Home for the Holidays

It's that time of year again! The Community Cat Coalition (CCC) holds it's annual Home for the Holidays cat adoption event! Kathleen, our amazing outreach and fundraising organizer, somehow gets usage of an empty store front donated for us to use for the month leading up to Christmas! The CCC itself doesn't have any cats but part of it's mission is to help independent rescuers find homes for adoptable cats. These cats have been either tamed ferals or more than likely, abandoned or lost pets where their owners were not able to be found.

 

I love being around these amazing cat rescue people! The local community cats are very fortunate to have such kind, generous people who are willing to invest huge amounts of time, energy, and funds to make the cats' lives better.

Each of these cats are getting a second (or third, fourth...) chance at a forever home!

Paisley is a sweet, gorgeous, super friendly 3-year old girl!
She has a little white tip on the end of that luscious black tail!

 

Petunia is quite talkative and bold!

 

Winky lost an eye to a terrible infection, but she's ready for a home!

 

I'm always partial to little Oliver-like kitties!

Claire

Claire is 12-years old and she got adopted a few hours after I took her picture! Go Claire!!! I heard that on the first day of this year's event seven cats found their forever homes!

I'm grateful to not have any rescue kitties looking for homes this year. I love visiting this event but finding homes for my rescue cats is terribly stressful for me. I want each cat to find the most perfect home ever, so have to thoroughly interrogate each potential adopter. I'm happy to visit the Home for the Holidays adoption event and love on the kitties awaiting their new homes, oh and visiting with the people is fun too!

Home for the Holidays

It's that time of the year again, the time when I spend my weekends at the annual Home for the Holidays cat adoption event, hosted by the Community Cat Coalition. This year I have three cats who are looking for their forever homes.

This year we are in a different, much smaller space. The event organizer somehow gets prime vacant storefront space donated for us to use for the month of December. This year we actually have two store fronts, one for cats only and the other has dogs and santa photos.

the cat adoption space

My two cages

As usual, there are lots of cute kittens and adorable cats looking for their forever homes! It's hard not to take home more cats!! All the cats are rescues, usually from independent trappers doing TNR. The CCC hosts this annual event to give the independent trappers an additional avenue for placing rescued cats. 

These two siblings, Mork & Mindy captured my attention. They are shy and gorgeous! 

Mork

Mindy

Rollo - looks like Bert!

A basket full of love!

I need to build me a shelf like this!

I brought Bert, Tramp and his pal Patches. Tramp and Patches were the scaredy cats of the event. Tramp is timid, but poor Patches did her best to hide behind Tramp! These two are bonded and thus being adopted out together.

Tramp and Patches hiding under their blanket

 Over the course of the day, I slowly pulled the blanket back.

Tramp with Patches hiding behind him

Bert was totally chill. He was more bored than anything. It was nice finally having a cat that wasn't freaked out. The first year I did this event, I had Hershey and then last year it was the six kittens - all of which were terrified. This year, Bert, was a rock star!

By Sunday, Bert was quite bored!

Bert catching up on his sleep

Tramp did noticeably better the second day, he even allowed me to pet him without hissing!

Tramp loves!

I love Tramp's copper-collered eyes!

 And here is pretty Patches, she's adorable! and shy!

Tramp and Patches have become best buds

There were only a few adoptions over this weekend, but I was very pleased with how Tramp and Patches acclimated to the space. They will return next weekend as veterans and will present much better.

Gorgeous markings and oh so soft!

I am an introvert by nature, so going to these events is usually pretty draining for me. There are lots of people to talk with about their cats and what kind of cat they are looking for. I do like talking about cats, so that's a plus, but it's just a lot of being "on" and my day job, where I get to hear a lot of hard stories of people hurting people, requires that I be "on" all the time too. So, it was refreshing to come away from this weekend with a bunch of positive energy after meeting some amazingly awesome people.

