Our Feral Cat Joyce Dies on New Year's Day

I learned about feral cats before I ever saw one.   In 2000 I attended a “No Kill Conference” in California and listened to a presentation by one of the founders of Alley Cat Allies on how to humanely care for them.    When she got to the part about how often people find them living in their yards I almost walked out of the room.  I was at the conference to help formulate cat programs for our foundation and I had never heard anyone in Michigan (where I was then living) mention that they had “wild” cats living in their yard.   Surely this phenomenon was limited to the east coast and wouldn’t play a part in our mission.

  

But– within a few months of starting our TLC (for The Love of Cats) programs -- Michigan feral cat colonies were popping up everywhere.  We responded in two ways:  (1) we formulated a free spay/neuter program for feral cats which we continued until we left Michigan in 2009 and (2) when we purchased a farm to sanctuary orphaned geriatric cats, we installed a show-and-tell feral  cat colony in its barn.   We wanted visitors to see feral cats up close and personal – and to understand how well they could live as outdoor-only cats.    Part of the ACA TNR perspective was that these cats were best sterilized and then left in their outdoor homes with a dedicated caregiver providing food, water and dry shelter.  For – if cats weren't socialized to people before they turned 8 weeks old – they would always be afraid of them – acting more like squirrels or rabbits than house cats.

Joyce was one of the feral cats in our colony.  And of the ones we ultimately moved indoors when we closed the farm, Joyce was one of the most feral.  Clearly she preferred cats to people and ACA was right about her – even after living as an indoor-only cat for 7 years – she never changed.   Rarely could we pet her and taking her to a vet for a routine exam would have required live-trapping so we never did.   Then last summer she started showing signs of chronic inflammatory bowel or perhaps lymphoma and we considered taking her in for evaluation.  At 12 years old, though, anesthesia without blood work was risky and there was no way a vet could examine her without it.  And – if we did find out what was wrong with her, medicating her would be impossible. 

Her quality of life seemed pretty good and there were no signs of physical discomfort.  Then – last week we noticed she was easier to pet and that her coat was starting to look a little straggly.   Little did we know that she was about to leave us –she was still acting normal in most other ways.  New Year’s Eve she was in her regular sleep spot when we went to bed but sometime during the night she died without moving from it.  We don’t know what triggered her death, but we think it was heart failure.  Hopefully it was a peaceful ending.

The house is a bit quieter now and we miss her.  But mainly our heart goes out to Larry – another feral cat we moved indoors with her that spent most of his time snuggling with her or walking to and from the food dish with her.    We used to think that Joyce relied on him for security – she was about a third of his size.  But over the years we learned it was the other way around – she was his security blanket.    He has other friends for sure – but he’ll never have another Joyce.  RIP.

Is It Really Raining Cats and Dogs?

If you believe the statistics published by many animal organizations, yes.  For example, PETA’s web site states that in “…seven years one female cat and her offspring can produce an incredible 370,000 kittens” And …”Just one unaltered female dog and her offspring can produce 67,000 puppies in only six years”.     Although these numbers may add up on paper, Mother Nature sees to it that they never play out in real life – for if they were even close to being accurate, our streets would be so full of cats and dogs that we wouldn't be able to walk down the sidewalk without tripping over them.  And that simply isn't the case.

No one really knows how many cats and dogs there are – but the pet owner marketing surveys published by APPA (American Pet Product Producers Association) may shed some light.  They estimate there are about 164 million cats and 78 million dogs living in American homes.  Annual adoptions into this population include about 12 million cats and 11 million dogs.  Un-owned cats living outdoors in feral cat colonies add to the total cat population –but again how many there are is unknown.  Estimates run as high as one feral cat for every owned cat.  Yet as we've seen through our spay/neuter program – the line is blurry between the two groups and many “yard cats” may be double-counted.

Of the 12 million cats adopted out each year, only 500,000 are purebred cats purchased from breeders, and 2.5 million come from animal shelter adoptions.  The overwhelming majority –9 million-- are cats that are literally found outdoors (feral, lost or abandoned) or born to someone’s pet cat – and then kept or given to someone else through a free cat ad or networking person-to-person with friends, relatives and coworkers.

APPA doesn't distinguish, but we assume the majority of adoptions are kittens and puppies – with most of the balance being young adults – often abandoned or relinquished from homes that can’t afford to fix them.   For – once pets become sexually mature, they become increasingly challenging to care for – even for the most loving guardians.   Only 12% (or 20 million) of owned cats are left intact – not because their guardians don’t understand the importance of fixing them, but simply because they lack the front-end money to do so.  Scare tactic population statistics aren't needed to drive home this point – all you have to do is live with one to understand. 

    

So why does PETA and many other otherwise responsible animal organizations perpetuate these grossly misleading statistics?  Perhaps they think that this is the best way to show the importance of spaying and neutering cats or that it’s the best way to justify the use of healthy cat euthanasia to manage shelter occupancy rates – for according to the HSUS, 2.5 million cats and kittens are put down prematurely in shelters annually – rough half of their total admissions.    Whatever their reason, the result is a distorted picture of the number of cats – one that may be more hurtful to them than helpful.