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Spring Fundraiser Event-Meows and Mimosas!
Join us May 21st, 11:00AM to 2:00PM at Pawsitively Cats Sanctuary, 4120 East Drive, Bakersfield. Wonderful raffle baskets, vendors with books, jewelry and plants, Mimosas!, and cats to visit in the cottage.
AND, our Grand Prize of a $500.00 Gift Card!! Light refreshments will be offered, so please note here if you will be attending.
All proceeds will go toward medical services and veterinary care needed here at the sanctuary.
Trap-Neuter-Return, or "TNR," is the most humane and effective method known for managing feral and stray cats and reducing their numbers. The cats, who typically live together in a group called a colony, are trapped and brought to a veterinary clinic. They're then spayed or neutered, vaccinated for rabies where appropriate and eartipped. After they've recovered from their surgeries, the cats are returned back to their original territory where a caretaker provides regular food and shelter. When foster or permanent homes are available, young kittens and friendly adults are removed and placed for adoption.
Because the cats can no longer reproduce, the colony has the potential to decline in size over time. Spaying and neutering also greatly reduce nuisance behavior. Once the cats are fixed, fighting, yowling and other noise associated with mating stops almost entirely. The foul odor caused by unaltered males spraying to mark territory disappears and the cats, no longer driven to mate, roam much less and become less visible. The cats themselves are healthier and less likely to spread feline diseases. Meanwhile, rodent control is maintained by the cats' continued presence.
Like all methods, TNR is most effective when performed well. On a colony level, this means achieving and maintaining a sterilization rate as close to 100% as possible and being diligent about the cats' long-term care. On a community level, TNR best reduces cat populations and nuisance complaints when resources, including trappers, spay/neuter surgeries and outreach, are targeted at sections of the community with high cat populations.
Another significant advantage to TNR is that nothing else works. For decades, the normal practice of animal control was to trap and remove cats with the outcome usually being euthanasia. The current overpopulation of free-roaming cats in the U.S. speaks loudly about the failure of that approach. There are many reasons why trying to eradicate cats from the environment doesn't work: there are too many cats and not enough animal control resources, removing one set of cats from a location where food and shelter is available creates a vacuum for a new set of cats to fill, the people who feed and care for the cats resist their capture, and the public is against euthanasia. Other efforts, like feeding bans or laws regulating cat owners, have also failed to make any difference.
Because it is life-affirming and allows people to help animals in need, TNR attracts volunteers, funding and other resources. This is why more and more municipalities and shelters are supporting TNR and developing their own programs. Many communities are seeing dramatic drops in cat intake and euthanasia at their local shelters as a result of TNR and other spay/neuter programs. Parts of the country, like the Northeast and Northwest, are actually importing kittens from other regions due to shortages! Today's reality of millions of unowned cats living on our streets is changing for the better and TNR is a big part of making that happen.
***Free Spay Clinic Sept. 23 & 24*** Pawsitively Cats, 4120 East Dr.
You MUST have an appointment. Call 805-584-3823 to schedule the appointment. TWO cats per household, firm! Social cats in carriers, feral cats in traps-ONE cat per carrier/trap.
When The Cat People were finally able to purchase a commercial property, there was much that needed to be done. Making a pool house into a fun, feline living space required many volunteers and many hours. Almost everyone that made their way to help was greeted by a sweet, little gray and black, abbyssinian type tabby cat. Our property was her domain and she did not want to be inside. The volunteers started calling her OG, for Outside Girl.
As more cats came to the sanctuary, OG kept her welcoming activities to just outside the cottage door. She would come in occasionally, but always wanted back out. She loved to be petted, but was not so sure about being picked up.
Over time, OG did decide that inside was pretty nice and so she became Millie. Well, Millie started walking a little crooked, and tilting her head a bit and even fell off a shelf or two. A check up with the veterinarian showed that Millie had ear polyps. They were severely affecting her balance and would have a huge impact on her quality of life. The decision was made to give Millie a chance at her best life, and so surgery with a specialist was scheduled. Three surgeries later, Millie is recovering at the sanctuary and looking forward to returning to her position as chief greeter!
The surgeries were expensive, but Millie has been with us from the start. Fixing her up was the right thing to do. If you’d like to help with the expenses, just hit that “help Millie” button above. Millie and all the cats at the sanctuary will appreciate it very much.
Millie under surgery.
Millie, recovering at home!
The Cat People will be participating in Give Big Kern this year, April 4th through May 4th. Please look for us when you go to Givebigkern.org. Many local nonprofits are profiled at the website so you can check out lots of good causes deserving of donations. This has been a pretty tough year for us all, and nonprofits have really suffered from not being able to hold in person fundraisers. So let’s all Give Big Kern!!
Our Give Big Kern Campaign was a huge success and we thank you all. The funds raised will go toward Spay/Neuter via our Mobile Spay Clinic program and Voucher program (Spay Today!). This community showed great support to all the participating nonprofits, and we thank you very much.
For the first time we were able to fund a four day clinic! Simi Valley Mobile Spay Crew altered 246 cats in just four days. They do an amazing job and stay very busy all over Southern California. We are already looking at their calendar to see when we can get on the schedule again.
The Cat People is an outstanding, 100% volunteer organization that was founded to eliminate the suffering of unwanted cats and kittens. A group of women started working together over 20 years ago to help the abandoned cats and kittens in Hart Park in Kern County. Today, the organization has an official contract with the county to manage the colonies in Hart Park, and it provides spay/neuter vouchers and food to low income families to assist them in keeping their beloved pets and/or to control growth of colonies around their homes. It operates completely out of foster homes, and the organization works with Petco to hold adoption hours once a week.
Pawsitively Cats Sanctuary | 4120 East Drive, Bakersfield, United States