.  If you shop at GFS, when they ask if your purchase is for a business or charity, all you have to do is say Feral Fixers - you don't need a card or anything and a percentage of your purchase goes to FF at the end of the year.  Feral Fixers is on file, they just type it in and that is all you have to do.  Pass the info on to anyone you know who shops there, anyone can help us raise funds in this way with no added expense!
 
GFS has some great and convenient products - and with the end-of-summer grillin' events coming up - check out what they have to offer!
 
It's like a warehouse club without the membership fee and they have similar large packaging and prices.  And if you don't see something in the store, look online and you can order it for pickup at the store, and Feral Fixers still benefits!

Thank you Gordon Food Services!

Several days ago, we brought in "Mont Spotty", a feral, along with several other ferals to the PAWS-Chicago Spay/Neuter clinic  to be TNR'd. "Mont Spotty" was from a group of five out of Oak Brook. Everything went fine during the check-in and surgery, but when Spotty woke up from the anaesthesia, the Vet Tech was removing the breathing tube from him. We're not sure what happened, but the Vet Tech got a bloody finger out of it; either Spotty bit her as a reflex reaction or she caught her finger on a tooth - we just don't know.

No matter how it happened, though, it's considered a 'bite wound' and poor Spotty had to stay at PAWS on a "Rabies Hold". No one was worried that Spotty actually had rabies (the last confirmed case of a person getting rabies from a cat was literally decades ago), but rules are rules - Spotty had to stay in a large cage at PAWS until the 10 day quarantine period was up.

When the 10 days were up, we drove down to PAWS to pick Spotty up and to take him back home to his caretaker. We had to wait several minutes for a vet to get free so that they could do a final exam on Spotty - of course he passed with flying colors and the vet signed off on him.

Now the only problem was to transfer him from the big cage where he had been staying into a small trap so that we could drive him home. How do you convince a cat to go into a smaller space? Sue Robinson, the PAWS person who released the cat to us, had the answer. She put the open end of the trap into the cage and draped a towel over the other end of the cage. Spotty needed no encouragement - he went right into it. We put in a trap divider to hold him into the back of the cage, put the front door of the trap on, locked it, and were good to go - piece of cake.

We drove him back to his caretakers in Oak Brook - she had me bring the trap out to her back yard. The cage door was opened and, after a few seconds, Spotty ran from the cage and headed towards the nearest bushes. He'll probably sulk there for a day or so until he comes out, but he should be fine.

So, one more feral TNR'd, and we're sure that Vet Tech will be more careful removing the breathing tube in the future ☺

Want to purchase something purr-fect for your cat-lover friends and help out Feral Fixers at the same time?  Just visit our Caf� Press store and Buy Something! In addition to the Throw Pillow shown to the right (perfect for summer!), we have T-shirts, sweatshirts, aprons, hoodies, gym bags, messenger bags, coffee mugs, tote-bags, pet food bowls, etc. A portion of each sale goes to help us in our TNR efforts.