Indian Time - A Voice from the Eastern Door

By Jennifer Herne, LVT

If you didn't know by now, I am a cat person. I have met a lot of people who have taken in cats and dogs that just showed up at their home and became part of the family. But what about those cats that people toss out like trash; what about them? What about the ones outside right now, struggling for survival, searching for a warm place to sleep and scrounging for food wherever they can find it?

These cats, called community cats, are the product of irresponsible pet owners. People who just didn't know when their cat could have kittens or they couldn't afford to get the cats spayed before it went into heat to prevent unwanted litters. As a pet owner, don't be shy about asking questions about your pet, that is what responsible pet owners do, get information. First of all, I want to bring to attention that cats are a very prolific species, meaning they can have a lot of babies.

For the next few articles I will focus on our community cats. Lets start by defining what a community cat is; these are cats that are typically un-owned or semi-owned cats, comprised of both strays (lost and abandoned former pets who may be suitable for home environments) and ferals (extremely fearful of people and not welcoming of human attention making them unsuitable for home environment) who are the offspring of other feral or stray cats. Some community cats can be considered loosely owned, meaning concerned residents feed them, may provide some shelter in their homes or property but don't always identify the cats as their pets. Now, the people who take care of these cats, which are in groups called colonies, are colony caretakers. They put out food and sometimes the cats feel safe enough to let the caretakers handle them or not. This is the point where caretakers must employ some help with managing their colony by finding resources to help spay/neuter and vaccinate. We will continue next week on this topic; in the meantime call and let us know if you are a community cat colony caretaker, we are gathering information to help caretakers.