| Help needed! |
[Sep. 17th, 2010|12:44 pm] |
We are up for renewal on our conditional use permit (CUP) which is required to operate an animal shelter on our property. We presently have a Commercial Animal Facility permit that allows us 90 cats. The cost is $805 plus expenses, so we are requesting donations to help with that.
We are also fast approaching the winter season with its wind and rain. Three of our catteries have no roofs. They were damaged or destroyed last winter and tarps were ineffective in keeping the catteries dry. We are requesting donations of materials, labor or money to roof these catteries with polycarbon panels and wood support.
Any help you may be able to give would be appreciated.
We are happy to report that adoptions are picking up now that summer is over. We were only doing one or none over the summer, but the past few weekends it has been four and three to very good homes. We've been focusing on our kittens - two to six months with some younger still in foster care w/mom. |
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| Change is good |
[Aug. 17th, 2010|12:38 am] |
There have been many changes at Cause 4 Cats, the most important being a reduction in the number of cats we house at our shelter. Our population had grown to over 200, and our conditional use permit (CUP) only allowed for 150. We have been required by Animal Control to reduce that number to 85. Therefore, we voluntarily worked with Kern County Animal Control and the Humane Society of the U.S. to have cats moved to other agencies. This was a very positive outcome for both the cats and for us.
If you have seen the program on Animal Planet, I want you to know that we were assured throughout the filming that it would not be presented the way it was. We went to them for help because we wanted to reduce the number of cats in our care and we did not want our local Animal Control to take the cats and destroy them. We were deceived with promises we would not be put in the light of hoarders (which we are not), had to sign releases which gave us no rights as to the final presentation. When editing was done, many comments were taken out of context. The program also implied that the cats were all housed in our home, which was not true. We have 9 outside catteries on the property. We are furious with Animal Planet, but can't do anything about it. However, we are grateful that many people have been kind and generous with expressions of support and some donations.
We are still facing a number of financial challenges. First our CUP is up for renewal and that fee starts and $805 plus county administrative costs. Additionally, we have to roof three catteries before winter. We lost the roof of one to high winds last winter, and in reworking a large cattery into 2 smaller ones to satisfy code compliance, we had to remove the solid (but leaking) roof there. So we really need some financial help for labor and materials if we can't get those donated. It seems in the current economic environment any donations have tightened up.
We appreciate your time reading this and any help you can give.
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| It's time to catch up! |
[Apr. 27th, 2009|01:16 am] |
It has been much too long since I posted to our journal. I apologize for the long absence and will be more faithful to this communication.
Our efforts to help cats in need has expanded greatly in the past two years, and we also do as much as we can for dogs. We do business as Cause 4 Cats, Cause 4 Cats & Dogs, Just Cats Rescue and Cause 4 Cats of Bakersfield. Between all our rescuers, fosters, and our shelter in Lebec, we care for over 400 cats, 30 dogs and feed hundreds of ferals on the streets of Bakersfield and the San Fernando Valley. This is a huge responsibility and expense, so we are always struggling to find ways to cover vet expenses and buy food and supplies. We are very grateful that our cat litter is donated by two major manufacturers with facilities in Taft, about an hour drive from us.
We welcome any suggestions you might have for fund-raising or getting cat and dog food donations. We do have a limited number of volunteers, all involved in care of the cats, so our fund-raising efforts are very limited. We are grateful that Petco, where we show cats and dogs for adoption (on Gosford Rd in Bakersfield and in Burbank, Northridge and Porter Ranch in the the San Fernando Valley), has been generous in its support of our efforts. We also have been most appreciative of grants from the Amaturo Foundation, Hank and Mary Jo Greenberg Animal Welfare Foundation and Pine Mountain Club's Wine in the Pines event.
