30 December 2009
When multiple people arrive with cats at the same time, and all have unloaded their cats onto the sidewalk in front of the clinic door, confusion reigns! This can make it can be difficult for Gina/Debbie to keep people in the order that they arrive. It also exposes the cats to the elements, and causes the people to handle traps more frequently than necessary.
Look at those traps on the ground in the photograph! It hurts my back to see Susan have to stoop over to label that trap! Why ever set them down on the ground in the first place? For the Dec clinic, turnout was light and it was a great opportunity to try out a new check-in process. Instead of allowing people to park and unload their cats on their own, we instead forced folks to loop around the parking lot and stop in front of the clinic doors. This allows a line to form, ensuring people are addressed in the order that they arrive, and it also allows the traps to be loaded directly onto carts. Since the volume was so light , we never really had a line of vehicles waiting to check-in, but once we start getting higher volume months, there will definitely be a line!
There was some confusion as some people struggled with the concept of turning around and pulling up in front of the clinic door. For the Jan clinic, we should have signs and a dedicated guide to help indicate where people should should stop for the drop-off.
You can help smooth the check-in process by labeling all traps properly. If you arrive at the clinic without labels, you may be asked to move out of line to complete the labeling process. If you are moved out of the line, once you have filled out and labeled all traps, you will rejoin the line at the end! A template along with instructions for pre-populating and printing these labels can be found here. The labels list the trappers name, phone number, trapping location and sponsor organization.
Also, remember that at the Jan 24 clinic, only "Tru-Catch"-style traps with gravity operated doors will be allowed. Leave the Tomahawk's, Havahart's and other spring-loaded door style traps at home as they won't be accepted at the feral clinic. Volunteers can help also help by parking in the designated parking spaces along the south edge of the shopping center. This will leave the area in front of the clinic clear for loading and unloading, and leave space to form a line of vehicles.
23 December 2009
It took three attempts before I could approach her close enough to have a chance. On the third attempt, it took me about 30 minutes to maneuver myself into a position where I was kneeling in front of her with the net in my right hand. I waited until she was distracted by the noise of a passing vehicle and then sprung the net on her. She struggled and fought but I managed to keep a hold of her as I got her out of the net and into the carrier. I hate to use this tactic on a cat, but honestly I don't think she would ever go into a trap! Her mom has eluded the traps every time while 22 cats from the same colony have been TNR'd. Her nose got a little banged up (or maybe she has ringworm?) and her eye looks bad. I'll get her to the vet tomorrow. Thanks for all of the offers for fostering and help with her medical. If my current fostering or medical plans fall through, I know who else offered and I'll hit them up.
22 December 2009
I met Pancake last April while he was recovering from surgery. He had escaped from his owner's yard and had been struck by a car. When the owner refused to pay for the surgery, the NSPCA stepped in and provided care or him. Supposedly the staff at the vets office started calling him 'Pancake' because he liked te breakfast staple so much. Though he was wearing a cone and short one appendage, he didn't lack for any enthusiasm at seeing people, other dogs or for pulling on the leash while he walked. Because of his poor leash behavior, one of the NSPCA staff asked me to walk him.
The first time I took him out, his three paws scrabbled excitedly on the concrete floor and he could barely gain a purchase. Worried that he might tear open his stitches, the dog manager scooped him up and carried him to the door before setting him down. For the next three or four weeks, I did the same almost every moring. He put up with the indignity of being carried well. I doubt Pancake had ever been walked much by his owner. If he had been, it had been straining at the end of the leash choking himsef. Judging by his reaction to seeing other dogs, people, etc. I doubt he had much interacton.
Each morning I took him out and we walked in small circles wth him constantly trying to strain against the leash. Slowly, without yelling, or jerking, or correcting in any way, I taught him to walk next to me. For the first cuple of weeks we never made it out of the parking lot. We would do a short walk with me constantly changing drections to keep the leash loose and Pancake coming up to me. Each day, we expanded our range a little more. At first he was incredibly fearful of vehicles. Once I watched his eyes get as huge as saucers as a car approached from across te parking lot. After that I was careful to slowly introduce him cars and to have plenty of treats nearby when I did. Today, he barely notices cars at all and will run next to the bicycle.
Unfortunately, Pancake has shown aggressive tendacies towards other dogs. With the right introductions and supervision, I'm sure he could be integrated into another pack, but for the average owner, he'd probably be best as the only dog. I've worked with Pancake on basic obedience. He knows wait, sit, leave it, touch and come. He loves and deserves attention and affection. He needs an owner who can give him more than being locked away in a back yard or in a kennel at a shelter.
