Homes for Paws: Loving homes for homeless cats

Happy Spring to all our CATS supporters,

We are officially in “kitten season”!  Kitten season occurs seasonally because the female cat has evolved into a “seasonally polyestrous” creature, meaning she comes into heat only during a particular time of year and during this time she is capable of having multiple pregnancies.  What that means for rescue is A LOT of kittens!

Kitten season typically begins in early Spring and persists through the summer months.  Peak seasons are February through March and May through June.  A female cat will repeatedly come into heat approximately every two weeks throughout the breeding season.  A female cat in heat will do whatever it takes to find herself a suitable male, often breeding with multiple males!  Have you ever wondered why a litter of kittens can look entirely different?  One litter of kittens can have multiple fathers!  This is why it is so important to spay and neuter your pets.

All the animals that come through CATS are immediately spayed and neutered, including these two new mothers and all their kittens!  These sweet families were rescued after they were abandoned in a vacant house in Mexico.  They were fully vetted and when done nursing and big enough, all kittens and moms were vaccinated, spayed and neutered!  We are happy to report that all these wonderful cats have been adopted into loving homes.

Cat Adoption Services thanks you for your support and appreciates you helping us to play a small part in the effort to control the cat population and to find loving homes for all our rescue fur babies.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Tracey and Lauren Click

As we enter into the holiday season and the end of 2021, all of us at CATS would like to extend our sincerest thanks for all of the support we have received from you during this past year. With your donations we were able to help so many of our kitties find wonderful loving homes, and for that we are eternally grateful.

Speaking of loving homes, we recently had a wonderful family adopt one of our favorite pairs! Silverbell, 2½, and her daughter Burgundy Rose, 19 months, were just adopted out together at our November adoption event! These girls were abandoned last year at the height of the pandemic. Their old owner lost his business and moved and these two girls were discarded outside of a vacant restaurant.

Initially, both girls were very guarded and our volunteers had to spend a lot of time with them teaching them how to trust again. After 6 months of learning to trust humans again these girls opened themselves up enough to make it out into a center for our adoption event where they were able to find their forever home just in time for the Holidays!

We here at CATS love a happy ending like Silverbell and Burgundy found and your continued support will help us in solidifying many more happy endings in the future.

From all of us at CATS we wish you all Happy Holidays and a joyful New Year. We will see you in 2022!

We hope this newsletter finds everyone happy, healthy and enjoying your summer!

CATS has not slowed down one bit this year with all the cats and kittens we are busy trying to place. The beautiful pair of kittens pictured here were recently rescued off the top of a building in Mexico by local firefighters.  We took in the brother and sister, made sure they were healthy and ready for their forever home, and they were both just adopted together by a loving family!

Due to a lack of rescue resources south of the border, we strive to develop as many connections in Mexico as possible to help as many felines as we can.  The story of these siblings is a great example of how each and every donation we receive helps us in our mission to find loving homes for cats, no matter their circumstance.

I hope this newsletter finds everyone safe and healthy. It is raining kittens here in San Diego!!

Kitten season, otherwise known as feline breeding season, takes place during the warm months. This is typically March through October but will vary across the country. Since San Diego is generally warm we experience a long kitten season!

During kitten season,we experience a large intake of kittens; roughly 400 a year!!! Only one month into the season, we are already bursting at the seams with adorable little felines. Kittens that enter our rescue either come with their mother or are, unfortunately, motherless. Kittens that enter with their mother will be kept with their mother and continue to feed off of her with solid food being introduced when appropriate. We rely on fosters who either have no other pets or have a separate space for the mom and her kittens as momma cats are naturally very protective of their offspring.

Kittens that arrive to our rescue motherless often need to be bottle-fed by an experienced foster until they are old enough to eat on their own. This requires a lot of dedication by our team of fosters because kittens eat frequently! Kittens under 2 weeks old eat every 2 hours and kittens 2 to 4 weeks old eat every 3-4 hours. Once kittens reach 2 pounds they are old enough to get spayed or neutered, microchipped, and vaccinated! At 8 weeks old they are ready to fly and go to their forever home.

We do encourage kittens to go to homes in pairs when the adopting home has no other pets. Despite the common belief that cats are solitary animals, they are actually very social beings who thrive when they have a buddy from an early age. A pair of kittens will be able to keep each other occupied and are truly happier living with other cat companions.

As always we would like to thank all of our wonderful donors! It is donations from you that give us the ability to provide a safe space for all of these kittens until they are able to find their loving forever home. We appreciate you all!

With Gratitude,

Elizabeth Tracey and Lauren Click

Links:

• Cat Adoption Service

To Our Wonderful CATS supporters,

As we enter the holiday season during what most of us would consider an incredibly trying year, we here at CATS still have a lot to be thankful for.

We continue to see daily examples of humanity when it comes to our rescue kitties and that is what we will choose to focus on.  For each act of ‘bad” that we witness through rescue, we witness equally, if not more, acts of “good”.  A perfect example of this is the story of our abandoned mom and the subsequent adoption of all of her kittens.

Back in September a mom and her kittens were trapped in downtown Escondido.  Sadly, the momma cat had been abandoned by her previous owner.  He was a restaurant owner who lost his business during the COVID shutdowns and had to move away.  The fate of so many animals recently come from situations just like this during this difficult time---where people simply do not believe they can care for their pet any longer and discard them.  Luckily for CATS, we learned about this situation and sprang into action.  The kittens were all socialized and vetted and were put up for adoption. 

The first two females, Broadway and Valerie, were adopted by a retired teacher and will have a loving home together forever.  The third kitten, a boy named Smarty, went to a lovely family all his own.  Finally, the fourth kitten, Grand, went home with a couple that drove all the way from Las Vegas to San Diego to adopt him after falling in love with his picture online.

The momma cat is still in rescue learning to trust people and will be up for adoption soon.  Even though it is a sad reality that animals can be so easily discarded it is refreshing to know that out of this one bad act we witnessed 4 good acts proving that the good will always outweigh the bad.

So, as we close out this year we choose to end on a positive note.  Thankful for all the good out there in the world. The people who volunteer their time for CATS.  The wonderful adopters who see the potential in previously discarded animals.  The people who drive 5 hours to bring home their new family member.   Most of all, we are so thankful for all of you who donate to us and allow us to keep this rescue going each year so that we can continue to spread stories of good for all to hear. 

Happy Holidays from CATS,

Lauren Click and Elizabeth Tracey