There are several individuals and couples who have been loyal in their support and we'd like to thank them for all the help they provide us. We don't know what we'd do without the monthly financial donations from Tom Dysart, Carole Ellis, Gary and Connie Exner, Richard and Carol Johnson, Connie Magee, Rosie Milewski, Ed and Patricia Pifer, Bob and Bonnie Reiling, Crystal Wada. And a huge thank you to Jim and Elaine Brock and Del who have come to our rescue financially when times were especially tough. Richard and Renee Beal and Sarah Handley have come bearing gifts of badly needed bags of food and cat litter (when we were having to purchase it), even buying and installing a new dishwasher when the one we had broke down.
Not enough expressions of gratitude can be heaped upon the volunteers that help us keep our sanity in caring for 200 cats in Lebec. We are at the max allowed by our Kern County CUP; and honestly, I'm very glad we aren't allowed to have more. Whew, this is a lot of work and money!!! Rosie Milewski faithfully comes six days a week to clean litter boxes. She is definitely volunteer extraordinaire! Richard Beal and his niece Sarah Handley come on Thursdays and Sundays to take trash to the transfer station (dump) and tend to whatever needs to be done. Richard is "Mr. Fix-it", and are we ever glad of that! Richard's wife Renee comes along as often as her health permits, so they truly have made their service to Cause 4 Cats a family affair. Richard LOVES to cook and is teaching Sarah all his secrets, so we are often treated to generous portions of great food. Marju Pratt is a regular 0on Wednesday afternoons to answer phones and provide a lap and lots of love, attention and pets for all the kitties that come to her. Marju walks with a cane and great difficulty, but we can count on her showing up about 11:30 am to tackle the stairs from the street to the house. She is one dedicated, determined lady. Bonnie Reiling and Connie Magee are delightful company for us and the cats when they come on Wednesday or Friday mornings. Beside the fact they love the cats and are such a great help, they also bring us all sorts of goodies - sandwiches from home or Jack In The Box or Subway, donuts, macaroni salad, dinner plates, muffins, cookies, chocolates, etc.
"Thank you" seems so insufficient when considering all that these cat lovers have done financially, physically, psychologically, and emotionally for Cause 4 Cats. We can't go forward without them.
Just a quick personal update to conclude this catch up. Russ is in the hospital as I (Lolette) write this. He's recovering from the fourth surgery for a broken ankle in May of 2006. This makes me realize why my posting to the journal was interrupted. That accident was the first of major challenges for us. (Please see previous posting) When I injured my back and was put on permanent disability our income greatly impacted - a major source of funds for C4C. This has put both of us under tremendous stress trying to make ends meet financially and get things done around here when both of us have physical limitations. Russ, a Vietnam vet, continues long-term treatment for PTSD which has handicapped him mentally as well.
Fortunately, we have great love for the cats we work with and find the love they give in return most rewarding. Each adoption we do brings true satisfaction that our mission has been accomplished for that individual cat. And when one of the feral cats we've taken stops running away, allows us to approach, and suddenly welcomes the touch of our hand, a stroke, and even responds with a purr.... there is no greater sense of accomplishment in making a new feline friend.
This is what keeps us going, and your support, encouragement, assistance in any way will, too. Thanks for taking the time to read this. We hope to hear from you. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 9th, 2006|04:04 am] |
It has been several months since I have posted anything to our journal, and the information below will help you understand why. I will try to keep this more current going forward.
I am posting this special plea concerning Cause 4 Cats, Inc., a non-profit corporation that has been serving the mountain communities of Frazier Park, Lebec, Pine Mountain Club, Lake of the Woods, Lockwood Valley and Gorman for 2 years providing assistance and information for low-cost spay/neuter, transporting pets as needed and providing shelter for stray cats. We’ve also assisted in trapping feral cats, sterilizing them and either returning them to their original location if the people were willing to feed and look after them, or admitting them to one of our catteries if no caretaker was available. We have helped s/n hundreds of cats and dozens of dogs. We presently have about 150 cats and kittens in 7 catteries and our home, with plans to install one more cattery for feral cats.
Several things have happened in the past few months that threaten our ability to continue this work. We are in urgent need of help from the community to continue.
