PAW It Forward - Feral Freedom

Since we are so small, we don't have a lot to give, but we do believe in Pawing it Forward. WTRF provided transport and the TNR vetting for these feral cats so that Friends of Chicago Animal Care and Control could pull them from Chicago Animal Care and Control (Our City's Pound) and save their lives. Please meet Hemi, Plymouth, and Mae. They are currently at The Anti-Cruelty Society getting their TNR services. #FeralFreedom #PawItForward

Stetson - Lower Wacker Update

Since Tuesday, we have spent approximately 24hrs at the Lower Wacker trapping site. This does not include the time we spent traveling and setting up traps. We were there at the following times;

Tuesday night from 7pm-10pm
Thursday night from 10pm until Friday morning 7am
Saturday morning from 4:00am-11am
Saturday night from 7:00pm until Sunday morning 2am

This cat is not food motivated and we had some close victories. We were quite sure he/she was going to go into the trap last night. But alas, fail once again. This poor cat has grease all over his fur and is clearly uncomfortable. The whole time we were there last night/this am we watched him.her consistently trying to groom its horribly matted fur. We are so devoted to trying to get this cat. We are going to try to set up another plan in place.

Unfortunately, we are unable to trap during the week due to our day jobs. If you are willing to help with this project, please contact us. Once the cat is trapped we will have him/her brought straight to the vet. This cat has a hold on our hearts. He/She needs to be saved. If I could, I would live there until we got him. To be honest, this past weekend we pretty much did.

Stetson - A Lower Wacker Cat Rescue

After spending time with our families for our Thanksgiving celebrations, Melissa and I went out to try and trap this cat. This cat is in a very desolate area and definitely NOT an area that ANY cat should be in.

We were out there from 10:00pm until 6:00am this morning. We were persistent to get this cat, and were waiting for him to show up. We didn't want to leave, nor could we leave, because we had traps set. What do you do when you are trapping for 7hrs and you literally have no where to go to the bathroom because you are in a desolate area? You pee in flipping cups. Ummm yeah. I said it, we peed in flipping cups. #gross

The cat finally showed up early this morning and was scared and ran away. We waited for a bit more time and decided that it was time to pack it in and get some sleep and personally we did not want to have to continue to pee in a cup. #gross. Btw, did I mention that the car battery died? Yeah that happened too. So finally we got to my place, took a 3hr nap and headed out to go feed colonies everywhere this mid-morn.

If I ever hear someone say we aren't legit, let me ask you, what have you done and have you ever peed in a cup to catch a cat? Yeah. Btw, we will be going back out at 4am this Saturday morning to try and attempt to catch him. Maybe this time there will be a stop at Walgreeens to buy some Depends. #notlegitmyass #haveyoupeedinacuplately?

Happy Thanksgiving, So Much To Be Thankful For

The Whiskers & Tails Rescue Foundation has so much to be thankful for, It has been an amazing year. We are especially and most thankful for all of you. Our supporters, our volunteers, our colony caretakers, and to everyone in the community who have shown nothing but support and so much love not only to us, but to our community cats. We could never thank you enough and I can say without a doubt, there is only one other group that is more thankful for you then us and that would be the cats. From every bit of our hearts and theirs, Thank you. We love you and wish you and your families a Happy Thanksgiving. xoxox.

Feral Families Enjoying Our Feral Cat Shelters

With the temperatures dropping and as the winter season takes effect, we are soooo happy that everyone is sending us pictures of their feral families enjoying the warm feral cat shelters that we made. If you have one of our feral winter shelters, please feel free to post pics on our page, we love seeing them!

Another great Whiskers & Tails tip that we do and have suggested to caretakers, is to lay down Styrofoam under your shelters and under the area where you feed. The Styrofoam acts as a barrier from the cold concrete and protects your feral families paws from getting frost bite. If it snows, its also easy to pick up and dust the snow off. You can see in 2 of these pics that one of the caretakers did exactly as such.

It truly warms our hearts to see so many people caring for the cats in their areas! You guys rock!

Meet the Campell 41 Colony

We received a TNR assistance request 2 weeks ago from a man name Dave who is caring for 8 adult and 3 feral kittens and needed help. He is one of the most amazing, positive, happy people that I have ever met. He's truly incredible. We went out to assess the project site and we only saw one cat. We asked Dave to set up a feeding schedule in the evening so we can get a trapping plan in toe. We went back a week later (last Saturday) and met with Dave and saw 3 cats. We brought him feral houses, food, and traps. We zip-tied the traps open and placed them in different areas in his yard. The 3 cats we saw started to go in them to eat right away. We instructed Dave to strictly to feed out of the traps only and that trapping would ensue only a few days later. 

