Pam's TNR Blog

Pam's TNR Blog N0. 1 - Week of 7/19/09








7/19/09
It's been a busy week. Suzie and I trapped last Saturday night at a trailer park in S. Phoenix in a dust storm. We trapped 22 cats plus 7 cats overnight for a total of 29 cats. An Arizona Republic reporter and photographer were with us gathering information for a future article on the S/N Hotline and our TNR program. Cats were fixed the next day at the N. Phoenix S/N Clinic where the SNH spayed and neutered at total of 51 cats. That night we aftercared these and a couple other colonies in my garage. My garage is cooled in the summer and this time of year it gets a lot of use as many caregivers have no place to aftercare cats. All cats must be fed and watered later in the evening once they recover.
7/20/09
We released cats the next morning for several caregivers including the 29 cats in S. Phoenix. The caregivers caught 2 more cats overnight for a total of 31 cats (plus 1 cat done the week before making it 32 cats total). Suzie picked up a couple more in W. Phoenix finishing up a colony that had tbeen trapped the previous night. It is so important to finish colonies and multiple night trapping makes a big difference in making sure ALL the cats get fixed.
7/21
I had an emergency trapping job Monday night. The caregiver was to trap on her own but threatened to take the cats to the AHS. I agreed to trap and transport the 8 cats for her if they could come back. She lived in W. Glendale. Suzie agreed to come with me and help bait traps the gail force wind required heavy taping of papers in the traps. Cats were scarse but we caught 2 cats over night. The morning of the 21st we had to pick up these cats to go to the vet and make three stops delivering cats including the last 2 cats in S. Phoenix. One delivery was in S. Scottsdale at Babe's Cabaret. Suzie's daughter Beth and her son-in-law John trapped at Babe's on Saturday night and trapped another cat Sunday night that still needed releasing... Thank you Beth and John for all your hard work!
7/22
My trapping job for Tuesday night was for 15 cats in N.W. Phoenix. Suzie and Beth were trapping at Grand Canyon University, Beth's alma mater. My job turned in to 24 cats over two days requiring multiple trips to and from my house to the caregiver and to the vet. The first night I had to run home for more traps and I asked Suzie to go bait the traps at the Glendale location (second night trapping) as I ran out of time. I took 18 cats to the vet on 7/22 and Suzie took 11 cats from the college plus 4 more from the Glendale location for a total of 33 cats! Of course all of those had to be aftercared in my garage that night and released the next AM. All the cats at the college are now fixed - Go Suzie!
7/23
I trapped six more cats overnight for a total of 24 cats! That colony is now all fixed, however, there are more cats in the area and the caregiver and her daughter are going to flyer the neighborhood and talk to people about TNR. There was more aftercare on Thursday night...and I picked up 10 tame cats to go to the vet on Friday for a caregiver in a trailer park at 127th Ave. and Glendale. The cat owners had no vehicle and no $$ for S/N. These were "free-roaming" pets but free-roaming tame cats are the #1 source of the feral cats so it is important to fix the tame cats too. I discovered many feral cats in this park also and the kids will pass out TNR and S/N information - LOTs of dogs to be fixed too.
7/24
I released the last 6 cats on Friday morning and took the 10 tame cats to the vet and took them back to 127th Ave. and Glendale in the afternoon. The vet is at 40th St. and Cactus near my house so it was about a 2-hour round trip which I had to make twice.

In between all this trap covers and traps need to be washed as wello. We TNR'd a total of 80 cats this week not to mention the transport and aftercare of many other cats.

Stay tuned for the Aguila and Wickenburg adventures next week...

If you are feeding feral cats please call the S/N Hotline for assistance: 602-265-7729 (SPAY). If you are interested in volunteering to do trapping and transport, please call or email us at:feralcats@adlaz.org