Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Barn Cats


By Romy Maimon, Examiner


Loving homes come in all forms, especially for cats that are saved from difficult situations and are not overly comfortable living so close to a human.
In these cases, a good home can come in the form of a barn or other similar set-up. A place where they will be well taken care of, but not forced to cuddle or act like a house-cat.
But, as with regular adoptions, these type of homes are often very hard to come by as one Virginia cat rescue has learned. King Street Cats is a no-kill cat rescue and is not usually able to assist the public with rescue of feral or semi-feral cats, but lent their support to a situation over the summer that resulted in several such type of cats in desperate need of relocation.
"We were very fortunate that one of our volunteers knows some folks with horse farms and we were able to talk with them about the possibility of re-homing a few of these cats there. They understood that they would need to keep them indoors for 3 weeks with food, water and litter boxes before letting them out. Thereafter, they would need to provide them with food and shelter and take care of them to the extent that the cats would allow. They were incredibly receptive to the idea of helping relocate city kitties to the countryside and employing spayed/neutered and vaccinated “green pest control” agents. We’ve been lucky enough to witness the transport of cats that, in one case had been shot on the streets and barely survived, to beautiful farms in Virginia and Pennsylvania.
However, we soon realized that there is always more need than there are barns available so we are continuing to put out the call. While not all semi/feral streets cats need relocating and they are being taken care of by dedicated people right where they are, sadly there are some cats living in danger on the streets and we need to get them to a safer environment, where they have food and shelter in a safe haven before winter sets in."
There is no doubt that this need is immense no matter where you are in this country, and there are people who may not know that they can help in this way. The more it is shared, the more lives saved.
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