Community Cat Movement The Educational Wing Of Community Cats United, Inc
January is
International
Community Cat Movement Month
Steps for Successfully Going “No Kill”
The following is the “No Kill Equation”, which is described in further detail by Nathan Winograd in his book “Redemption”.
1. Feral Cat TNVR Program – TNVR most commonly stands for “Trap, Neuter, Vaccinate, Return”. This is the only proven method for lowering the numbers of feral/unowned cats in an area. Using TNR effectively sterilizes the cat colony. The current and more widely used way to deal with the feral/unowned cat population is to “catch and kill” them. This means they are not “adoptable” due to their lack of interaction with people, and so, they are killed rather than altered and allowed to live out their lives. We believe that even though these cats are not “adoptable” they should be allowed to live because TNVR actually succeeds in lowering the population and these cats can live long, happy and healthy lives if left to do so after being altered.
2. High-Volume, Low-Cost Spay/Neuter – Quality of Life Issue – Low cost, high volume spay/neuter will quickly lead to fewer animals entering the shelter system, allowing more resources to be allocated toward saving lives.
3. Rescue Groups – An adoption or transfer to a rescue group frees up scarce cage and kennel space, reduces expenses for feeding, cleaning, killing, and improves a community’s rate of lifesaving. In an environment of millions of dogs and cats killed in shelters annually, rare is the circumstance in which a rescue group should be denied an animal.
4. Foster Care – Volunteer foster care is crucial to No Kill. Without it, saving lives is compromised. It is a low cost, and often no cost, way of increasing a shelter’s capacity, improving public relations, increasing a shelter’s public image, rehabilitating sick and injured or behaviorally challenged animals, and saving lives.
5. Comprehensive Adoption Programs – Quality of Life Issue – Adoptions are vital to an agency’s lifesaving mission. The quantity and quality of shelter adoptions is in shelter management’s hands, making lifesaving a direct function of shelter policies and practice.
6. Pet Retention – Quality of Life Issue – Saving animals requires communities to develop innovative strategies for keeping people and their companion animals together. The more a community sees its shelters as a place to turn for advice and assistance, the easier this job will be.
7. Medical and Behavior Programs – Quality of Life Issue – The shelter must put in place comprehensive vaccination, handling, cleaning, socialization, and care policies before animals get sick and rehabilitative efforts for those who come in sick, injured, unweaned, or traumatized.
8. Public Relations/Community Involvement – Increasing adoptions, maximizing donations, recruiting volunteers and partnering with community agencies comes down to one thing: increasing the shelter’s exposure. Public relations and marketing are the foundation of a shelter’s activities and their success. To go No-Kill, the shelter must be in the public eye.
9. Volunteers – Quality of Life Issue – Volunteers are a dedicated “army of compassion” and the backbone of a successful No Kill effort. There is never enough staff, never enough dollars to hire more staff, and always more needs than paid human resources. That is where volunteers come in and make the difference between success and failure and, for the animals, life and death.
10. Proactive Redemptions – Quality of Life Issue – One of the most overlooked areas for reducing killing in animal control shelters are lost animal reclaims. Sadly, besides having pet owners fill out a lost pet report, very little effort is made in this area of shelter operations. This is unfortunate because doing so—primarily shifting from passive to a more proactive approach—has proven to have a significant impact on lifesaving and allow shelters to return a large percentage of lost animals to their families as well as garner more public support and backing for the shelter.
11. A Compassionate Director – A hard working, compassionate animal control or shelter director not content to regurgitate tired clichés or hide behind the myth of “too many animals, not enough homes.”
Here are a few of the areas we will explore this month:
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How TNVR reduces kill rates at shelter
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Where did all these cats come from
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Real reasons for bird population declines
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Vacuum effect
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Rabies
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Major animal groups positions on TNVR
Welcome to the Community Cat Movement!
The vast majority of the people in the Unites States have no idea what trap-neuter-return (TNR) or trap-neuter-vaccinate-return (TNVR) is. If you are one, don't feel alone! This project is a monthly celebration of some aspect of TNR and TNVR so that everyone can gain a better understanding. This is so important if we want to save the lives of our companion animals and stop their being killed.
January kicks off this educational effort to bring mainstream the plight of our community cats and the need for your support to change things for them.
We have a proven method that humanely adrdresses the issues with community cats - TNR or TNVR. They are both the same thing. We will refer to it as TNVR here.
TNVR is the process whereby community cats are spayed or neutered AND vaccinated before being returned to their habitats.
To start this discussion, everyone needs to understand what it means when we refer to community cats. A community cat can be feral, semi-feral or friendly. They are also called unowned, homeless, street cats and free-roaming.
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A feral cat is unsocialized and fearful of people, which makes him a poor candidate for adoption.
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A semi-feral exhibits characteristics of both feral and friendly.
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A friendly once lived in a home, but was lost or abandoned and forced to survive on his own. Friendly cats can usually be quickly re-socialized and adopted, if homes are available.
Depending on what type of cat it is will determine where the cat is placed following desexing surgery. If a cat is a friendly, the cat will be placed with a rescuer/foster to be adopted. If the cat is feral, the cat will be returned to its habitat and watched over by a caretaker - a cat lover that pays for food and medical care usually out of their own pockets.
During the spay/neuter surgery, which is performed by a highly-skilled and licensed veterinarian, one of the ears is tipped to indicate this cat has been TNR'd. If this cat is trapped again, it will be released because it has already been desexed. During the course of the year, we will discuss the entire process in detail. At this point, it is important that you understand that TNVR is an involved undertaking that requires a team effort to succeed, it is a humane solution to community cat issue and it saves lives. And almost all of this is done by volunteers!
As much as we would all love to see every cat have a safe and loving home, this is not reality. Lost cats and the abandonment of other cats by humans created this problem. Humans therefore must be the humane solution. Won't you join us?
