As many of you know, Alley Cat Allies has been working with cat lovers in Canton, Ohio this past year to help stop the trapping and killing of feral cats. The group, and others involved in TNR (Trap-Neuter-Return), have been trying to convince City Council to spay and neuter feral cats, rather than killing them.

In their ongoing efforts to help the Canton cats, Alley Cat Allies is sponsoring a two week Spay-a-Thon for all cats, whether they are feral, stray, or owned pets. The Spay-a-Thon will take place at One of a Kind Pets Spay & Neuter Clinic. This event is FREE and will begin on May 30 and run until June 13. If you are a Canton resident and would like more information, call Alley Cat Allies at (855) 264-CATS (2287).

Alley Cat Rescue in Maryland started Free Feral Cat Spay Day (FFCSD) in 2010. In their third year of asking vets to provide two FREE spays or neuters of feral cats to the public, they are going international. Not only will vets in the United States be participating, but also those in South Africa and Canada, as well.

In 2011, over 300 vet clinics in the United States provided free or reduced cost sterilization services to 1,500 feral cats on April 27. Free Feral Cat Spay Day is meant to build and strengthen relationships between the public and the veterinary community. Sadly, many vets still do not provide low cost options for feral cats, a population that desperately needs all of us working on their behalf.

To find out more about Free Feral Cat Spay Day, visit Alley Cat Rescue’s web site HERE.

To find vets in your area who will provide free or discounted services on April 27, go HERE. If you scroll down until you find Ohio (or just click the OH link at the top of the page), you will see that, so far, there are eleven vet clinics that are willing to provide surgeries on Free Feral Cat Spay Day. The clinic closest to us here in Columbus is Grove City Vet Hospital. There are also participating clinics in Pataskala, Heath, Newark, Chillicothe, Warren, Georgetown, Cleveland, and Gallipolis. Check out the site and call the vet offices to find out more.

If you know of a vet’s office that would like to participate in Free Feral Cat Spay Day, have them go HERE and fill out the online form.

To read Alley Cat Rescue’s press release, Click: FFCSD 2012 Press Release

Thanks to my good friend, Jackie, who posted about Get Your Fix on Facebook, I learned about this really neat web site that is helping to spay and neuter animals nationwide.

Here’s how it works. You can go to the web site and create an account (it’s free). You can then “Fund a Fix” by looking through photos and profiles of animals nationwide that need to be spayed or neutered. You can search for animals by your zip code that are within 25 miles, 100 miles, or anywhere nationwide. Then you submit your credit card info and the Get Your Fix team does the rest–arranges the surgery, contacts the owners to let them know, and makes payment to the vet. The donation amount for each surgery is a flat $100. Most of the people who are looking for help with spays and neuters post photos of their animals, so you can see the fuzzy face that will benefit from your generosity.

If you know of a clinic that can spay or neuter for cheaper than the $100 donation, you can also contact the owner directly through email on the Get Your Fix site and make arrangements yourself to have the surgery done. The owner schedules and then you make payment. Since B and O works with several low cost clinics that can do the surgeries for less than $100, I’ve been contacting people in the Central Ohio area who have posted on the site and letting them know we can help cover the costs. So far, two people with cats have taken us up on the offer and made arrangements to get their cats fixed. I’ve also paid the flat $100 fee to have three dogs fixed–I don’t know of very many low cost clinics for dogs that can do the surgeries for under $100. If you know of any, please let me know.

For owners looking to get their pets fixed, using the web site is just as easy. The owner creates an account and posts their animal. People searching can read a story about the pet and why the owner wants to get them spayed or neutered. They can also see a photo of the animal that needs help.

The web site also offers a database of low cost spay and neuter clinics nationwide.

If you are looking for a way to honor someone for a birthday, anniversary, or other special event, I would suggest going to the Get Your Fix web site and offering to “Fund a Fix” as a way to show you care. For the animal lovers in your life, there is no better message to send than that animals won’t needlessly die because there are too many of them. As the site says, “Together we can bring an end to pet overpopulation!” Working together is the only way to save these precious lives.

To learn more, visit the Get Your Fix web site HERE.

In an email from Tobin Franks, Tobin let me know that the next Canton City Council meeting will be held this Monday, March 12 at 7 pm in the Canton City Council Chambers located at 218 Cleveland Avenue SW in Canton.