See Pancake and other dogs up for adopton at the http://www.nevadasca.org
21 December 2009
This kitten's mother has had three litters this year. I've been after her for months, but now I can trap inside the yard, and I think there's a good chance I can get her. This kitten is so bold, I think I'd like to try to net him before I trap momma. His eye looks infected and I'd like to get him some care so he doesn't lose it. If I do manage to get him, is anybody interested in taming/fostering?
16 December 2009
ALWAYS HANDLE TRAPS WITH CATS GENTLY, AS THOUGH THEY CONTAIN, LIVING, FEELING, BREATHING BEINGS INSIDE.
If your handling a dozen traps (or in some cases 30 or 40), it's easy to start feeling like your hauling around a bunch of cargo. Guess what? Even if you have to load or unload 100, they should still be treated with the same respect you show your owned pet. Would you want your owned pets slammed around in trap because the folks handling him/her were too busy or lazy to treat the traps with care? As we ramp up and do more of these larger trapping projects, it is very important to maintain quality, and to ensure that we are treating animals with care and respect. If you follow this one rule, the rest of these should be common sense!
A PROPER TRAP COVER MEASURES 3' x 5'. ALWAYS HAVE A CORRECTLY SIZED COVER AVAILABLE SO YOU CAN IMMEDIATELY COVER THE TRAP.
The first time I returned traps to Keith, he berated me for my funky trap covers. Some of them were pillow cases which had been cut down one seam to form a crude tent which did not adequately cover the trap. "A proper trap cover is 3' X 5,'" he said. The importance of a proper trap cover cannot be overstated. If the cover is too large, it becomes a hindrance, catching on other traps or in the wheels of the clinic carts. Worse yet, if the cover is too small, it will fail to accomplish it's primary purpose, calming the cat! Our trap bank policy is to always issue a trap with a "proper" trap already inside. Make sure that you have that cover available and that you use it!
NEVER LEAVE A TRAP ARMED AND UNATTENDED!
I once set a trap near a plant nursery in a secure enough location that it could be left for short periods of time. When I returned to check the trap, I discovered a pissed-off, soaking wet, six-week old kitten. A nearby sprinkler had drenched him, the newspaper liner and the trap cover. We moved him into a dry trap with a towel and got him inside a vehicle and he was fine. But what if I had left that trap out for hours at a time, or worse yet, overnight? Once a cat become caught in your trap, YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ITS SAFETY! If you cannot guarantee that someone will not be able to tamper with a trapped cat, or other harm will not befall the cat you shouldn't leave a trap armed and unattended.
NEVER OPEN A TRAP WITH A CONSCIOUS, ALERT CAT UNLESS YOU ARE INDOORS!
If the cat does make it out of the trap, it will be possible to use a noose pole or net to get control of it and get it back into the trap. Having a cat escape from a trap while it's outdoors is a disaster. If you and the cat are lucky, you are still at the cat's colony and you are simply left with cat who will never go near a trap again. If you and the cat are unlucky, you're halfway across the city when he escapes. Now you have an unfixed cat in unfamiliar territory who will never go near a trap again! To avoid this particular mistake, ensure that you are indoors when opening traps for any reason!
NEVER LET A CAT OUT OF THE TRAP WHEN IT EVENTUALLY HAS TO GO BACK INSIDE IT!
To minimize the stress on the animals, and maximize the safety of all humans and cats involved, cats should stay in the traps at all times before and after surgery. Moving cats into a larger container may seem the humane thing to do, but cats feel secure in small enclosed spaces. Forcing them from a trap to a carrier, kennel or other container is bound to cause the animal more stress. It also increases the risk of the cat escaping (how stressful will it be to recapture it?), scratching or biting someone, or being injured. If you have to hold a feral cat for an extended period of time, place the trap inside of a larger kennel. This gives the cat a place to retreat to when you need to feed/water/change paper. You can safely open and close the guillotine door with a stick through the kennel bars. Otherwise, do the cats and yourself a favor and leave them in the trap!
PROVIDE THE CAT WITH THE MOST COMFORTABLE CONDITIONS POSSIBLE WHILE IN THE TRAP!
Pre-surgery, these hardy animals can take a lot. Used to living outside, they will be okay in most circumstances, except for what should be glaring obvious examples. Don't leave the cats exposed to direct sun for an excessive amount of time. Even on nice days here it often becomes quite hot in the direct sunlight. A sealed vehicle interior will heat even faster. If you must transport traps in a pickup truck, especially in cooler weather, make sure the traps are covered in a way so that they are protected from the 40, 50, 60 or even 70 MPH winds generated by driving! Also, make sure your load is secure so that traps cannot fall over during transport. A Tru Catch trap that turns upside down will open!
