I have amazing, generous, wildly creative friends. Last month one of my bands, noise&light, played a Halloween show at Klas restuarant. My friend from my other band, The Columbines, is the mastermind behind this annual event. This year she organized performances from a dozen bands, delicious Czech food courtesy of Klas, a raffle for some amazing eclectic prizes, and a costume contest. Then she donated half of the proceeds to her charity of choice, Women for Women International, and the other half to help out the cats for TNR!
So far I used this donation to purchase four Tru-Catch traps. These small animal traps are preferred among feral cat trappers for Trap-Neuter-Return TNR projects. This humane trap seems to work best for me when trapping an outdoor feral cat colony, and I can fit four of these in my catty wagon when I take them to spay/neuter clinics.
Here’s another look at the traps exposed and baited with food. This is the Eleanor Rigby Colony that I first TNR’ed in 2008. When the colony is hungry, the cats will go in safely without getting hurt.
Project TNR: One day they’re in, and the next day they’re out.
I already have some TNR projects scheduled next month to start using these traps and help get more community cats spayed and neutered.
In true mama cat-like fashion, she’s been very hard to trap. George, the feeder there, will not stop feeding, so that doesn’t help either. In fact, there’s been a lot of things happening here that have thwarted our efforts and things escalated last week, including involving the police, angry neighbors, and more dead cats, but I’ll be writing about each in separate posts. It’s hard to wrap my mind around it otherwise.
So, since traditional Tru-catch traps weren’t working because the cats are being fed no matter what, Joann spent a few days last week using a drop trap in Ray’s courtyard. We’ve been trapping there behind the gate so that we can stay out of George’s way.
This is what it looks like.
The cats were quite interested in the trap.
This one was even playing with the string.
You can see that those cats are ear-tipped. But finally the tabby mama cat went in after two days of trying. Joann transferred Maribella from the drop trap into the Tru-catch trap.
Maribella is now currently at PAWS Chicago for her TNR treatment. She is the 21st cat we trapped so far at this project, all almost within the same alley.
Some cats will go in traps over and over again. When you need to trap specific cats from your colony for TNR or for ongoing medical care, it’s easier to have a trap set for every cat you may have.
When you trap your TNR’d cats that don’t need to be taken to the clinic, you can set them safely to the side with their own bowl of food in a safe place and keep on trapping for the ones you want. This process works. It also works just to help trap a colony needing TNR at once. Very few colony caregivers just care for a cat or two in the city – most colonies are bigger than that and it’s easier to trap them together at the same time. I bought a bunch of traps for that very reason years ago, and am happy to lend them out to help people.
Kim V. contacted me through a mutual friend. She has done TNR for almost 20 years, starting in Logan Square off of the Boulevard, taking in cats to a regular vet because low-cost clinics for TNR weren’t available at the time.
She is now in Avondale, caring for about 12+ cats, most of them TNR’d. But there are a few intact cats still outside, and a few sick cats that she wants to take in to a clinic or vet, including this matted orange cat. Now is the perfect time of year to get him groomed.
Ever since the cat owners of the hoarder/drug house moved out at the end of June and dumped a bunch of cats outside I’ve been seeing the cats around the neighborhood. But it’s hard to keep track – some stayed near that house, and others roamed to find other feeders in our neighborhood.
Funny Face came out again and again to look at it, as if he was warning the other cats to stay away. Either that, or he just really wanted the food, but knew better than to go in the trap again. And then it rained really hard for awhile. I was thinking my plan wouldn’t work at all.
I set my alarm and checked the trap throughout the night anyways.
At 7am there was finally a cat in a trap. He acted like a typical feral cat: growling and refusing to look at me. I took a few photos of him and started getting ready to take him to the clinic for his TNR treatment, until I looked a little more closely at the photos. And then I went out to look at him more closely again. And again. I was so jet lagged I did not see the ear tip, and then when I did, I was still confused. But at least I figured it out before I did anything else.
And also, I had to give myself a pat on the back if I’m re-trapping cats here that are already TNR’d. TNR works!
