Frankie at 17 weeks.
What on earth is kitten season you ask? Well here’s a quick lesson on the birds and the bees. Unspayed female cats are impregnated by unneutered male cats and this is the time of year where all of the kittens start popping out of their Mom’s like crazy. Hence the term Kitten Season, and the reason why the month of June is National Adopt a Cat Month.
Kittens are really cute and all, so I bet you’re wondering why it is a problem that kittens are popping out all over the place? Here’s the deal, these kitties have no place to go, and there are so many of them that there just isn’t enough space at the shelters to keep them until they can find a home.
I’m one of the lucky ones. Mommy rescued me one year ago today! I never landed in a shelter, but I was dangerously close to being in one. Mommy was volunteering at a dog only shelter the day this man came up and tried to surrender me to them. She tried to convince him to take me to a shelter that takes cats, but it was pretty clear that if he was turned away I would just end up on the street.
Mommy took me from the guy and proceeded to call some rescues to see if they could take me. She wasn’t planning on keeping me! Can you believe that! Luckily for me the rescues couldn’t take me until the next day. That gave me 24 hours to win her over! Thankfully she’s a push over and it only took me a few minutes to wiggle my way into her heart.
There are many other kitties that aren’t so lucky. They either land on the street to fend for themselves, or wind up in a shelter that has no room and they end up euthanized. It’s a sad story for these guys, and it’s one that you humans can put a stop to. It’s really quite simple. Spay or Neuter your cat. Better yet, participate in your community’s Trap, Neuter, Return program (aka TNR).
This program is set up to trap feral or stray cats in your community and get them into a low cost spay/neuter clinic to get them fixed and vaccinated. Once they are fixed, if they are truly a feral cat, then they are released back to the area where they were trapped. If the cat seems like it might have been someone’s pet and is friendly, then a rescue or shelter group might try to place the cat into a home instead. To learn more about TNR please visit the Neighborhood Cats website.
There’s one other thing you can do to help cats of all ages – do what my Mommy did a year ago and rescue one! Stop on over to your local shelter and adopt a kitty or two, or three! If you live in the Northeast Ohio area, I recommend you stop on over to the Friendship Animal Protective League in Elyria. They have many pawsome cats available for adoption. Toodles for now…