Who knew Fourwhitepaws' cats had a fan club?! A few families who had come to last years event, searched to find the new location of this years event and surprised me! They love cats and wanted to stop in to check out the kitties and to visit me and hear updates on last years kittens. One couple last year had expressed interest in Felix (now known as Bear), but after talking more, we realized he wasn't the best fit for them at the time. Even though they didn't get the kitten that had captured their heart, they wanted to support my cat rescue work by gifting me with a generous donation and this year they gifted me with an even more generous donation. Wow! I learned they are faithful blog followers, as they knew all about Bert! (Hello - you know who you are! Thank you!! Thank you!!) Meeting such kindhearted, generous people really does a lot to restore my faith in humanity.

And the family that first adopted Felix and another kitten from last years event but ended up returning them after realizing they weren't really ready for kittens, also stopped by to visit me. The kids had really fallen in love with the kittens and have been asking about them all year, so the parents tracked down the location of this years event and hoped I might be there to give them an update! What fun! And again, some very kindhearted, lovely people. Kind, generous, fun cat-people rock!

Bert was happy to be home again after the event!

Even though none of my cats got adopted, it was a fun weekend of hanging out with a bunch of cat-loving people! I'll be back next weekend and maybe more kitties will find their forever homes!

rethinking the cat

The Humane Society of the United States has been hosting a symposium across the country called Rethinking The Cat. The event is being held in six cities across the US, with the next one being next Tuesday in Syracuse, NY. The last one will be held in the Seattle area in mid October. It's a free, all day event that has two tracks, Community Cats and Adoptable/Shelter Cats. It looks great!

The Lynnwood, WA one is very close to where I live, so I registered to go. A few days later, I was asked if I wanted to be the speaker to represent the Community Cat Coalition for the panel discussion section. So, now I'm one of the official speakers! I get 25-minutes to talk about the CCC's mission, successes and failures. Wowza!

After committing to do this, I started to wonder about who the other panel speakers are. I remembered something about a guy from the Audubon Society being on the panel, that made me nervous. So, I started to do a little research as to who the other two panel speakers are. Bob Sallinger is the Conservation Director of the Audubon Society of Portland, Oregon and Karen Kraus is the Excutive Director of the Feral Cat Coalition of Oregon.

I came across an article written jointly by both Bob and Karen in the Portland Tribune that really got me excited, as I think it embodies the mission of the CCC, Working Together to Find Solution To Cat, Bird Struggle - Portland Tribune - wow! I am so thrilled to see their shared vision for finding a solution when so many bird and cat advocacy groups are pitted against each other.

Most importantly, we agree that the real solution to these issues must focus on establishing a culture of more responsible pet ownership. Neither rounding up feral cats nor trap, neuter and return programs alone will be successful as long as there is a steady stream of new cats entering the environment on a daily basis. Focusing solely on feral cats misses the point - studies show that well-fed, free-roaming pet cats are just as likely to hunt wild birds as feral cats do, and somewhere in the lineage of every feral cat is an abandoned or unfixed pet. Real solutions need to focus on the root of the problem and that lies with pet owners.

By finding common ground, we can and will move ahead while other cities continue to disagree on how to help cats and wildlife. There are no perfect solutions, but when mired in arguing, there are no solutions at all.

- Bob Sallinger and Karen Kraus 

I so agree with where Bob and Karen are coming from. I like TNR as a short term solution to keep the feral cat population in check, but ultimately it's not the answer. The community cat puzzle will not be solved by TNR alone, as the feral cat problem is less about cats and more about irresponsible humans.

I'm honored to get to share the stage with two people who really understand the problem and want to work to find solutions more than they want to fight with each other. How awesome it will be to share about the Community Cat Coalition and what we are doing to help the cause.

Has anyone attended one of these symposiums? If so, please let me know what it was like.

Home for the Holidays

The Community Cat Coalition, is once again hosting, Home for the Holidays, a huge cat adoption event and fundraiser for three busy weekends before Christmas. The goal is to get kitties homes! We also invited some other rescue groups to share the space with us, so doggies are available too. Santa is even here, getting his picture taken with people and their critters!

These kittens are available for adoption!

Thanks to some very generous people we are in the same huge space as last year, which gives us great visibility!

In this picture, you can see the cat section, if I was to turn my head to the left and take a picture you would see a similar scene in the dog section. Weird how I didn't take any pictures of the dog section...