Here he is, very clearly ear tipped. Yup, pretty obvious, right? Being jet lagged is worse than being drunk sometimes.
I let him out and then put the trap in the back yard.
Funny Face came immediately to check it out.
He did a complete inspection. Maybe now he’ll leave the front yard alone.
Here is Dice and Funny Face bonding for a looooooooooong time before their dinner for two in a Tru-Catch Trap that I kept zip-tied open for a few weeks. They’re so cute together – after their love fest, they both went in the opposite ends of the trap (at minute 1:25) to eat the food I placed in the middle. It’s like the spaghetti dinner scene from Lady and Tramp, only for feral colony cats!
Keeping the traps zip-tied open helps acclimate the cats to them and they stop noticing the difference. In this case, I wanted to re-trap Dice because he was drooling and I was concerned about his health. When I was ready to take him to the vet, I was able to re-trap him within a few hours of setting everything up.
By mid-December, in just six weeks, Chicago TNR Trapped-Neutered-Returned 93 cats in Englewood. 32 additional cats were Trapped-Neutered-Relocated to farms and warehouses that contacted PAWS Chicago looking to help pull cats off the streets and also for rodent control.
I joined George again one day in December in Englewood, where we trapped eight of those cats in less than two hours, just by driving around. George typically drives the PAWS’ van loaded with Tru-Catch traps, pet carriers, cat food for donations and bait, and other items needed for TNR projects, including newspapers, paper plates, and sheets to cover the traps.The cats are everywhere outside there, and we decided just to go to places where we knew there were community cats.
I met up with George at this TNR’d feral cat colony.
These cats are well fed and have shelter under the front porch.We moved on to an alley right around the corner where we saw a few cats, including this orange and white cat with a flea collar. We asked around but no one claimed him as theirs, so we decided to try to trap and take him to the clinic.
He was suspicious but clearly hungry. So we set up a trap.
And got him a few minutes later.
We quickly moved on to another block where George knew of a colony and visited the feeder’s house. A well-endowed male cat was hanging out on her front steps.
After a quick consultation with the feeder, who claimed him as one of her indoor/outdoor pet cats, we got him into a carrier to be neutered as well.
Around the corner from there we placed a Rubbermaid bin cat house for shelter.
It is well concealed from the street and you would hardly notice it, but hopefully it will help keep a few cats warm in the winter.
From there we moved even more quickly. The feeder told us about a few cats down the street, and we saw them right away. We placed two traps baited with tuna near another feeder’s front steps, and two cats obliged by going in them immediately. These cats were hungry.
The woman that was feeding them was moving out of the neighborhood that day and was very grateful for our help. She told us that there were other feeders on that block so these cats are cared for.
George and I decided to split up at that point and she drove to another spot while I continued TNR on this block.
A few doors down this long-haired beauty came running down the steps and out of the gate to greet me on the sidewalk.
I talked to her feeder as well, who said she was friendly, but they could not let her permanently into their home. She followed me down the block once she smelled the food.
She was easy to gently push into a trap.
George came back at this point fairly quickly with two more cats in traps, and another pet cat in a carrier. So now we had eight cats. It was freezing outside and we decided to wrap it up.
She wanted to show me Sabrina’s Colony. This is a colony of over a dozen cats. Sabrina feeds diligently, and rescues friendly cats and kittens all the time on her own.
The cats are gorgeous and well fed. They all came running when they saw us.
This tabby cat appeared to be the ringleader.
We were out of paper plates, but we fed them anyways on the ground.
These cats have ample shelters on her front porch.
From there we took all of the cats to PAWS Chicago’s low cost spay/neuter clinic. We met up with a few other feral cat trappers who were also dropping off their cats. We made sure each cat in a trap was fed. Every trap was lined with clean newspaper for the cats to sit on, and each trap was covered with a sheet so that the feral cats would be calmed in the traps. Here they are ready for their spay/neuter surgeries, vaccinations, parasite treatments, and ear tipping.