Four days later... This past Wednesday night, 4 cats were trapped and the next morning they were vetted at The Anti-Cruelty Society and received their TNR services. Last night, the last additional 4 cats were trapped and brought to The Anti-Cruelty Society this morning for their TNR vetting services. We currently only have 3 kittens left at this project. The 3 kittens are 7 weeks old and are too young for s/n so we will be putting them into foster care. If you would like to foster for us, please contact us at info@whiskersandtailsfoundation.org We are so happy to have provided Dave with help and get his colony taken care of in only 2 days. He really is one of the sweetest people that i have ever met and he is so good to his colony.

Thank you to Dave for being so accommodating and eager to take direction, and of course to the Whiskers & Tails Transport crew Liv, Trudy, and Jamie, you ladies are phenomenal! Love you. Now, I want everyone to meet the Campbell 41 Colony... Star, Junior, Baby, Happy, Blackie, Bootsy, Woodsy and Kibbles.

Different Groups In The Community Working Together

We were notified about the Division 25 Project back in May. We received a TNR request regarding a momma cat and her baby. When we went to assess the location / project, we realized there was so much more, about 18 cats more. We started on the project right away, to date, we have vetted 18 cats in this alley, 5 of these cats were admitted to a no kill shelter and adopted, and the rest were returned to the alley after they had their TNR vetting.

There are a ton of people who feed in this alley. There is a colony at the West end of the alley and another huge colony at the East end. At the East end, we noticed that one of the people who feeds (an older gentlemen) would just leave a ton of cat food cans out for these cats. On multiple occasions, we would find up to 15 or so empty cans laying around on the ground and every time we would promptly pick them up and throw them out. 

We visit this alley once a week and place dry food out with water for the cats. After our shelter building event, we decided to bring over some feral cat shelters in preparation of winter. Upon arrival to the Easst end colony, we noticed that all of the weeds where the cats would hide were completely gone and we didn't see any of the cats, except for Juliusa of course. I started to panic and needed to find out what was going on. We went from business to business on that block near the location. I also noticed that there were new signs located at the front of the building. It showed that the Paseo Puerto Rican Cultural Center owned and managed these buildings.

 

Even though it was a Sunday and they might not be there, I tried and went to their office anyhow. Thankfully they were open. I had a conversation with the two people in charge. Jose and Alejandro. I explained to them who we were, what we do, and how we vetted 18 cats at this location. They informed me that they had received complaints about all the can food cans and I explained to them about how many Puerto Rican residents feed and love those cats and we need to come together and find a solution. I was able to get them to agree to put feral cat housing shelter provided by us on their property and I also offered that we would help them with any resident complaints. I also offered to put up a sign with their permission, asking the residents not to leave unwanted cans every where. They were elated and agreed. We are so happy that the different groups in one community can come together and make a difference, it is vital to the communities' well being.

Juliusa always on stand by

We put up the sign and placed a feeding shelter bolted to the fence so it cannot be removed / stolen. When we revisited the site, we spoke with many neighbors who were excited about the feeding shelter and loved the sign.

As seen in the Daylight hours

The work in this alley is still not done. There are 3 buildings where the East end colony stays and these buildings are planned for demo in the Spring of 2017. We will be flyering all the houses on these two  blocks who share the alley to see what residents would be willing to have feral cat shelters in their yards so these cats are not displaced.

This alley has definitely kept us busy and at times has proven to be a challenge. The West end of this alley, was not kind. There are 3 houses who initially we had on board with TNR, change their mind due to ignorance. We were screamed at every time we trapped at that end and consistently berated. However, we told them every time, that we would be back until we vetted every single cat. Even though we explained that what we were doing was to protect the cats, an elder gentlemen who was the bulk of the problem and worked all the other neighbors up, said he didn't want the cats spayed / neutered. We even had them kick one of our traps once. And though, we faced consistent challenges we didn't give up. And even though we were treated poorly, we still went back and provided feral cat shelter housing to those problem houses since they were also feeding. Yes, they treated us poorly, but it's not about us, it's about the cats. We are truly elated every time we visit to see how healthy and happy these cats have become.

Juliusa... Foster Home Needed

Foster home needed. We started on the Division 25 Colony back in May. This is where I met Juliusa and fell in love. She is a beautiful dsh grey and white cat with amber colored eyes. I was and am infatuated with her. She never truly acted feral, but we did TNR on her. She wasn't also a cat that I walked up to and can just pick up and pet. However, Juliusa met us every time we tried to trap in that alley and even was a little dickens trying to get in the SUV to get to the food. I have always and still am in love with her. To this day, when we go to her site, she runs out and greets us. Well as we were visiting her site on Wednesday, not only did she greet us, but she rubbed all over my legs and let me pet the hell out of her. Guess what, this girl needs a foster home. 

If anyone could foster her so we can work with her for a little bit I would appreciate it. Again, she's definitely not feral, otherwise I would never be putting up this post. If you are interested in fostering this gal for a little bit, please let us know. We will provide all of her fixings, unless you choose to provide that as a in kind gift. She has already been vetted, but we will have her snap tested and once again flea treated. Please let us know. We definitely want to bring this girl in. Thanks.

