Peter and Parker’s story provides valuable lessons for wild and semi-wild rescue. A friend had been feeding them in her garden for 14 weeks. They played with her and let her get closer. I asked him to trap them so that I could save them from the harsh winter that was coming. At five months, socialization is a challenge. So please, if you see young kittens, rescue them to begin their socialization as quickly as possible.
With all the spitting, lunging, and trying to bite if your hand gets too close, it’s hard to know who’s scared and who’s really wild. Kittens five to eight weeks old are usually just scared and are fairly easy to socialize. Older kittens, 12 weeks to six months old, may take much longer – and it might never work. But, when I look into their eyes and feel like there’s an adorable kitten there – when I sense that they’re just petrified and unaccustomed to people or human contact – my instincts tell me who try my luck. And it was true…most of the time.
But all my efforts did not end in success. Unfortunately, I had to release two foster families who were rescued straight from the streets. I thought they had the potential to become friendly, but after working many hours with them, hoping they would enjoy being house cats, it pained me to see they had no tolerance towards humans. It’s hard to realize that some cats prefer to live outside and that the kindest thing to do is to respect who they are and release them. It’s not something I take lightly. I’m asking my cat expert friends for advice to help me with this decision. Dorit Shani, a feline behaviorist at Animal League America, is someone I contact frequently with many questions regarding the more “tricky” ones. Thank you, Dorit, for your advice, expertise, and encouragement that has helped me help so many people!
Even though these two kittens were my only direct experience with TNVR — which stands for Trap, Neuter, Vaccinate, and Return — I really appreciate how valuable this practice is for managing community cat colonies… which I leave to d other passionate rescuers! Animal League America supports TNVR in a variety of ways, including through its SpayUnited States program, which provides sterilization subsidies to individuals across the country. We also save many lives through our work in the Adirondack region of upstate New York. Likewise, our Community Outreach Program, designed for residents in and around the local Port Washington, NY community, offers items such as equipment rentals, in-person training, housing low-cost wildlife, a food bank and educational materials. Learn more about animalleague.org/CommunityOutreach.
Community cat caregivers are heroes. They work very hard and rarely get the thanks they deserve. But I’m sure they feel immense personal satisfaction, and I imagine that, like everyone involved in the rescue, they feel the “rescue euphoria”, that exhilarating feeling that volunteers feel when they realize that they made a difference.
I talked about “helping euphoria” in my April blog, and now, six months later, I have to mention its opposite, “compassion fatigue,” something I’ve been feeling a lot lately time.
Every day I face the reality: I can’t save them all. Howard thinks it’s costing me a lot these days, so much so that I wake up in the middle of the night worrying about all the cats and kittens I can’t save. What hurts me the most are the daily emails I receive from people abandoning their pets or from neighbors asking for help for pets who were abandoned when their family moved. This happens every day. And now, as winter approaches, sadness overcomes me. The shelters are full and there is nowhere to go. And I’m so sad and frustrated. Still, we do the best we can, and I have to remember that while I personally don’t solve the problem of homeless animals, I am changing the lives of those I can.
A little being whose story will always inspire me is Delores. Before coming to me, this gentle soul spent the first 14 years of his precious life in the dark, dirty cellar of a bodega. Not surprisingly, she had a lot of problems due to poor diet and lack of medical care and needed various medications and a lot of attention. Six months later, Delores is today in her loving forever home, adopted on October 8th. It was a privilege to love her, care for her, and help her grow into the comfortable, happy, playful cat that nature intended her to be. Our journey together may be over, but I think we will always remember each other.