Post surgery, the anesthesia affects a cat's ability to regulate it's temperature so they must be maintained in an area that will not have temperature extremes. Change newspaper, feed and water twice a day. The cats pictured below are staged in Keith's garage. The traps rest on 2" x 4"'s which allow waste to drop down to the puppy pads below.
To provide yourself with the most comfortable conditions possible, elevate the traps to avoid having to kneel down to access the traps. Pictured below is a plastic topped folding table. Three large 24" x 30" puppy pads will cover this table completely. The metal poles serve the same purpose as the 2" x 4"'s in the previous picture.
AVOID USING HAVAHART, TOMAHAWK AND OTHER SPRING-POWERED TRAPS.
Tru-Catch and other gravity powered traps depend on the weight of the door to operate. The chances of one of these doors harming a cat while closing, even a small kitten is minuscule. Spring powered traps depend on the energy stored by pushing the door into its open position, which compresses the spring. Cats have been found with tails and bodies crushed by the force of the door closing. Other cats have managed to wedge between the doors and the trap, either escaping out of the trap entirely, or choking to death because their bodies remain in the trap. Some models of these traps do not have guillotine doors making it difficult for clinic workers to transfer cats in or out. Others have a trap door made from a solid metal plate. These doors do no allow you to observe the cat, before you open the trap door, making it difficult to observe the cat while the trap is covered. In both cases, these traps make staging and convalescing cats more difficult. Finally, the standardized size of the Tru-Catch traps allows more traps to fit into a smaller space more efficiently.
11 December 2009
Mimi lives in a pretty rough section of town. Yvonne's been caring for Mimi ever since her original benefactor was driven from the area by thug neighbors. Braving threats from free-roaming dogs, angry neighbors, and panhandlers, Yvonne has been supplying food for Mimi for many months since her original caretaker moved. Fearing for Mimi's safety and her own, Yvonne decided to retrap Mimi and provide her with a permanent home off of the streets. Retrapping cats is often difficult and Mimi, was not an exception . Mimi scoffed at conventional traps, and a failed attempt to secure her with a net had left her weary of being approached one.Yvonne contacted me in Sep. to see if we could catch her with the drop trap. We went out and I set up the drop trap and moved about 50 feet away. The string went around a small bit of sage brush. In what turned out to be a fateful and humongous rookie error, I failed to clear the string before she moved over to the trap. Immediately she showed interest and barely entered the trap. Sure that she would move to the back of the trap, I waited. She moved forward into the trap, and, as though she suddenly realized what it was she froze and started to turn. Had the string been running straight, I would have immediately sprung the trap because I could see she was going to move, but I hesitated, and in that instance she left the trap.
I fixed the string and we waited to no avail. On Saturdays, the mission down the street serves breakfast. Hundreds of free-roaming humans passed by making it impossible to get her. A four or five month old kitten continually poked its head out from a sewer grate across the street. I moved the drop trap and impressed the homeless crowd by bagging the kitten after only a minute or two. The next morning we returned even earlier to avoid the crowds. A skinny woman came walking down the street.Noticing the drop trap she started moving towards it. I jumped out of my truck and started into my spiel about trapping the cat so it could go live with Yvonne.
er sunken eyes grew as wide as saucers and she shrieked, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO THE CAT!" I realized that she was as high as a kite. The absurdity of trying to catch a feral cat at 4:00 AM in the middle of the hood sunk in and I burst out laughing. Horrified the woman quickly moved off, muttering and cursing.
Mimi studiously ignored the drop trap for over an hour. Another small black cat appeared and entered the trap. I decided to let it eat so that trapping it would not scare Mimi. Mistake #1 for the day. A larger black cat appeared and chased the smaller cat out. The larger black cat proceeded to eat all of the food in the trap and was in no hurry to get out of it. I finally ended up shooing him out of the trap! DOH! Mistake #2 for the day. Another hour passed and Mimi was clearly never going to enter the drop trap. Instead of having two black cats to NR, I was empty-handed, skunked! GRRRRR!!
Two mornings later we returned and Mimi still ignored the trap. I managed to catch the larger black cat who we had neutered and eventually returned. On yet another morning, we tried again while Mimi again ignored the drop trap. She was too well fed to fall for our shenanigans. We finally deemed that we needed to hatch a new plan. Nothing much happened for a couple of months. I couldn't drive by the area without cruising by to see if she was still there, sitting in the sage brush, and she usually was.
