Thankful Another Colony Cat is Off the Street

Patches was adopted indoors this week by another neighbor!

Patches was part of the Eleanor Rigby Colony that I started TNR’ing in 2008. Her feline friend, Clover, was just adopted indoors last month. Now a neighbor on that same block just took Patches inside. This means that since 2008, 18 cats and kittens have been spayed/neutered, and now the colony is down to ONE cat. TNR works!

Patches was always very motivated by food. Here she is eating on the ground before the monorail cats.

She’s on the left here, the first day I met this colony and started trapping. She’s watching me to see if it’s ok to eat.  Patches was easy to trap and bring in for her TNR treatment. She was always very skittish with me, but she bonded to her feeders. This colony moved through three feeders on their block. When the cats started being fed by a woman named Casey, Patches and Clover bonded to each other, and then bonded to Casey’s family. Patches loves her son.

And their dog. And then she loved going inside with them.

But when the weather is nice out, Patches enjoyed the outdoors. Who could blame her? Casey provided daily food and water.

Casey had a heated outdoor shelter for the cats in her yard. The colony cats also used the shelters under the original feeder’s porch. As the colony got smaller through the years, Patches was the only one who used these shelters.

As it got colder this past month, perhaps Patches had enough of winter, because she has now been indoors all week with her new family. She meowed at first, but settled in within two days.

The one remaining TNR’d cat outside is fed by yet another neighbor on another block, and that cat pretty much stays in their yard all the time, and is basically their outdoor cat. Casey also donated her heated shelter to them since she no longer has cats to feed outside.

I’ve left the shelter and tarp under the porch just in case another cat ever shows up, but there has not been a “new” cat on this block since 2010.

I will always check on this location periodically, but as fas as I’m concerned, this colony is a wrap. It’s done! All of the hard work of TNR has paid off, proving that it works – it is the most effective, humane way to control the stray and feral cat overpopulation outdoors.

I could not be more thankful this holiday season.