Tobin wrote: “As you may already know, the Animal Control Contract is being brought up for a final vote on Monday the 12th. The Council is suspending their normal rules and will go ahead with all three readings to renew the Animal Control Contract through 12/13/2013. The Council is making this decision just days prior to the Alley Cat Allies Town Hall meeting that is planned for Wednesday, March 14. Additionally, the Council is acting before the existing, amended 90-day contract is set to expire. This is a far cry from making a thoughtful, deliberate decision.”

For Canton Residents: Please attend the City Council meeting on Monday, March 12 and speak out against renewing the contract and voice your favor for the non-lethal alternatives being advocated by Alley Cat Allies. Many people already have raised their voices in opposition, but more are needed. Please be at the Canton City Hall by 7 pm to sign in and then speak out for the cats.

Canton Residents are also needed to write “Letters to the Editor” to the Canton Repository. Here is a link to the Letters to the Editor page that you can use to submit online: http://media.cantonrep.com/forms/letter_editor.php

To help you write your letter and have thoughtful speaking points for the Council meeting, take a look at these tips offered by Alley Cat Allies HERE.

A hardcopy petition drive is also being organized and taking place this weekend. If you see the petitioners out in your community, please stop and sign. If you would like to help out with the petitions and can gather signatures, please email Tobin Franks at tdf138@hotmail.com

Read the Alley Cat Allies press release on the Canton cats HERE.

Vivian Opelt is always outdoing herself with the wonderful things she does for cats and for us. She is truly our angel and an angel to the kitties who cross her path.

I first met Vivian through Dr. Kim West when Dr. West worked at Riverside Drive Animal Care Center in Dublin. Vivian helped the staff place cats that had been turned in by owners or found as strays (she still does). Since we were doing the same thing, Dr. West put us in contact with each other and Vivian began helping us find adopters for our abandoned and discarded kitties, too. I remember the very first cat she helped us place was a big, black, gentle giant of a tom cat.

Vivian paid to place ads for our kitties in the community newspapers. She had been doing that for many years for her strays and found a ton of good people that way. Vivian brought several wonderful adopters to us with her ads.

Besides helping us find homes for our cats, Vivian has also sponsored us in golf outings through her employer, The Wendy’s Company, bought our t-shirts for her fellow employees, and donated food, money, and anything else she thought we might need.

In 2010, Vivian was the winner of the Mini Cooper car that we had been raffling off. She not only paid for tickets for the drawing, she also paid for an ad in several community papers to advertise the drawing to increase our donations. We raised almost $9,000 with the raffle. When Vivian won the car, she donated it back to us and we were able to sell it for another $4,000. That was a lot of money to help spay and neuter and provide vet care for cats in need.

In January, Vivian wrote me and said she was signing us up for a Wendy’s Community Ambassador Grant (click on this link and then scroll down the page to read about Vivian). The grant is an employee volunteer recognition program that honors Wendy’s employees for their charitable work, as well as the charitable organization they support. The grant recognizes the spirit of Wendy’s founder, Dave Thomas, in employees who “give something back.”

At the time she was writing the grant, Vivian’s beloved cat, Phoebe, passed away. Vivian wrote the grant in honor of Phoebe. And Phoebe acted as our guardian angel and helped us. We received the $2500 grant. You can see it below, resting in the paws of a very happy, multi-colored kitty. You can also see Vivian below being honored for her wonderful work for cats.

I’d like to ask each of you to please take the time to “Like” The Wendy’s Company and post a thank you on their Facebook page for their generosity. I’d also ask each of you to eat at least one meal in the next week at a local Wendy’s to show your gratitude for the good work they do within their communities.

Thank you to The Wendy’s Company for honoring Vivian and us with this grant.

Thank you to Vivian for all that she does for cats in the Central Ohio area and for Black and Orange. We love you!

Each year, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) celebrates Spay Day on the final Tuesday of February. This year, Spay Day 2012 will fall on February 28.

To find out more about this annual event, go HERE.

To find Spay Day events near you, go HERE, and put in your zip code.

In the Columbus area, two organizations are participating in Spay Day.

For Spay Day 2012, SOS of Ohio is doing their Luv-A-Bull event in which they plan to spay and neuter pit bulls and pit bull mixes for $30 for qualifying low income owners (they must be able to show they are on government or other financial assistance). A microchip and Rabies vaccine are also included in the $30 fee. Call 614-396-8707 to see if you qualify.

