Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Mimi Celebrates World Spay Day 2014

closeup of black cat
“No more kittens for me!”

“No more kittens for me,” Mimi says. “I stopped at 24—I’m so glad my human had me spayed!”

Mimi, super catmom of at least six litters of perfect black kittens, is now a happy housecat extolling the virtues of spayed bliss.

“I used to love my assignations in the neighbor’s driveway, then feeling my kittens grow and giving birth and nurturing them, it was all so easy,” Mimi says. “But when I realized I wasn’t the only one giving birth to a dozen kittens each year, and what happened to many of them…I’m embarrassed at my behavior and sad for cats who lost their lives because of me.”

“You know, I was totally powerless against my hormones, and I needed a human to get me spayed or I’d still be out there producing kittens,” she continues.

If you won’t listen to a person about spaying your cat, listen to the cat herself. Mimi gives us 30 good reasons to spay your cat and hopes that you’ll celebrate Spay Day USA by either getting your cat spayed or convincing someone else to get their cat spayed. The big day isn’t until February 25, but for Mimi this is the most important holiday on the entire calendar.

Take it from Mimi, and read why Mimi Says, “I Love Being Spayed”.

I Prevented the Birth of 420,000 Kittens—I Spayed My Cat

black cat with hard e-collar
Mimi wears her collar and hides her spay sutures.

Turnabout is fair play. If the figure of 420,000 kittens potentially being born to one unspayed female cat—and her kittens, and her kittens’ kittens, etc., etc.—is constantly tossed about by both people who think cats should be spayed and by those who think they should be eradicated as noxious pests, then certainly we can turn it to a positive light.

If you have your cat spayed prior to the birth of any kittens, then you have certainly saved the birth of 420,000 unwanted kittens. 420,000 kittens who will never grow to adults and caterwaul in the alleys and have unwanted kittens in your backyard. 420,000 kittens who will never kill a single endangered songbird. 420,000 kittens who will never be killed in shelters because there are no homes for them. 420,000 kittens who will simply never exist because a responsible human took one simple step—they had their female kitten spayed before she had the chance to have a single litter of kittens.

Celebrate Spay Day USA with Mimi and Me

If preventing the birth of potentially 420,000 kittens…okay, 420,000 is a highly inflated figure, but several hundred kittens is typical of an unspayed female and one or more unneutered males and all their progeny, and preventing the birth of that number is just as good. If preventing the birth of realistically several  hundred kittens isn’t a good enough reason to have your cat spayed, then I have a few more reasons to give you, and so does Mimi, mother of 24 and a huge advocate of spaying.

I’ll be volunteering with the Homeless Cat Management Team “Free for Ferals” clinic on Sunday, February 23 where already 100 cats are scheduled for surgery.

The issue of feline overpopulation, and why humans are part of it

stray cat nursing kittens outdoors
Moon, Sputnik and Thistle, a stray and her kittens.

Cats left unspayed and unneutered whether in free-ranging colonies or in your own home will produce as many kittens as their bodies will allow, leading to disease and suffering and way too many kittens, who then go on to produce more kittens. Some hoarding situations begin with two kittens who were never spayed and neutered, and many stray/feral colonies begin with one pregnant female who someone tossed out to fend for herself.

It’s not likely, but a cat can have up to five litters in a year, bearing 6 or more kittens per litter over the course of as many as ten years, which adds up to about 300 kittens from one female cat in the course of her lifetime, not to mention the kittens her kittens produce.

More realistically, say she only has three litters of four kittens per year as Mimi did, that’s still a dozen new kittens; Mimi gave birth to 24 kittens in two years. All of Mimi’s kittens survived, but even with an average 50% survival rate, that could be as many as 60 kittens born over five years. Now add in all the kittens that those surviving kittens produce in addition to their mother, and it’s just out of control.

Ever-expanding colonies are also often the targets of abuse and “extermination”. Shelters are already full of cats who need homes, so rescue is possible but unlikely.

