It's July and it's hot, hot, hot!  Just last month we wrote about how the weather seemed cooler than normal - that's sure changed!

Hot summers present their own special challenges when it comes to trapping and overnighting cats.  Feral Fixers has been very careful in scheduling these activities in order to minimize the stress on the cats.  It's tough enough for them being inside of a trap for 3-4 days - being extremely hot on top of that is just something else we have to worry about.

In this month's Letter From the President, Tammy writes about the Kitten Storm we are still in the middle of.  It has absolutely stretched Feral Fixers to the breaking point - but we are coping, somehow...  If you can foster a cat or two for a month or two, that would an enormous help.

This eNewsletter also contains some current TNR-related stories in the news, with one of particular interest - loaning out some feral cats to the 47th ward in Chicago to help them control a rodent problem - now THAT'S a win-win situation.

Read about this, other TNR-related news, all of our Upcoming Events (the calendar is starting to fill up!) and all the other goings-on at Feral Fixers in this eNewsletter...

Thank you again for all of your support.

Sincerely,

Not a Cloud in the Sky but the Storm is Raging

Every call has included kittens. In threes and fours and fives, they just keep popping up. Our fosters are full. All of our people are stressed. You can't get kittens to grow up any faster than their programming. You can't neuter them before they are 2.25 pounds. We reach an impasse between flow going out to shelters and the flow coming in from the street.

Truly, this is the time of year when it is just too much to even return a call. If you've been caught up in that, our apologies but we are only human and this is taking a toll on us.

Our current crisis involves a hoarding situation. At least 20 adults need to leave this home and find other homes or colony relocation. Kittens have been being removed with upper respiratory for years without all the adults being neutered. Now, the village authorities are involved and the cats have to go. This is yet another situation that would end up involving animal control if we did not step in. Animal control does not have the resources to be able to take the time to evaluate the cats or make them physically and mentally healthy enough for adoption.

Our ongoing crisis is, of course, all of the kittens and friendlies we currently have on hand.

I hate to be negative, I don't want to dwell on our situation, but needed you to know just how bad it is. We cannot do this without your involvement.

Please contribute to our "Keep Those Cages Empty" Fundraiser. We need your donations more than ever now as the calls keep pouring in.

Thank you so much, we cannot do this without you!!!

Kitten cages at DuPage County Animal Care & Control have been consistently empty since the end of 2011.

Help us to keep them empty by donating the cost to TNR one, two or three ferals and help us keep those cages empty all year long!!!

Our cost for one feral: $35
Our cost for two ferals: $70
Our cost for three ferals: $105

Our generous matching funds donor has once again pledged $1,000 to start off the "Keep Those Cages Empty" fundraiser!

Our goal: To raise enough funds to cover TNR of 100 ferals!

To donate, just visit the Feral Fixers homepage and click on the ChipIn! button in the box. There, you will be able to donate to our ChipIn campaign via PayPal (you can use your PayPal account or a Credit Card to donate).

Our Fundraiser will end on July 20th. Thank you for helping us reach our goal!

(The picture thumbnail is of one of the banks of empty cages at the DuPage County Animal Care & Control facility. Click on it to see a full-size version of the picture.)

Feral Fixers has a very active Facebook page.  You can go there and get the very latest information about what we are doing - sometimes even before it shows up on the blog!

Don't forget to "Like" us and the good karma will surely flow your way...

To find our Facebook page, click on the Facebook logo.

Thank you!

We are in touch with almost all of the shelters in the DuPage area in one way or another.  Fostering is down, not as many people are doing it this year.  Most shelters are closing their doors to intake as they cannot support the animals they currently have.  For shelters that do store front adoptions, without a brick and mortar shelter, they need to have at least as many fosters as they have animals in those cages in case they get sick or need a break from being too long at the stores.  Brick and mortar shelters are limited because most animals need to go into foster and be "tested" in a home situation.  They need to know how a cat is going to behave in a home so that when they adopt it out, they can be reasonably certain that the cat will use the litter box, not attack other animals or children or climb the drapes.  Fostering is the proving ground prior to adoption.
 
What the lack of fosters means to us is that we CANNOT take in fully adoptable animals from the outside.  Every time we place kittens with a shelter, the same number show up, fresh from the outside.  There are long lines waiting to get in.
 
Adoptions are down.  The economy sucks.
 
If you have the ability, the room, the talent, please offer to foster.  If not for us, for any shelter close to your home.
 
We've asked for fosters before and ended up softening the wording, trying to be more positive, but it has not worked.  Every day, we have to make hard choices about who can have a home because we have nowhere to put these cats and kittens.
 
There are fewer cats than there would be if we had not begun almost four years ago.  Things are going to get harder before they get better.  And if you can play a part in things getting better, you will have our unlimited gratitude and the satisfaction of playing a part in making things better for cats all over DuPage.  It may just be one cat, one litter of kittens that you see in front of you, but look behind them at all the others that they symbolize.
 
Thank you so much, if you are reading this, you care.  Please pass on information about this enormous need to anyone you think can help.
 
Thank you.

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. In 2010, Feral Fixers had 1,002 cats spayed / neutered and in 2011, Feral Fixers had 1,024 cats spayed/neutered.  So far in 2012, Feral Fixers has had 447 cats spayed/neutered

This brings us to a total of 3,952 cats. Clicking on the adding machine will send you to the Feral Fixers 'Statistics' page where you can see our progress, month-by-month, since we've started work.

 

Want to purchase something purr-fect for your cat-lover friends and help out Feral Fixers at the same time?  Just visit our CafePress store and Buy Something! In addition to the Velcro Cooler shown to the right (perfect to keep your drinks cool on these hot, hot, hot summer days...), we have T-shirts, sweatshirts, aprons, hoodies, mouse pads, gym bags, messenger bags, coffee mugs, tote-bags, pet food bowls, Pajamas etc. A portion of each sale goes to help us in our TNR efforts.

Visit our website at www.feralfixers.org.  There you can donate to us (via PayPal or credit card), visit our store, read the latest news, and learn more about feral cats.