And until the end of the month, SOS is also offering “Beat the Heat.” Through a grant from PetSmart Charities, they are spaying 380 female cats for $20 during February. Call to schedule an appointment and mention Beat the Heat to get the discounted price.

Cat Welfare will also be celebrating Spay Day by offering surgeries through the NOMAD mobile clinic, which will be parked at the shelter on February 28. If you have a cat you would like to have fixed, visit:  http://www.catwelfareohio.com/lowcostaltering.htm When you send in your form, make sure to note, “NOMAD 2/28 clinic.”

From an email I had from Tobin Franks, Alley Cat Allies will be coming to Canton, Ohio and spending the week of March 12th in the city in hopes of convincing the City Council to embrace Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR). As mentioned in previous posts, which you can read HERE and HERE, Canton City Council is trying to decide whether to continue killing feral cats and other wildlife that are trapped by animal control or to move forward to more humane methods.

On Wednesday, March 14, Jeff Dorson from Alley Cat Allies will host a Town Hall Meeting in the McKinley Room at the Stark County District Library, 715 Market Avenue, North in Canton, from 6-7:30 pm. During the meeting, Alley Cat Allies will present a plan to help the City of Canton effectively and humanely control Canton’s feral cat population.

All individuals, advocacy groups, rescues, and city officials are encouraged to attend this very important Town Hall Meeting on March 14. Please round up all your friends and neighbors to attend on behalf of the cats!!

Before March 14, you can also attend several other meetings for the cats.

This first meeting is probably NOT one for cat lovers. It will be Wednesday, February 22, at 4:45 pm in the Caucus Room of the Canton City Hall. This meeting is for Council members and residents who are in SUPPORT of Phil Sedlacko and the current program for animal control.

The next meeting will be the Executive Session held at the next Council meeting at Canton City Hall on February 27 at 7:30 pm. At this meeting Member Barton wants Phil Sedlacko to be present to answer any questions Council members may have for him. This one would be a good meeting to attend, just to hear Mr. Sedlacko speak for himself about what he is doing.

A third meeting will also occur sometime during the week of February 27 with the TNR group, including Tobin Franks, and Council. I’ll let you now more about that meeting once I know a date, time, and location.

Please continue to speak out for Canton’s cats.

If  you live in the Village of Milford Center, the Union County Humane Society wants to know if you’ve “GOT CATS?” That’s because the shelter recently received a $9600 grant from the Kenneth A. Scott Charitable Trust to fix 300 cats in Milford Center, Ohio in 2012. The surgeries will be performed for stray and feral cats at no cost and include an ear tip.

Ear tipping is a universal symbol that allows people to know, just by looking, that a cat has been spayed or neutered. It requires cutting a small “tip” off the top of one ear. A cat that is ear tipped does not have to go through the stress of another trip to the vet if they are caught in a trap. They can be released immediately, because it is obvious they have already been sterilized.

One of Plain City’s finest cat trappers, and a volunteer with Black and Orange Cat Foundation, Allen Young, has been involved in helping to trap cats in Milford Center. Since he started trapping in January, he and another volunteer have already taken in over 30 cats to be fixed through the shelter’s grant program. But more cats are needed if 300 are going to be spayed and neutered by the end of the year. If you are caring for cats in Milford Center and would like to get them fixed for FREE, please contact Carol Martin by calling 937-243-1618 or 937-642-6716.

Allen had told me that there have been some problems with the trapping process as traps have been stolen and also set off so that cats could not go in them. I think this is because Milford Center residents are worried that something is going to happen to the cats–that they will be killed or removed.

I want to assure anyone who has cats in Milford Center and may be worried about this project–the cats are not being harmed. They are being fixed and then returned to the same area where they were caught. Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) is the process that is being used for this project. Cats are trapped in humane traps that do no hurt them. They are then transported to the shelter for surgery and released back in their own territory after recovering.

Alley Cat Allies, the national organization supporting TNR, endorses these methods to humanely reduce the cat overpopulation problem. No new kittens are born. The population remains the same over years and years until older cats die off.

This is a wonderful opportunity to save the lives of cats and keep unwanted kittens from being born in an area already overrun with too many felines. Please contact the shelter if you would like help getting your outside cats fixed.

You can read the original article in the Marysville Journal-Tribune reporting that Union County Humane Society received the grant to fix stray and feral cats in Milford Center HERE.

You can also read the article in the Marysville Journal-Tribune about problems with the cat trapping process in Milford Center HERE.

And access the Village of Milford Center Facebook Page.