By Diane Fraser - January 2002
I received a call from a store
owner on Las Olas Blvd, here in Fort Lauderdale. She rescued
a Mommy
cat with 4 kittens from the roof of a building and didn’t
know what to do. She didn’t want to see them euthanized,
because this is what happens with stray pets and their offspring
when the shelters are full. I advised that the best thing to
do would be for her to take care of the Mommy cat and her kittens
and to find homes for them. Reluctantly, she did. Time passed
and she found great homes for all of the kittens…including
the one she adopted herself. The Mommy cat, now lovingly named
Lizzy, is now the stores mascot. Lizzy was spayed after raising
her kittens and is now living “the life.” She called
me to tell me what a gratifying experience it was for her to
get involved and change the lives of these abandoned pets.
She noticed that there was another female cat that was living
in the area and thought she may have just had a littler. We
searched and found her three kittens living in the bushes.
We rescued her kittens. Needless to say, the kittens were not
happy about a human plucking them out of their environment.
We tried to capture her, but she was “on to us!” We
needed to trap her and get her spayed. She was very trap resistant.
It took almost a year of trying (on and off) but I finally
caught her. This is how we did it. She had “another” litter
during the worst week possible. It was going to be the coldest
night ever recorded in South Florida. So, I had to move smart
and fast. I knew the kittens were only a few days old, and
would not survive the cold of the night. I borrowed a ladder
from a neighbor. I climbed onto the second story balcony of
the building where I heard she was keeping her kittens. There
she was, nursing her babies like a good Mommy. I had to get
her away from her kittens, so I could take them and use them
to lure her into the trap. She reluctantly moved away and we
scooped up her three beautiful kittens. I placed them in a
have-a-heart trap, wrapped in a towel and put a blanket over
most of the trap to block the wind. I waited, and waited. I
checked the trap a few hours later…no Mommy. I went back
and thought, “okay, if I don’t have the Mommy,
then I have to take the babies and get them out of the cold.” Well,
I got lucky, at 10pm I checked the trap, and I was pleasantly
surprised that she was in the trap nursing her newborn kittens
and keeping them warm. SUCCESS!!!
I got them down from the second story and into my truck. I
wrapped them up in a thick comforter to block the cold. They
were going to be in the trap for the night. I put them in my
garage with a heating pad under the trap and still wrapped
in the comforter. I had to make the decision to commit to bottle-feed
these kittens for the next 3 weeks or so. There is no way that
I could keep a feral cat for 2-3 weeks and be able to properly
care for her without her hurting me, her kittens or herself.
So, the next morning I got her to the clinic to be spayed and
I subsequently returned her to the colony. Now, she is back
where she grew up. She can live her life, eating shrimp (that
she is fed from the restaurants) and hanging round with the
rest of the cats in her colony.
So, I cared for, and found wonderful homes for Miso, Millie
and Mollie, her final litter.
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