barring columnar: How Can That Happen??

There were fifty-five cats and kittens in the house when the Triple R Pets volunteers arrived.? The house reeked of feces and urine, and?the smell clung?to clothes long?after leaving the house.? There were no litter boxes.? Food was scattered on the floor and mixed with feces.? Newborn kittens were literally dropping helplessly fromthe tiles in the ceiling.

Marta was planting flowers in her backyard one day when she saw a skinny gray cat lurking around the corner of the garage.? Being a person who loved animals, Marta went in her house to get a can of tuna.? When she came back outside, the cat was still there, and it gratefully ate the tuna that the woman offered.? The cat finished eating and turned and quietly left the yard.

The cat returned to the yard the next day, and again Marta fed it, but she could never get close enough to pet it.? The cat began to put on weight with all the good food it was given, and a friendly, if distant, relationship developed between the human and the cat.? Marta named the cat Henry.

Two months later, Henry came to dinner with four darling kittens following her.? Marta was thrilled.? The kittens let her pet and play with them.? They were so cute that Marta wanted to find homes for them.? When they were about six weeks old, Marta brought the kittens inside the house.? Henrietta, whose name was now changed to suit her sex, remained outside and was still unapproachable but still showed up daily for her meals.

Marta found homes for two of the kittens, but the other two stayed with Marta and became her house cats.? She let them out every night so they could have their freedom.? The two kittens were named Funny Face and Callie.? When winter came, Marta made a shelter out of a Styrofoam box lined with straw, and Henrietta stayed inside the shelter and was warm.

Everyone in the little family welcomed spring and its warmer weather.? Then one morning when Marta put out Henrietta?s food, she saw the mom cat being followed by four new kittens.? This time, Marta was not so thrilled.? But she dutifully took the kittens inside with the intention of getting them adopted.? She named the kittens Fluffy, Muffie, Sam, and Two Tone.

With six cats in the house now, Marta was calling all her friends and relatives to see if they would adopt a cat.? After the calls, she noticed that Callie, one of the original kittens, was nowhere to be seen.? Marta searched the house and finally found Callie in the bedroom closet, with five newborn kittens.

Henrietta was still outside and still unapproachable, and, if Marta was right, Henrietta looked pregnant again.? Callie had just given birth to five kittens.? And that made eleven cats inside the house.

Eleven until Funny Face gave birth to four more kittens behind the stove.? Then there were fifteen cats inside the house and a pregnant female outside.

Adoptions were not going well.? In fact, they were not going at all.? Marta checked with the no-kill animal shelters, but, it was early June now and all the no-kill shelters were full.? Marta began to look into the kill shelters that are required to take in all strays, but they were flooded with kittens and Marta feared her kittens would be euthanized because there just wasn?t enough space or homes for them.

In desperation, Marta thought that she could at least stop more kittens from being born by neutering all the males in the house.? Yes, brothers were breeding with their sisters and their moms.? Marta made some phone calls to local veterinarians to check on the cost of spay surgery and vaccinations, and she found she could only afford to have three of her cats neutered.? She only had her social security check, and most of that was now going to pay for cat food.

Then Henrietta had her second litter of the summer, and shortly after Callie had her second litter and Funny Face followed with her second litter.? Marta could not even begin to count the total number of cats.

So that?s how it happens.

Marta was not a hoarder.? Indeed, she was a kind person who had had a neat, clean house until she tried to help the cats. But within less than two years, and in spite of all the adoptions and surrendering kittens up to shelters, there were still fifty-five cats in the house.

TNR, a Community Effort

When Marta found out about Triple R Pets and the trap/neuter/return program, our volunteers went to her house to help.? We worked with Marta from August to December.

By mid December every cat in the house had been spayed/neutered, vaccinated for rabies and distemper, given complete parasite control, eartipped, and microchipped and registered to Triple R Pets under the Cook County Feral Cat Ordinance.

Of the 55:

7? were relocated to safe farms. ? Thank you Safe House Barn Cats Program.
19 were surrendered for adoption to no-kill shelters. Thank you P.A.W.S. of Tinley Park and Felines and Canines Inc of Chicago.
5 were fostered by Triple R Pets? volunteers and adopted through PetFinder.
21 had to be returned to the house after receiving basic vet care including S/N surgery, but five of these are thought to be friendly and eligible for adoption.? These five will be removed from the house and taken to a shelter as soon as space is available.? The other cats remain feral and unadoptable.
3 had already died of unknown causes before volunteers could arrive.

All the cats have been given basic vet care including S/N surgery, and there will be no more kittens.

Thank you,