We have had physical challenges. Russ, the primary cat caretaker, broke his ankle in May. It is not healing properly and he is limited in what he can do. I took a leave of absence from my job (unpaid) to care for him and fill in as primary cat caretaker. Starting Sept 21, I spent the two weeks flat on my back with a bulging disk and sciatica. We finally have found a combination of medication that allows me some mobility, but I am very limited in what I can do as well. We need volunteers from the community to help feed and cleanup.
Financial challenges have also arisen. Much of my salary went to pay expenses for the cats. When I stopped working, a main source of funding for the cats was lost. (My part time job was eliminated while I was on leave. When I was ready to go back to work, I was not able to accept the full time position they had created in its place. Russ is not able to do as much as he did before and with a 2-1/2 hour round trip commute, a full-time job is too much for me to manage.)
The yard sales in summer of 2005 had contributed greatly to meeting our expenses, but the few we had this year in July and August did not do as well as in the past. A complaint was filed with Kern County about our continuing yard sale on our driveway, so we were ordered to stop it. Moving it to new locations was overwhelming so we finally discontinued the sales in September. We have not been able to find a good, affordable thrift store location as a means to continue our fundraising in this way.
We are behind in our payments to suppliers for food and litter for the cats, as well as for veterinary care. Because of this, we have had to stop taking in any other cats or kittens, yet we still have people leaving them in boxes or carriers on our driveway. Of course, no money for their support is ever included.
Now, someone has complained to the county about the business we are conducting on residential property, so we have to apply for a conditional use permit at a cost of almost $1,500. Our application for this permit must be well supported by the community to continue the work that we do. Moving the cats here to other areas would be impossible; all the rescues are over their limit. Euthanizing the cats is unthinkable.
Please, will you come to our aid? We need money to pay the expenses. We need workers to help with the cats. And we need you to show your support for us to get this conditional use permit approved by writing our County Supervisor Ray Watson. He can be emailed at district4@co.kern.ca.us or contacted by mail at 1115 Truxton Avenue, Suite 504, Bakersfield, CA 93301. His phone # is (661) 868-3680 and Fax: (661) 868-3688. His staff representative for our communities is Christy Fitzgerald.
Please help us continue to help abandoned, unwanted animals. We must have your support to continue this work. Unlike Shelter on the Hill (another organization in our area that has collected money for 15 years and does nothing to help animals), Cause 4 Cats isn’t building up donations in a quarter-million dollar bank account; we are spending every penny and then some to take care of cats and dogs in need NOW. No other organization or large corporation is helping us. We are depending on the compassion and generosity of individuals in the community to enable us to continue to provide this service to our community. We are counting on you!
For more information, please call 661-248-0299. Donations can mailed to PO Box 488, Lebec, CA 93243 or through PayPal (see the button below).
Thanks to all whose hearts move them to help animals NOW. God bless you!
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| Kittens, kittens everywhere |
[Apr. 27th, 2006|09:51 pm] |
Right now, in addition to our regular family of about 150 cats, we are caring for:
4 stray cats with litters of 3-6 kittens
2 feral cats, one with 6 kittens and one with 5
A litter of 6 feral kittens we are taming
3 kittens from a "FREE KITTENS" ad that have URI and diarrhea which we've put on medication so they can be placed (we will see mom is spayed at owner expense when her milk dries up plus her 3 other cats)
4 bottle babies now 3 weeks old
1 bottle baby 5 weeks old in foster care (Boots, below). Sadly, Peaches did not survive after all.
That's a total of 43 kittens one week to 9 weeks old and we have requests for help for at least 5 more moms with litters, and a very pregnant stray. So we are lining up other groups to help place all as they reach adoptable age.
We are celebrating the adoption of two adult kitties this week, Molly and Randy, and Hayley (a found dog in foster care) was adopted last weekend. We have a new dog in foster care, a corgi mix. I'm waiting for a picture to share with you.
