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Home For Christmas? And Lots of Rescued Kittens

orange cat with toys
Finn is ready to go home.

Finn

orange cat with ipad
Finn wants his own iPad for Christmas.

Finn wants to have his own iPad for Christmas, all wrapped up under his own tree in his own forever home.

Look at Finn now! You’ve met him before, and in fact several of you donated for his care. Look at what that did for this friendly and affectionate orange cat!

orange cat with track
“Will you play with me?” Finn asks.

From the Giant Eagle parking lot to your couch? He’s approximately 6-7 years old, neutered and up-to-date on shots. He is ready to be a part of someone’s family! He would do best in a home with no small children (under 6); his rescuer thinks that he’d be stressed by lots of screaming or quick movements may scare him. He’s extremely affectionate, loves to look out the window, and loves catnip! Please share and help Finn find the perfect home for the holidays. (Application and home visit will be required). Contact [email protected]


Fred and Barney Are Ready to Go Home

black and white cat
Barney says, “Don’t you want to wake up and look at my spotted face every day?”

It’s been nearly a year since Fred and Barney were rescued from death in a shelter as feral cats. After time in the hands of wonderful foster homes they lost their edge and are just juvenile kittens, playful and happy. Their current foster home is wonderful and they’ve met many other cats, several dogs and lots of people and they are fine with them all, but the foster home is kind of crowded. And after their near-death experience, they are totally eager to experience their own home, and have their own humans to love!

And the best part—all their veterinary care is done and their adoptions are sponsored, so you don’t have to pay a cent, all you have to do is take them home and love them! They don’t have to be adopted together, but an adoption application and home visit is still part of the deal.  These cats are located north of Pittsburgh PA, and if you are interested in either one, please contact me.

tabby cat on blanket
Fred says, “Look, I coordinate with every color.”

orange cat sleeping
Baxter after two weeks on a diet of peace and quiet and understanding, wary but accepting, photo courtesy his foster family.

Handsome Baxter Remembers a Loving Home

Along with his fur brother Bailey, Baxter lost his person and lived in her home for over a month in great confusion, then he lost his home too. He made a big fuss when his person’s son dropped him off in a shelter, and both were in danger of being euthanized for being unadoptable. They were pulled from the shelter and sent to a wonderful foster home where, in time, they learned to trust people again. Now Baxter likes to watch TV with his people and sleeps on their laps. You can read more about their rescue and foster home here. If you are interested in Baxter, please contact me. Baxter is located north of Pittsburgh, PA.


lots of kittens
Several dozen kittens rescued from Belle Vernon

Kittens and cats rescued from feral colonies

The volunteers who trap and rescue cats for the Homeless Cat Management Team pull kittens young enough to socialize when they can find foster homes, and also friendly cats who have obviously been someone’s pet. Above are over a dozen of several dozen kittens rescued from a site in Belle Vernon, south of Pittsburgh, that desperately needed some TNR! At the end of this post I have a slideshow of just a few of the cats and kittens who have been rescued this year alone, posted by their foster homes and rescuers. For now, read about how you can help them with this effort, and I’ll send you a reward.


Holiday Cheer for Homeless Cats and Their Caretakers
Holiday Cheer for Homeless Cats and Their Caretakers

How you can help homeless cats and their caretakers

Just this past weekend a dozen or more people spent Friday and Saturday trapping cats—one person trapped as many as ten, others seven or eight each, kittens, adults—for the no-charge spay/neuter clinic for feral cats on Sunday. Over 100 cats were registered, four veterinarians volunteered their time for a very long day in surgery and shifts of volunteers prepped cats for surgery and cleaned them up afterward, watching them in recovery and packing them up to leave.

That’s 100 cats who will never produce another kitten. Imagine the impact on feline populations just this one clinic has! Then think of the fact that free or low-cost clinics are held about every three weeks all through the year, the kittens pulled from the streets and fostered to find forever homes, the friendly adults fostered and rehomed if possible, and the impact all this work has on feline populations.