Once the cats are fully recovered from their surgeries, usually within 24 to 48 hours, George then returns the cats to where they were trapped. In this case, the pet cats were returned to their owners, and three of the cats in traps, including the long-haired beauty that ran to greet me, were relocated into companies requesting cats for rodent control in their warehouses, while also feeding and caring for them and providing shelter.
I look forward to helping George in this neighborhood again. There are too many intact cats running outside here and the residents welcome any help they can get.
You can gain hands-on experience and learn how to TNR by volunteering.
Last spring I volunteered with Tree House Humane Society to help a woman caring for a colony of 29 cats in her yard, called the Luna Colony. She was an overwhelmed feeder who was elderly and living alone and could not TNR by herself. She had cats in and out of her home and the colony was bonded to her. They did not have adequate shelter and were spraying her yard. As a result, some of the cats were sick. She needed help with TNR as well as proper colony maintenance.
The cats were there as soon as we arrived.
We baited and set up Tru-Catch Traps in the alley, and then brought them inside the yard so as not to disturb the cats with too much activity first.We found out a mother cat had just given birth minutes before we arrived. Luckily we trapped her first and put her newborn kitten in the trap with her. Tree House staff drove her straight to their vet clinic.
The rest of us stayed and continued trapping. This is why it’s great to tag-team on TNR. The mother cat was in crisis but only one person had to leave with her to handle it and we could continue as planned.
All 29 cats were trapped over a period of a few days. Some of the cats needed additional medical treatment and had to be recovered a few extra days. The last were returned to the yard 11 days after the project started.
After I returned these cats, some of the cats came to check me out and show off their new ear tips. They mostly hang out on the feeder’s back porch.
The feeder already had some sturdy shelters in the yard so the volunteers utilized those, just making sure they were now full of clean straw. They also cleaned the yard and added fresh mulch on bare patches.
The feeder gives the cats wet food on the back porch, but also keeps dry food in this covered feeding station so the cats can eat throughout the day.
Volunteers also added outdoor litter boxes and even scratching posts made of discarded tree trunks. Every time I volunteer I learn something new – I loved the idea of using these tree trunks!
With the help of volunteers doing TNR, this feline colony’s population is now under control and the cats are cared for. The feeder could not have done all of this without their help.
I rented a drop trap from Tree House Humane Society for the first time. This is what it looks like set up in my garage.You set the food under the trap, wait for the cat to go under, and then pull the string attached to the stick so that it drops to the ground. Then you cover the drop trap, and align the door for a Tru-Catch Trap with the wooden drop trap door (you can see it in the back on the opposite end), and wait for the cat to go into the Tru-Catch trap.
I want to use the drop trap to catch a sick cat from the V Colony. I went there the other day to check on the colony and it looked like she was sleeping peacefully in a crate.However, once she woke up and walked away from me, I could see something was wrong. Her hair is disheveled, she has a big wound behind one ear, and she clearly has a URI – upper respiratory infection, as you can hear her congested breathing.
She has already been TNR’d, as were 21 other cats from that colony. It’s not an easy feat to catch one cat that you have in mind, since they all lounge together.So far we have tried to trap her again using a Tru-Catch humane trap, but she won’t go in. I keep trapping the other cats instead.
Since she is used to the feeders they have tried trapping her as well in a trap and carriers, but that also hasn’t worked. I’m hoping the drop trap will do the trick, as I would like to get her medical care, and prevent the other cats from getting sick as well. Wish me luck!
Sherbert showed up sick, dirty and disheveled while we were trapping for the Avondale TNR Project. His fur and ears were filthy, and his breathing was congested. He’s the 55th cat we trapped for vetting in Avondale so far, but he is the first one that was already TNR’d by someone else, as you can see by his ear tip.
It was clear something was wrong. But he was trap savvy, and one night Joann used a drop trap.
It worked, but he acted so strangely in it. He would not move, and just laid down in it, almost as if he was playing dead. We didn’t know if he was just exhausted or scared, or both.
Eventually he went into the regular Tru-catch Trap.
I took him the next day to Roscoe Village Animal Hospital. First they determined he was FIV-/FeLV-. Then they went ahead and updated him on his vaccinations and treated him with antibiotics for a URI, cleaned his ears, and gave him Revolution for fleas. They also did bloodwork to determine his overall health status.