We want you to know how much your help means to us. Your kindness and that of people like you is helping Cause 4 Cats tremendously as we struggle to pay vet expenses and buy the food, litter and supplies we need. We are very grateful for your support. Your donations enable us to continue our work to help cats in need. Thanks for helping us help the kitties.
I'll be adding photos to this over this coming weekend.
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 9th, 2006|06:47 pm] |
Earlier in this journal we spoke of Mocha, a dog who was in foster care for some time. We are happy to announce that she has found a home, as has Arabesque - another dog in foster care.
Ramsey (the Persian in the tree) went home, and Rambo's 3 brothers were transferred to a great group for adoption. Rambo's mom will be going back home this week now that she has been spayed.
Seven cats were sterilized this week and returned to Pumpkin Center. They were happy to get home!
We are still very much in need of help to cover expenses, especially vet bills. Our appeal for funds for Queenie's treatment paid for about half of what was incurred, and there are several other cats that we helped that week that had serious treatment. If you can give us assistance in any amount it would be most appreciated!
Thanks for visiting.
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| A 4 Day Weekend - No Vacation! |
[Apr. 5th, 2006|04:00 am] |
About a month ago I requested March 31st and April 3 as days off. Figured I really needed a 4-day weekend to do some serious cleaning that NEVER seems to get done in the normal course of a week. Then arrived a requested grant application in the mail, so my cleaning project was put on hold and the weekend would be devoted to applying for some very badly needed funds.
Then came a call mid-week from a 73 year old lady, Liz, that lives 30 miles away in a tiny little community called Pumpkin Center. She had called us last November begging for help with 3 litters of kittens - three 12-weeks old, four 9-weeks old and five 7-weeks old. She had called EVERY WHERE and no one would help. She didn't want to just let them loose to be wild, but she had liver disease, her health was up and down, and she could not keep them. So we said she could bring them to us and we'd get them placed. With the help of Cindy Holloway who took 5 to Ventura, and the Cat Connection, happily every single one went to a home.
However, what about the mom cats? Well, there was supposed to be some follow up from our end, but the ball got dropped over the months. So last week guess who calls, with an urgent plea? There were lots of pregnant cats running around the property and kittens were on there way any day. Russ was swamped, so we asked Patrice to follow up with this. Well, Friday morning Liz called again, and the story was tragic. One of the mom cats was found dead in the garden. Apparently a kitten was breach and she couldn't deliver. She died an agonizing death, and of course, so did the babies. So Russ and I packed up our traps, gloves, net and headed up to Pumpkin Center. So much for plans.
We were pretty successful, but didn't get every cat that needed catching. We temporarily are holding 7 males and 3 females. Of the females, one Liz already had in a carrier - what a sweet little tabby cat whose kittens will be here any minute. The other two moms were trapped and they and their babies (one litter of 5 and one litter of 6) are safely contained here where mom can be spayed as soon as the kittens are weaned. There are two pregnant cats still uncaught, two mom cats with new litters the whereabouts of which are not known, and one female, a Siamese named MingMing who is very smart and not cooperating with the trapping process one bit. Over the next two days the males will be neutered and returned to their home territory by the end of the week.
We had a couple more unexpected complications. First, Pam called Saturday and was very concerned about the bottle babies she had. So Russ picked them up and brought them home. One had not grown at all in 5 days of care, but the other had doubled in size. The little one that had not grown had very swollen lymph nodes and did not survive the night, but the other is doing fine with treatment for diarrhea and conjunctivitis. His eyes have now opened completely and he's eating well. Pam had called the pair Puss and Boots - the surviving kitten, Boots, is black with white toes.
Next, Rambo's brother Raymond developed a fever just over 105 degrees. So I separated him from Mom and his brothers and started him on Clavamox and fluids, and fed him watered down baby food with a syringe for two days. The fever broke, he started eating again, and he was reunited with the family last night, when I needed to clear the cage for Scooter who developed a terrible diarrhea. She went into the vet today with Ramona who was trapped out in PMC a little over a week ago. Dr. Makkar didn't have time to see Ramona last week. Fortunately, she was just a few weeks pregnant and was spayed. Both Scooter and Ramona will come home from the vet tomorrow.