From the rescues taken in to find another home to the cats who end up living outdoors because there is no home for them dedicated individuals volunteer their time, expertise and money to feed and provide shelter for all these cats, in all seasons, every day of the year. Right now we are headed for the often deadly winter months where sturdy straw-filled shelters are needed to be built and maintained for cats living outdoors, and often critical emergency veterinary care is needed for kittens born in the cold, and cats suffering injuries caused by or made worse by wintery weather along with the usual street injuries and, unfortunately, abuse.

homeless cat management team logo
Homeless Cat Management Team logo

We may call this Trap-Neuter-Return or TNR or simply rescue. It’s far more than just grabbing homeless cats and spaying or neutering them, returning them to their outdoor home, and as long as people continue abandoning cats the need for all this work will continue as well. Often there’s a network of assistance behind what rescuers do to help them with this rescue and care for outdoor cats, offering food and materials if they can’t afford it on their own and low-cost veterinary care for a cat they’ve rescued or a foster or outdoor cat they are caring for.

The Homeless Cat Management Team (HCMT) and Frankie’s Friends provide that network of care to rescuers in the Pittsburgh area, loaning out traps, networking rescuers, providing low-cost or free spay/neuter clinics at least monthly and making low-cost emergency veterinary care available to rescuers as well as distributing food and even shelters to those who are caring for rescues in their homes or community cats living outdoors.

Here’s where you come in

Frankie's Friends Cat Rescue
Frankie’s Friends Cat Rescue

There are two ways you can help this effort by making even a small tax-deductible donation to Frankie’s Friends for HCMT and their network of rescuers and caretakers through a donated gift card or with cash, and I’ll give you a $10 gift certificate to my Etsy shop for you to use for your holiday shopping, to give as a gift, or keep for later, good for $10.00 off your order of $25.00 or more. And don’t forget that both cash and gift cards are fully tax-deductible as charitable contributions unless you are receiving a gift from the organization you are donating to—but you’re not receiving a gift from Frankie’s Friends, that comes from me, and I’m doing this of my own free will and get no benefit from Homeless Cat Management Team or Frankie’s Friends for it.

Donate gift cards electronically

Help HCMT and Frankie’s Friends continue to provide much-needed food and supplies to rescuers and caretakers by donating a gift card for pet supplies and they can purchase food and supplies tailored for the animals they are caring for. Petco, PetSmart and WalMart are each convenient to the HCMT clinic in Tarentum where the TNR clinics are held and the veterinary care happens, and where the materials are collected and distributed, so gift cards from these three would be most appreciated.

Here’s what you do:

1. Go to the Petco, PetSmart or WalMart website and purchase an electronic gift card for at least $10.00.

2. Designate it as a gift to “Frankie’s Friends”.

3. In their “notes” section (most have one for gifts), note that this is through “The Creative Cat Holiday Cheer for Homeless Cats”, or just “The Creative Cat” so Frankie’s Friends knows where it came from.

4. To complete the gift card, here is their contact information:

Mailing Address: Frankie’s Friends Cat Rescue, P.O. Box 161, Tarentum, PA 15084

Email:  [email protected]

Phone Number: 724-889-7011

5. Email your confirmation to me, or simply email me that you donated a gift card through the Holiday Cheer program. Please let me know if you’d like to be acknowledged publicly at the end of the campaign with just your name, no donation amount. Your name will not be used without your permission to publish it.

6. Frankie’s Friends will email me to confirm your donation.

7. I will reply to your email with your numbered gift certificate attached.

If you’re not comfortable purchasing it on the internet, you can purchase it in person and mail it to them using the address above. Simply include a note that it’s part of “The Creative Cat Holiday Cheer for Homeless Cats”, or just “The Creative Cat”, and make sure you include your email address. They will contact me when they receive it and I will send your gift certificate.

Make a donation

A cash donation will help support the low-cost veterinary care that has saved many lives and, most importantly, prevented the births of many kittens. And Frankie’s Friends also treats dogs in many of their low-cost clinics in Tarentum and in the mobile van, so you are helping prevent puppies as well, and also helping rescued dogs with low-cost veterinary care.