Here are my kittens! Notice there are only three signs hanging, that's because Ella found her new home earlier at this event!

Being non-stop cute is exhausting!

Ella and Felix enjoying some last cuddles together in the hammock.

Cuddles!

I'm helping find a home for B-Man, a large 9 year old boy. B-Man is a lover, he so loves to cuddle and be close, he's also FIV+. He was rescued from an abusive situation where his previous owner kept him outside and he repeatedly was attacked by an aggressive tomcat and required extensive medical treatment. Thankfully that horror is over now and he's now looking for a loving home, with people who will forever cherish him and rub his big tummy!

A full weekend of cats

What a glorious weekend we had, filled with hundreds of cats and cat people! This weekend was TICA's Annual International Cat Show. I learned a lot about TICA at the show, they are the largest cat registry in the world. I was very impressed that they support spay and neuter by allowing altered pedigreed cats and altered household pets to compete in their shows. Each have their own category. They even were handing out a nice brochure promoting spay and neuter of cats.

I took a lot of pictures, but I didn't want to use the flash, so some are a little blurry. I tried to just pick out a few to share that would give you a glimpse into this awesome event. This was by far the largest cat show I've attended, with 12 rings and close to 500 cats. Judges were from all over the world and people came from great distances to enter their cats.

The venue was very comfortable and pleasant.

Lots of great vendors as always. 

I found a travel bag that fits Nahum, more on that in a later post!

This judge is starting with Bengal kittens first thing in the morning, which are 

very noisy and rambunctious! He noted he would have no trouble staying awake!

I love seeing the judges enjoy the cats!

One of the things I enjoy about going to these shows is 

getting to see so many different cat breeds.

There were quite a few Norwegian Forest Cats in attendance as well as Maine Coons. 

Even a bunch of Siberians too. A fluffy cat convention!

The judge from Argentina, enjoying a Maine Coon kitten

cages full of Nahum look-alikes

This judge was awesome, she really liked to get up close and personal with each cat.

She concluded her assessment with a kiss!

Oliver's stand-in

A large Maine Coon

With so many Maine Coons, Norwegian Forest Cats and Siberians in attendance, we were able to fine tune our best guess about Nahum's lineage. After looking at a lot of fluffy cats and talking with their owners, in the end, we think that Nahum most resembles the Siberian. The female Siberians even look a lot like Willow, Nahum's cute little sister.

A female Siberian, who looks like a fluffy version of Willow! 

This girl was for sale, and I sure wanted to take her home!

Fluffy Siberian

The Siberian has a fluffy coat like Nahum, a broad nose and large boned legs.

This was such a wonderful show. Well organized and the great venue made it super comfortable. It was fun to see so many spectators enjoying the cats. The cats seemed to be having a good time too.

TICA generously provided a huge exhibit space to the Community Cat Coalition, the TNR education group I work with. A team of volunteers worked the space and educated a lot of people about the importance of TNR. TICA even offered a discount on show admission if people brought cat food to donate to the CCC's "feral barrels", food that goes to feral colonies around the area. A lot of feral cats will be well fed thanks to TICA's generosity. 

Some TNR'ed rescue cats were available for adoption, many of which competed in the Household Pet category of the show! A sweet black and white, Ambrosia, was a show favorite, she took home quite a few ribbons! Several of these cats even found their new forever homes!

And if that wasn't enough cats and cat people for a day, we went home after the show and made the final preparations for the second annual Community Cat Coalition Labor Day Party, a social we host for the volunteers of the CCC.

Our yard (Oliver's yard) is not very big, but it's big enough for a party!

food!

When the volunteers who were working the cat show arrived with the rescue cats, 

everyone flocked around the table to see the prize winning cats!

Those who stayed later got a special treat. They got to see Pierre firsthand!

Pierre doesn't seem phased by the visitors in his yard, 

as he goes about exploring the new furnishings.

A wonderful cat-filled weekend!! We were all exhausted by the time it was over. Thankfully, it was a long weekend for us. Monday was spent chilling with just our sweet kitties.