Monday I noticed one of the litter of 6 from Pumpkin Center was not doing well. He was congested, struggling to breathe, separated from the others, obviously not nursing. So we started him on a tiny dose of Clavamox and fluids and syringe feeding. I honestly didn't think he was going to survive, but I was very happily surprised. Today he is doing 100% better and once he poops, he should be able to be returned to the litter.
 
We saved a lot of lives this weekend.... Particularly all the kittens that will NOT be born at Pumpkin Center. There is a lot of work to be done in the area. Liz is a cat lover and has cared for those wandering into her property, but just down the road and across Hwy 119 we observed a lot of teenage cats that are not doing so well. We'll see if we can get some help in there, as it's a project we can't take on alone.
So goes a 4-day weekend at Cause 4 Cats!
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| A Kitchen - not for cooking |
[Mar. 29th, 2006|03:24 am] |
We remodeled our house in 1997 - added a bay window in the kitchen, opened up a wall and added a dining room. All new cabinets and appliances. A DREAM KITCHEN. This is the reason I no longer cook in it:
 
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| A Quiet(?) Sunday Afternoon |
[Mar. 27th, 2006|04:40 am] |
It started out as a normal Sunday afternoon. That didn't last long.
First came a call about a cat in a tree. Been there 2 days. We said we'd check later to see if he came down on his own.
Next came a call that had two parts:
A friend called a friend (Michelle) who called us. There was a goose at the park that had been injured - was bleeding from the neck. Referred this one to Cindy Holloway
Another friend called Michelle about their dog, in a fenced yard, who sustained some kind of injury to the back. She had referred them to a vet she uses in Bakersfield, but wondered who we used as an emergency vet. I gave the info for Beverly Oaks. Made it clear they could say we referred them in and I could arrange that they'd benefit from our discount, but they would have to pay the bill.
About 10 minutes later, Michelle called back. Her friends had already left for the vet in Bakersfield. Cindy Holloway was in bed with the flu. Everyone she suggested (county) had already been tried and not available. (Sunday afternoon, of course the county doesn't have anyone to respond.)
So we said we'd go up to the park and check it out, but we could NOT drive a goose to a vet. Too much work to do here. We spent the next 1/2 hour calling vets and finally found one in S. Pasadena that would treat a goose. Then we tried a few friends and Tom said he'd help catch it and Robin found Theresa who was willing to drive the goose down.
Well, we went to the park. Walked all around, talked to people who were feeding geese and nobody was aware of an injured goose. After a double check of visible waterfowl, we concluded we were on a wild goose chase.
So Russ and I went over to the FP water tower on Elm Trail to check on the cat in the tree, hoping it was no longer there. Well, there it was, up in a dead oak tree with a typical Persian scowl that made it clear he was not happy in his situation.
Russ went to fetch Tom and an extension ladder, and Lolette tried climbing the tree a ways up. She coaxed and cajoled but the scowl continued and the cat didn't move.
Russ and Tom returned with the ladder, and in their attempts to get it placed, Mr. Kitty moved even farther out on the limb. So the ladder was placed at the base of an adjacent tree and Lolette tried prodding Mr. Kitty down the limb.
He did move down to the trunk, but when faced with a choice to go down (correct) or up (incorrect), he made the wrong choice and headed up, up, up as high as he could go into a tangle of small branches at the very top. This was not good.
So Lolette drove home to Lebec to fetch an extension pole and some canned cat food and a jacket because as the afternoon wore on, it was getting pretty chilly. On her return, the can of food was attached with a zip tie to the end of the pole, the ladder was repositioned at the base of the tree, and up Tom went to offer the food and hopefully coax Mr. Kitty to come down.
