Our good friend (who is also an adopter, volunteer, and fundraiser for Black and Orange Cat Foundation), Olivia Brininger, will be at Eldchrist Winery in Plain City on Thursday, May 10 for Ladies Night featuring Lia Sophia jewelry. In the past, Olivia has done several Lia Sophia fundraisers to help the B and O kitties, so we would like to send everyone out to this event to support her.

This should be a fun evening to bring your girlfriends, sisters, and female relatives to. There will also be products available from Scentsy and Sweet Mamas Cake Pops. Sweet Mamas Cake Pops are made by two local, Plain City sweet mamas, Tracy and Kirsten.

Local Plain City author Sherri Hayes will also be there to sign and sell her romance and suspense novels. Sherri has published three books, Hidden Threat, Behind Closed Doors and Slave. Her latest book, Need, a sequel to Slave, will be available in July.

The winery event runs from 6-9 pm. Please come and have a good time, while supporting our friend and B and O kitty lover, Olivia!

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

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.

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.