This week Yvonne called me and left a panicked message. She had found the carcass of the large black that cat we had TNR'd in Sep. The local thugs were allowing their dogs to roam unleashed and this one had fallen victim. The next morning I met her near the area and laid out the plan: I would go alone and set the drop trap and move off a good distance and wait in the truck. Yvonne would come 15 minutes later and place the bait into the trap, calling Mimi and making a big fuss.
I pulled up and unloaded the trap. Mimi was there, and she watched me intently, obviously waiting for a meal. I moved off about 150 feet away where I had a clear view of the trap. Eying the dangling pigeon feather in the trap, Mimi moved towards it. She sat right outside of it and regarded it curiously. A guy came walking down the street, spooking her away from the trap. GRRRR, I thought, "Here we go again!"Yvonne arrived, and instead of ignoring me and proceeding to the trap as I had expected, she parked behind me and walked up to the truck. I told her to pull up like she normally does and place the bait in the trap. She pulled up, and proceeded to park right in my line of sight so I could no longer see the drop trap! I got out of the truck and watched her bait the trap and attempt to lure Mimi to the trap. After several minutes Yvonne came back to me.Yvonne was short on time and had to leave for an appointment. I had little hope of our plan working. I told her to leave and I would watch the trap and see what happens. She continued to talk and I watched as Mimi moved towards the trap. She ducked her head under and regarded the foil bowl filled with turkey meat and tuna. I held my breath as she moved towards the food and then immediately sprung the trap when she was in position!
Serita and Yvonne were relieved because we now had Mimi safe. I was relieved because I had finally recovered from the initial mistake. People like Serita and Yvonne and have big hearts and I enjoy helping people like them and cats like Mimi when I can. I also really like getting the "one that got away"!
09 December 2009
Akvhuna and the other caretakers wanted to TNR more of the cats in the park. Without the resources and knowledge to perform a mass trapping, their previous attempts were not that productive. C5 volunteers worked with another local animal welfare group to bring in traps, secure spay/neuter slots, and assist with transportation and staging.
Akhuna, and other caretakers worked hard this year to help socialize and adopt out many of the cats from the park. At one point this year, they estimate that there were over 60 cats living in the park. After adoptions and some attrition, the various colonies now total around 33 cats. With 20 out of 26 in one section, having been neutered for sure, Akhuna and the other caretakers are well on their way to supporting our ultimate goal: less kittens in the spring!
05 December 2009
The Community Cat Coalition of Clark County (C5) is a newly formed all-volunteer non-profit whose mission is to reduce the number of healthy cats euthanized in local shelters through public outreach and education and by managing community cat colonies with Trap Neuter Return (TNR). C5 seeks to differentiate itself from other local animal rescue organizations by doing TNR and public education exclusively. C5 will not act as a foster, adoption or rescue agency for cats. These types of programs are money and labor intensive, a drain on limited resources and many exist in the valley already. C5 is focused primarily on building a community-based TNR program where caretakers, homeowners, business owners etc. participate in managing community cats at their locations. We now have a 125 traps in our trap bank that are available for loan without a deposit and offer classes TNR classes every two weeks. C5 also matches caretakers with low or no-cost spay neuter resources. Assistance with mentoring, staging and transportation of trapped cats is also available on a limited basis. C5 provides expert trapping services for those who are unable to trap for themselves, or in those cases when a very large number of cats need to be trapped in a single location. We also provide expert trapping services for the most difficult to catch holdouts or for those who prefer to pay a trapper to perform the TNR work for them.
C5 is working closely with the Las Vegas Valley Humane Society and Heaven Can Wait Society to coordinate and concentrate TNR efforts in the valley. In Oct. we worked together trap and neuter 140 free-roaming cats in a single 35-acre neighborhood over three days in the largest single TNR of free-roaming cats ever done in the valley. Last month, C5 volunteers and the monks at the Thai Buddhist temple successfully TNR'd 57 cats. Cats and monks will both be happier when there are no kittens in the spring! Future mass trapping events are being planned to take advantage of the economy of scale provided by bringing a lot of traps and trappers into a concentrated area.
The core group that forms C5's current officers started working together in summer of 2009 to help support Keith Williams in his role the Clark County Feral Central Sponsor. Mr. William's is a county appointed volunteer whose role is to act as a buffer between animal control and the community cat caretakers. He will not provide their information to animal control and acts to try to resolve disputes between parties. Registering as caretakers and registering their colonies provides certain protections for both animals and caretakers.
For more information about the Feral Cat Colony ordinance, visit http://www.clarkcountyferalcats.org
Upcoming TNR classes will be on Dec 19th at the Winchester Recreation Center and on Jan 9th at Heaven Cant Wait Society's spay/neuter clinic on 547 N. Eastern from 12:30 -2:30 PM. Email TNRClass@gmail.com to register.
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