Nope, he wasn't budging. Well, not wanting to give up, Lolette then climbed the ladder with the can of food at the end of the pole. Nope, he still wasn't budging. So down came the pole, off came the can of cat food, and a catch pole was zip tied to the extension pole. Lolette reclimbed the ladder, even higher this time, and finally got the loop around Mr. Kitty's neck. He was guided as gently as possible down the branches to the trunk and finally into the firm grasp of his rescuer, who made her way down the ladder with Mr. Kitty tucked securely under her arm.
Mr. Kitty (we're calling him Ramsey as we are now in the "R"s) is now safe at Cause 4 Cats as we look for his family.
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| Queenie |
[Mar. 23rd, 2006|10:10 pm] |
On March 9th I received a call from a rescue friend about a feral cat that had been trapped. The plan had been to spay and release her into a colony, but there were complications. It was discovered she was in the final term of pregnancy and had come down with URI. I agreed to help by providing a safe place for her to regain her health and have the babies.
When she was brought to me that evening, I immediately took her to Beverly Oaks to have her checked out. It turned out to be worse than suspected. The little Siamese mix we decided to call Queenie, not only had URI, someone apparently had used a come-along on her so severely that her neck was badly bruised and her throat had swollen shut. She was gagging frequently. She wasn't able to eat, she was having trouble breathing. Had she not been brought to the vet, she would have most likely died the next day. She had a rough time of it, but a feeding tube was inserted and she started making a little improvement each day to the point where she left the hospital after 5 days to come home with us.
All the handling turned Queenie into a little sweetheart who was now responding affectionately to our touch and even purring. She was doing well, regaining her strength, and even though this was the first time we had to care for a kitty being fed through a tube, all was going very smoothly. She'd roll over to have her bulging belly rubbed and here and there one could feel a kitten's head pushing against the skin. But yesterday (March 21) brought a crisis.
When Russ was feeding her at about 8 pm he noticed something a little strange at her bottom.... It was a little dark tail of a kitten.
We were hoping for at least another week before the kittens came - she was so weak yet and still had a runny nose from upper respiratory. Unfortunately, we did not get more time.
Russ took her to Beverly Oaks where they did two xrays and found five kittens. One kitten, the largest, was positioned backward and across the birth channel. Cesarian section was the only way any of the kittens and the mom would possibly be saved, though surgery was extremely risky because of Queenie's weak condition and URI.
About 12:30 am surgery was over. One kitten was not fully formed and did not survive. Two were very small, two were more normal in size. We got a glimpse of the kittens, Queenie was still being worked on by the vet to bring her out of anesthesia when we left.
When we got home we picked up where Russ had left off feeding cats and cleaning litter boxes. We finished a little before 4 am and I called Beverly Oaks to check on Queenie.
They had just stopped working on her.... Queenie did not make it. She never fully pulled out of the anesthesia. The two smaller kittens died later that afternoon and one of the techs at the hopital took the 2 survivors home with her. The kittens are fragile - I hope she can help them survive. Queenie will be buried on our property.
We tried so hard to save that sweet little cat who would have made someone a loving companion. There wasn't anything feral about her any longer. It is such a shame she was so mistreated before she came into our care. It is hardly comforting to know the last week of her life she had more love than in her entire lifetime.
Our total vet expense for last night was projected to be about $1,100; that's on top of last week's charges for Queenie's hospitalization of $1,300 and another $4,000 for other emergencies that have occurred in the past 2 months - most of them strays found starving, injured or ill. (You can read about Pamela Rae on our Live Journal - a link is on our website www.cause4cats.org - I haven't even had time to write about the others.)
If we don't get more help financially, there is no way we can continue to try to save these little animals in need of emergency vet care. There is no other help available to them - they will suffer and die. Our personal resources are drained and our application for a 501(c)(3) which will enable us to seek grants and other major assistance is still buried at the IRS. We filed it last August.
If you can help at all, or can pass the word to someone who can, we'd really appreciate it. Thanks for taking the time to care enough to read this through.
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