Here’s what you do:

1. Go to the Frankie’s Friends website and make a donation of at least $10.00.

2. The donation is made through PayPal which has a “notes” section. Note that this is through “The Creative Cat Holiday Cheer for Homeless Cats”, or just “The Creative Cat”.

3. Email your confirmation to me, or simply email me that you donated cash through the Holiday Cheer program. Please let me know if you’d like to be acknowledged publicly at the end of the campaign with just your name, no donation amount. Your name will not be used without your permission to publish it.

4. Frankie’s Friends will email me to confirm your donation.

5. I will reply to your email with your numbered gift certificate attached.

How to use your gift certificate

sample gift certificate
Sample gift certificate.

Your gift certificate will have a code that will be active for use in my Etsy shop until December 31, 2013. This code is entered at checkout for your $10.00 discount. But if you are shopping elsewhere on one of my pages or you’d like to use the discount toward a commissioned portrait or in person, you’ll just need to give me your name and the certificate number and I’ll either manually discount your order or refund $10.00 to you.

Feel free to use your certificate for your holiday shopping, for your post-holiday shopping, or to give as a gift. For my own accounting purposes, I’d like to keep all the transactions within this calendar year.

I will have a link to this post in the right-hand sidebar of my home page until December 31, 2013 and I will also have a link to it in the footer of at least one post each day.

Happy shopping!

You can visit my Etsy shop to browse what’s there right now, and keep in mind that I add new products regularly, especially one-of-a-kind handmade items. Also visit my page here on The Creative Cat that explains about “Ordering Custom Artwork” where you can have a custom print made of a sketch, painting or photograph you like.

What your donation supports

Below are two of the cats you’ll be supporting. Both are unowned, one rescued, the other in a managed colony. Despite the fact they don’t live in a regular home with a human to take care of their needs, they will receive the care they need.

. . . . . . .

gray and white cat with cast on leg
Puddles with his bi blue cast.

Thanks to Lynne Choltko Cullieton, ace foster home of Baxter and Bailey and Fred and Barney and many others, who also noticed the gray and white cat outside her workplace and tried with others to catch him, then rescued him when she found him frozen in a puddle with a broken leg. A series of people grabbed the cat and got it to the HCMT clinic to be cared for by Dr. Morrow and Lindsay Joyce and the staff of Frankie’s Friends. He is emaciated, anemic and FIV positive but Frankies Friends is treating him and giving him a chance.

 . . . . . . .

tortoiseshell cat
Botsy recovering from spay surgery last summer.

And also thanks to the network of people who identified and rescued Botsy, also known as Warbelina, rescued in the summer with a warble in her face, trapped and spayed and living in a managed colony. She was seen dragging her tail and hind leg and over a night and day was found and trapped and taken to the clinic for care.


Cats Who Came In From the Cold

A random slideshow of kittens and cats rescued from stray and feral colonies to find forever homes. Kittens are always pulled if there is a foster home for them, and friendly adults too if there is a foster home. They are spayed or neutered and given whatever vaccinations and veterinary care they need, then made available for adoption. A few of them are foster failures too…

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

All photos in this post were provided by the rescuers and are not available for use without permission.


Browse some rescued cats and kittens!

cats for adoption


All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in using one in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of this image or a product including this image, check my Etsy shop or Fine Art America profile to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit Ordering Custom Artwork for more information on a custom greeting card, print or other item.


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Bernadette

From health and welfare to rescue and adoption stories, advocacy and art, factual articles and fictional stories, "The Creative Cat" offers both visual and verbal education and entertainment about cats for people who love cats, pets and animals of all species.

2 thoughts on “Home For Christmas? And Lots of Rescued Kittens

  • da tabbies o trout towne

    guys…we reeeely reeeeely reeeely REEEEELY hope everee one finds ther for evers home yet this week sew
    ya iz ther by de time Christmas rollz round XXXXX

    Reply

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