First off, our good friend and B and O supporter, Olivia Brininger, will be at Eldchrist Winery (8189 State Route 736 in Plain City) tonight, January 12 from 6-9 pm for Ladies Night, selling Lia Sophia jewelry. Olivia has done numerous events where she donated jewelry sales to B and O to help the kitties. So we’d like to ask everyone to stop out and support her tonight at the Winery event. Enjoy a night of wine, jewelry, and tons of fun!

Secondly, another good friend to kitties and a former B and O foster, Linda Stanek, has started a new business called Ari’s Garden, which creates puzzle books and other creative items for children and adults. Linda had asked me a few months ago if I could send her photos of feral kitties for a puzzle book she wanted to do to teach kids about Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR). Several of our supporters and fosters emailed her pictures, so I will be excited to see which photos turn up in the book. Linda blogged about the book, which will be released soon, on National Feral Cat Day in October. The kitty on the front of the book is one of her own feral boys! I’ll keep you posted about this book as it becomes available for sale. I am so excited.

And also check out Linda’s cat drawings and her blog posting on “The Illustration Process.” I knew Linda could write, but I didn’t know what a fabulous illustrator she was, as well.

Next up are some fabulous spay and neuter deals.

One of a Kind Pet Spay and Neuter Clinic in the Akron area (please let your friends up North know about this) will be offering a “Beat the Heat” deal for the month of February. Cat Spays will be $20 for the entire month. For more info call 330-865-6890.

SOS of Ohio (Shelter Outreach Services) will also be doing a “Beat the Heat” event for the month of February. Cat spays are $20 with them, as well, and they are located right here in Columbus at 691 E. Dublin Granville Road.

In addition to their Beat the Heat event, SOS is also offering “Luv-A-Bull” for Spay Day 2012, which falls on February 28th. For owners of pit bulls who can show they are on government or other financial assistance, SOS will spay and neuter their pit bull or pit bull mix for $30!

Finally, only 361 more signatures are needed to get the Ohio Dog Auctions Act on the 2012 ballot for voters. This act will ask Ohio residents to ban dog auctions in the state. The final 361 signatures must delivered to the Secretary of State by January 20 so your signatures must be turned in by January 17 to Mary O’Connor Shaver (347 Meadow Ash Drive, Lewis Center, Ohio 43035).

To download a copy of the Ohio Dog Auctions Act and pages for gathering signatures, go HERE.

For instructions on gathering signatures and how to help, go HERE.

Remember, only 361 signatures are needed by January 20!!

National Bird Day celebrates birds, while at the same time trying to educate the public about the plight of parrots and songbirds who face extinction at the hands of habitat loss, disease, and the illegal bird trade. Additionally, National Bird Day, which is hosted by Born Free USA and The Avian Welfare Coalition, hopes to improve the welfare of those birds that are kept in captivity and to stop pet stores from selling birds (often to uneducated people who do not know how to care for them).

National Bird Day, which is in its 10th year, also asks home owners to take action and prevent bird deaths through window collisions. In a nice article, “10 Things You Can Do to Reduce Bird vs. Window Collisions,” you can learn how to lessen the 1 billion bird deaths that occur each year in North America from confused birds hitting glass windows.

If you make your windows bird friendly for National Bird Day, you can enter the 2012 Photo Contest. Just send a picture of your bird protected windows before February 1, 2012 and you could win a pair of binoculars. Details for the contest are provided HERE.

Through increased awareness and education, perhaps some day, we will live in a world where people truly “think outside of the cage” and all birds fly free.

We want to wish everyone a holiday filled with peace and blessings for you and your furry families. Thank you for all of your support in 2011. We could not help the animals without all of you backing us!

Thank you to the Dlugo family for this awesome photo of their rescue kitties, Bernard and Malcome, who they adopted from B and O. These two photogenic boys are also the featured kitties for March in the 2012 B and O calendar.

We hope you’ll come out and see our very own “Santa Claws” on Sunday, December 11 at the PetSmart located at 6010 Sawmill Road in Dublin (next to the Target store). Once again, our favorite Santa, Chuck Gaul, will be donning his red suit and fluffing his beard to have his picture taken with all the happy pets in the central Ohio area. You can get in the photo, too, if you’d like!

We will be taking photos between 11 am and 4 pm. The pictures are $9.95 with a PetSmart PetPerks card. You will receive one 4×6 digital photo in a holiday collector frame. Five dollars from every package purchased will go directly to Black and Orange!

If you’ve adopted a cat or kitten from Black and Orange, we’d love to have you bring them out for the photos so we could see them again. One of our very favorite things is seeing all of our former kitties with their new families.

We want to thank Chuck Gaul for doing such an awesome job as our Santa. We feel very blessed to have our Santa Chuck and Mrs. Claus (Carol) in our lives.