Why now? There’s still snow!

Two of the cats we spayed at the end of January were pregnant with a total of 11 kittens. One of the most important considerations is to do it NOW, before cats start breeding in earnest, before last year’s kittens who may not be spayed and neutered answer the call of nature as the days grow longer and we start talking about “kitten season” again. While you may find new litters of kittens in the middle of the winter, a cat’s reproductive system responds to the length of the day, likely a biological response to keep them from reproducing during times when, seasonally, there isn’t enough food or the weather is inhospitable to kittens. Fellow blogger and vet tech Teri Thorsteinson, formerly a breeder of Cornish Rex cats, has written an excellent explanation of “Kittening”, explaining a cat’s reproductive cycle and giving birth.

Why we need to step in and help cats

“You know, I was totally powerless against my hormones, and I needed a human to get me spayed or I’d still be out there producing kittens,” Mimi, a great advocate for spaying and neutering, tells us each year. If you won’t listen to a person about spaying your cat, listen to the cat herself. Mimi gives us 30 good reasons to spay your cat and hopes that you’ll celebrate Spay Day USA on February 26 by either getting your cat spayed or convincing someone else to get their cat spayed.

black cat on sidewalk
Big Daddy comes for Mimi (actually coming to the door)!

The boys don’t have kittens, but they are still part of the problem

Boys do have babies, they just don’t give birth to them. But that doesn’t leave them off the hook for issues of animal overpopulation, not to mention the nasty behaviors unneutered cats indulge in. I had a friend who thought she lived too far from anyone else and decided not to neuter her male kitten, but not to worry, the girls found him! Read about that and why, just as we spay our girls we also need to neuter our boys and encourage others to do so as well.

Chances of feline breast and reproductive cancer, reduced to nearly nothing

Feline breast cancer is the third most common cancer among cats after lymphoma and skin cancer. In a 2005 study done at the University of Pennsylvania, “cats spayed prior to 6 months had a 91% reduction…those spayed prior to one year had an 86% reduction in the risk of mammary carcinoma development compared with intact cats.” Spaying between 1 and 2 years of age only reduces the risk by 11%, and after two years it doesn’t reduce the risk at all. Actually giving birth to kittens doesn’t change the risk factors, either. Read more about feline breast cancer.

Yes, it is expensive, but affordable alternatives are available

Cats in carriers and cages
Cats in carriers and cages waiting for their time in surgery.

We have fun at spay/neuter clinics , teasing the big old toms about waking up without their spare parts, it brings the point home that there are still too many homeless cats—and something very easy we can do about it. SPAY AND NEUTER! And don’t think of only your own cats. It’s up to those of us who know spay/neuter is the right thing to do to convince others and even help them carry it out, or to rescue and assist cats we suspect are stray or feral and keep them from reproducing on the streets.

I have transported cats to the low-cost clinic for a local woman who has been rescuing stray cats from her neighborhood and trying to rehome the cats and their kittens though craigslist, not knowing any other alternatives. Michelle Miller, manager of the Homeless Cat Management Team (HCMT) who organizes the clinics, looks over craigslist entries for people giving away or selling cats and kittens and approached the woman about spaying the mother cat, then learned about the other cats she has. The woman was glad for the assistance through HCMT and has two more cats to be spayed at the next clinic in three weeks, and she’ll pass the word around her neighborhood. Others have found HCMT through this same sort of outreach, and from there also found access and information to other clinics as well as assistance in trapping and transporting cats living outdoors.

Other volunteers and participants in the clinic transported cats for individuals as I did, and still more trapped and transported cats from stray and feral colonies they are watching or managing, often four or five per person, and will take them home for recovery then release them in to the colony when they are ready, move them to a safer place than where they’d been, or try to socialize and rehome the friendlier ones. No cats will be sent to places that are unsafe or where there is no one to feed and watch over them.