Juliusa trapped in May in the Division 25 project

Juliusa comes out to greet us every time we viist

Tricked With A Treat... A Halloween Kitten

Nothing like trapping a black kitten on Halloween. Please meet Boo. A spooktacular kitten trapped at the Bridgeport Short 28 Colony tonight.

Tortellni The Cross Eye Kitten

This is Tortellini sometimes called Noodle. He's a kitten from our Bridgeport Short 28 Colony project. I LOVE cross-eyed cats. Look at this face. How can you not melt?!?!?! This cute kitten is now off the streets and in a home due to TNR/TNA. We are so happy to provide him with that. Please consider donating so we can continue to help cats & kittens. https://www.crowdrise.com/whiskers-and-tails-rescue-foundation #crosseyed #kittens #home #rescue #giveback #getinvovled #volunteer

Trapping=TNR, No. Trapping+Managing=TNR, Yes.

There are many levels to Trap-Neuter-Return, and most of us know that a lot goes into it. It's not just about setting a trap and boom catching a cat. It's about so much more. It's about the preparation, raising the funds, figuring out transport, recovery, and lots, and lots of community outreach amongst other things. Most people talk about just the TNR part. But most people fail to talk about and do one of the most important things that comes with TNR, and that would be the maintenance.

Although the actual prep and trapping in TNR may be difficult, it's also the easiest and honestly the only thing that most people do and than they move on. However, along with the trapping you are also supposed to maintain and manage the colony. This means continually checking in on these colonies or with the caretakers to make sure the colony is being cared for properly. Sure it's awesome to trap 5oo cats or a ton of colonies, but if you aren't checking in on them and the cats aren't being taken care of, well then you're not doing the cats justice.

We continuously check in on our colonies and our caretakers and the colonies that we have taken over that others walked away from. We make sure to observe what is going on, especially with the changing seasons. At some of the colonies, we noticed that the food that was placed for the cats has been being eaten at a faster rate so we wanted to see what was going on. We know that with fall, comes raccoon season. Raccoon season is generally from November to February. We decided to place a trail camera at a few of the colonies to see if what we suspected was true, and it's also a great way to see if any new cats have joined the colony that need to be TNR'd. We placed the camera at each colony for a week so we could track any patterns. This video is one of our colony findings. We had 100's of photos that were taken, but decided to just put together a few in the video.

As you can see, at this colony we do indeed have 2 raccoons. Since raccoons primarily love fruit and nuts. We will be setting up a 2nd feeding station well away from our colony to deter the raccoon from coming into the cats' feeding area. We also want to respect the wildlife diet of the raccoon and cat food is generally not good for them. We also learned from this video that we have 3 new cats that have joined the group and come daily to just eat. So we will be putting a plan into place to get them their TNR services.

Trapping=TNR, No. Trapping+Managing=TNR, Yes.

Three More Cats Trapped At The Manistee 130 Colony

Three more cats were trapped at our Hegwish Manistee 130 colony last night. These cats are currently at Anti-Cruelty Society getting their TNR vetting. That makes a total of 11 cats that we have trapped and vetted at this project. I'd like to introduce you to Cry Baby, Toffee, and Rusty. Wish us luck on getting the last one. Go team Whiskers & Tails!

Happy National Feral Cat Day! Celebrating By Building Feral Cat Shelters

Happy 2016 National Feral Cat Day!!!! In Celebration of it, WTRF held a feral cat shelter building event yesterday at the Chicago Community ToolBank. We built 70 feral cat shelters (that's 140 bin totes total) for our community cats. These aren't your typical ordinary feral cat shelters. These shelters are double bin and are insulated with 4.5" house insulation and straw so they are able to withstand our harsh winters. They end up weighing over 10lbs, so no need to worry about them blowing away, especially in the Windy City. 

 

 

Community Cats are just that, a part of the community, and it's so awesome when members of the community come together to help each other. We are truly able to move mountains when we all come together. I'm so touched that our community is like family.

We would like to give special thanks to Mark Van Camp, General Manager at Lowe's for donating 40 of the single 30gln bins, to all the community members who gave monetary donations that allowed us to buy the supplies needed, to Alisha, The Executive Director of Chicago Community Toolbank for offering her space and allowing us to host our event at her facilities, to the Chicago White Sox Volunteer Corps for coming out to help us build our shelters, and last, but not least, a Super duper Special thank you to our forever awesome Whiskers & Tails Rescue Foundation volunteers who NEVER let us down, you never cease to amaze us. We can never truly tell you guys enough how special you are and how much you guys rock!

Because of ALL of you, so many cats lives' will be saved this winter. These houses will provide them with the protection they need and they will now have a safe place that will keep them warm. Thank you, every single one of you!!!! Yesterday, we made a huge difference.

Much love from our hearts to yours,

Whiskers & Tails Rescue Foundation