Colony Cats is opening their new Kit ‘N Kaboodle Boutique next to their Adoption Center at 2736 Festival Lane in Dublin (off of Sawmill Road by the Joann’s Fabrics store). The Boutique will have a grand opening on Sunday, November 13, from 1-4 pm. There will be raffles, refreshments, and tons of shopping deals just in time for the holiday season.

The Boutique will feature gently used products including bedroom furniture, kitchen items, living room furniture, home decor, and brand new pet accessories. So if you don’t want to stage your own garage sale, but you want your “treasures” to benefit a good cause, donate those unwanted items to the Boutique. They are NOT accepting clothing and shoes, electronics, exercise equipment, appliances, mattresses, water beds, or children’s items.

To see a full list of what they will and will not accept, download their Wish List HERE.

To enlarge the flyer to the left, simply click on it.

The Boutique will be open Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from 10 am-5 pm. Colony Cats will need volunteers to man the Boutique, sort and price items, and also pick up larger items. If you can help or have items to donate, please contact them at kitnkaboodleboutique@yahoo.com

Additionally, besides the grand opening of the Boutique, the group is also celebrating the 2nd Anniversary of their Adoption Center. Of course, all proceeds from the Boutique will go to help Colony Cats provide vet care and spay and neuter services for the cats in their Adoption Center, as well as the dogs they also care for in foster homes.

As you are looking for deals this holiday gift giving season, consider shopping at Colony Cat’s Kit ‘N Kaboodle Boutique! You’ll not only get great bargains, but you’ll help animals in need.

On Thursday, November 10, and Friday, November 11, The Columbus Foundation will present a 24 hour opportunity to match donations to Central Ohio non-profits that are part of their PowerPhilanthropy–up to 1 million dollars! From 11 am on November 10 to 11 am on November 11, credit card donations of $20 or more will be matched by The Columbus Foundation.

To participate, just visit Columbusfoundation.org.

Click on the GIVE NOW button.

Select the non-profit of your choice from among 600 organizations that are part of PowerPhilanthropy.

One of the groups I am recommending that people donate to is Columbus Dog Connection. In an email I had today, Kellie DiFrischia, said that any funds they receive during The Big Give, will be used for The Big Fix. Columbus Dog Connection will use all donations to help spay and neuter dogs and cats in rural areas or to fix feral cats and pit bulls in Franklin County. Columbus Dog Connection has a Mobile Spay/Neuter Truck and to ease the burden of fundraising for other rescues, they also write for and share grant money to help save more cats and dogs.

So if you choose Columbus Dog Connection during The Big Give, your money will be donated and help with The Big Fix.

The second group I am suggesting is The Ohio Wildlife Center. Any donations that are made to the Ohio Wildlife Center will be used to help wild animals that have been injured and to support their work in the hospital and in their educational programs. They are a great place and I have taken rescued baby birds, bunnies, and other wildlife in need to them on many occasions.

And the final group I am putting a good word in for is WCBE, 90.5, our local public radio station. I am an NPR junkie and my views of the world come directly from WCBE. I don’t watch the news on television (too depressing), so the only real world news I get is from my public radio.

Pick one of these non-profits or one of the other 600 that are involved in The Big Give tomorrow and Friday and double your donation for many great causes. Believe me, most charities can use the extra help right now!

We received over 120 photos for our first ever rescue calendar for 2012. And these were not run-of-the-mill photos. They were all gorgeous. We had a really hard time choosing our winners. We finally had to make it a rule that we would only pick one photo from a family, because some people sent in multiple beautiful pictures.

One example of this occurred with the Hamiltons. Dick and Linda sent in four photos and they were all stunning. It looked as if the cats had been posed–I do not know how they got the cats to sit so still for the camera. I am including two of their photos that did NOT win here. Just look how great they were. Their winner will be featured as the November kitty, so you can check that out when you buy your copy.

Another person with multiple great photos was Mary Dietz. Most of the photos that Mary sent were of strays who had been dumped on her. She mentioned that in one year, they had 22 cats dumped and we helped them get 12-13 of those fixed. The remainder either found other homes or ran off after the spaying and neutering efforts were under way. They now have a stable and fixed colony of 14 cats that they care for–proof that trap-neuter-return (TNR) and spaying and neutering are the solutions to feline overpopulation.

I am going to post a few of Mary’s “Loser” photos at the bottom of this. Her winner will be featured as “September” in the calendar with a picture of a sweet kitty named “Tres” who she says doesn’t have a mean bone in his body. Tres is currently an outside kitty, but Mary would love to find him an inside home if anyone sees him in the calendar and is interested.

I thought that over the next few weeks, as we are working on the calendar with our Printer, Wilson Printing and Graphics in London, that I would post some of the photos we received here and on Facebook.

Thank you to everyone who submitted their babies. It was so nice to see some of our former fosters and know they had found lovely homes!