That was a network of caring people all working together for one goal: reducing feline populations, and getting as many cats off the streets as possible in the most humane manner available. It’s a year-round process at clinics each month. Read about the Homeless Cat Management Team.

2014 Homeless Cat Management Team Clinics

FAST TRACK CLINICS
($30 PER FERAL – See below for other costs)
March 9 • April 13• May 15
June 15 Father’s Day – free neuters – get those daddy cats too!

FREE CLINICS
February 23
– With gratitude to HCMT for all they do – Fred & Dawn Riedel
March 23 – sponsored by Diane Bandy
May 4 – in memory of Milton Lendl

Other spay/neuter and low-cost veterinary options

Please check my Shelters, Assistance, Spay/Neuter page for opportunities in Pittsburgh and beyond.

Low-cost clinics through shelters

Other low-cost clinics are available in the area as well. The Animal Rescue League has a weekly program where form Tuesday through Friday you can have a cat spayed, neutered and given basic veterinary care for $50.00, and a special clinic for strays and ferals for $20.00 or $30.00. The Western Pennsylvania Humane Society also has a low-cost spay/neuter program for cats and dogs, a $65.00 Spay Day just for cats, and ongoing TNR services for feral cats only for $30.00.

Find a low-cost clinic anywhere in the country

Ir you or a friend or family member find a spay for your cat to be more than you can afford, check this link to search for a low-cost spay or neuter by zip code all over the country sponsored by the Humane Society of the United States, PetSmart Charities and the ASPCA. If you’re not near Pittsburgh and you’d like to find out if there is a TNR organization near you, visit the Feral Cat Organizations listing on the Humane Society of the United States’ website. You can also find information on the Alley Cat Allies’ website under Make Connections. You can find yet more resources on the ASPCA website under TNR and Colony Management.

You don’t need to manage a colony top help feral cats. You can donate to, assist or even start a local TNR program in your area. The HSUS’s article What You Can Do to Help Feral Cats covers finding local organizations, listing options and how to pursue helping or starting a local organization, and they also have a Program Fund that you can donate to in order to assist them in helping local organizations form and operate.

Read more articles about the need to spay and neuter our cats

I have heard since I was a child, in so many ways, that cats were disposable because there were always “more where those came from”. This broke my heart as a child, and still does today. I am convinced that this flippant ideal of disposability through overpopulation fuels disrespect of cats and devalues each cat, even underlies the fact that otherwise loving cat owners take their cat to the vet half as often as dogs visit the vet. Reducing the unwanted cat population elevates every cat.

I have a lot to say on this subject, in part because the flip side of it is a lot of cat rescue and a lot of unhappy endings because of all the unwanted kittens born all the time. Sometimes it honestly feels like there are 420,000 unwanted kittens born every day, but just several hundred is too many. Click here for an archive of articles on spay/neuter, fostering, assisting shelters and doing all you can to help reduce the population of homeless cats and kittens.


Click here to find out how you can help homeless cats and get a gift certificate!
Treats For Homeless Cats And Caretakers
Treats For Homeless Cats And Caretakers

 

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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.

3 thoughts on “Mimi Celebrates World Spay Day 2014

  • Good girl Mimi..We know that you couldn’t help having all those babies..that is just nature happening..Thank goodness that Mama B came along and helped you to stop..not only that but she let you keep your last babies to love forever..I hope more people will read your story and choose to help other kitties that are living the way that you had to..Hugs to you Mimi..and to your fantastic 4 wonderful kids..You are a beautiful lady..xoxoxo

    Reply
    • Oh yeah..I am proud to tell you that every kitty here is spayed & neutered!!

      Reply
  • da tabbies o trout towne

    grate post mom B frum de spayed & neutered crew in TT….we hope thiz message reeches peepulz by de billionz
    troo lee..

    hope everee one haza pound oh perch week oh end !!

    Reply

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