In the meantime they traced his microchip to Tree House, who has been attempting to reach the person who TNR’d him in the first place four years ago.
The vet said it was clear that Sherbert is pretty much a senior cat, and his teeth were really, really bad, most likely causing stomatitis. This explained why he might have been so dirty – this condition is painful and cats stop grooming themselves as a result. It is also painful for them to eat. They recommended he get a full dental, but first he needed to recover from his infection.
Kim put Sherbert up in my feral cat recovery lounge in her house so that he could eat and sleep as much as he needed with a little more room for comfort. This lounge is a dog crate and trap attached together so that feral cats can be moved easily from one part to the other. I have used it for severalferalcats during their recovery.
He’s doing well in the crate, but he hasn’t shown any signs of friendliness so far. I know this photo is dark, but you can see they really cleaned up his fur.
I am planning on taking him back to a vet for a full dental next week so that he can hopefully eat without pain in the future. We are getting quotes from a few vets because the highest one so far was for $1500.
There are a lot of feeders in this area and people who let their unfixed pet cats outside, which is really why there are so many colony cats. Without comprehensive TNR, the feline population has exploded here. We are doing what we can to help Kim get the population under control. So far we’ve reduced the population in three alleys by almost half in three months because of TNAdoption for friendly cats and kittens along with TNReturn for feral cats.
In the meantime, I’m a firm believer that feral cats deserve full medical care as well. If something is treatable, it will get done, just like with a pet cat. I will post the total cost after the procedure next week. If you would like to donate for his $489 vet bill so far and his upcoming dental, you can do so through PayPal at [email protected] or at the donate link at the top of this page. Thank you!
Zombie Cat from the V Colony got her name from her feeders because according to them, she was always sick.
She definitely had chronic upper respiratory infections, but two years ago there were also other things wrong with her. She had sores behind her ears, and her fur looked like it was coming out, almost like molting.
Zombie got a dental, and was treated for URI with three rounds of antibiotics. She was inside with me receiving multiple medications for almost two months. The entire time she acted feral. I was able to confine her in this ingenious feral cat recovery lounge that Dave made for this purpose. Zombie did well in there.
But I could tell confinement was stressful. She did not look like herself after awhile. I did not want to break her spirit. The vet said he did all he could for her so I let her go even though she was still congested, but still much better. She seemed to thrive outside again, always with the same grumpy look on her face. She was reunited with her friends – this colony is made up of 15 cats currently, all TNR’d and all most likely born in that yard. I was happy to see her grumpy face – it meant she was feral and didn’t want human contact, just maybe some food.
In fact, no matter how sick she was, Zombie loved food. She was always first in line for it, and the other cats complied. She was indeed an alpha female.
At the beginning of February I visited the V Colony with some journalists doing a story on feral cats and TNR. Zombie was sitting on the steps and let me touch her for the first time. I knew then something was very wrong with her then. You can see her in the video.
That was the last time I saw Zombie. By the time I got back with a carrier to get her to the vet, she was gone. I asked the feeders if they could let me look in their yard and trap. They refused. I did go back several times looking for her, but never saw her again.
Last week the feeder brought Zombie’s body to Tree House to be disposed of properly. They found her in their yard just like I thought they would. Her body was too decomposed to do a necropsy. I only know this because Tree House told me since they were also in contact with the feeder.
Zombie’s life and story taught me a lot. She showed me her resilience and will to survive, and I hope the vet care made her last year a little bit better. I will always think of her when I use the recovery lounge for another feral. I will always think of her when faced with adversity and resistance when trying to help a colony. I will always think of her because I still feel guilty I couldn’t help her ultimately. That I was prevented to help her hurts more, but it’s the reality sometimes of doing TNR. We do the best we can to help these animals. Perhaps Zombie died on her own terms regardless, and that was best for her. Maybe the vet care just prolonged the inevitable. I don’t know.
Rest in peace, Zombie, you no longer have to suffer being sick here anymore.
Hami 
Kelly Restivo