The Rescue's main objective is Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR). Our website and social media accounts provide information about what we do, and we have an assistance form to help streamline requests. Nevertheless, a message we receive regularly enough to be alarming is from people asking us to "come get" cats. Which always leaves me wondering what anyone thinks we would do with them -- put them in the (mythical) warehouse where we keep the cats?
A key factor behind TNR is that feral cats are generally unhappy if forced to live indoors. Truly feral cats have always lived outside, know how to survive, and don't like people very much. Many, over time, develop a relationship with their feeder humans in that they will come close and sometimes even allow contact, but that shouldn't be taken to mean they want to become house cats. They simply want to say, "thanks for the food and the ear tip".
Stray cats, on the other hand, were pet cats at one time. Cats who were handled by people from a young age are generally tame. This group of cats tolerates-to-craves human contact, depending on their temperament and experiences. Stray cats living outside can usually be taken inside with a good outcome and it's most often the best thing for them. Stray cats don't typically live in colonies, as feral cats do, strays tend to be more solitary.
Despite The Rescue's in-your-face attempts to explain what we do and what differentiates a feral cat from a lost or abandoned house cat, an awful lot of people just don't understand. And what's most bothersome about that point is that they don't take the time to learn the difference or understand what we're offering to do before demanding that we "come get" the cats.
Notwithstanding the fact that we don't, in fact, have a great big warehouse in which to keep the cats (and it would have to be really, really big, because there are a lot of feral cats out there), how on earth would that work anyway? Are we expected to socialize the cats? Do these people think we sprinkle magic fairy dust on the cats to make them into house pets? Do they think we house the cats in our mythical warehouse indefinitely?
It's baffling.
Sometimes, when it's absolutely necessary, we can relocate feral cats. It's not the best or easiest outcome and should be done only as a last resort. So, when Aunt Mary has been feeding a bunch of cats on her porch for five years and has just had to enter assisted living, it would be very courteous of her niece who is requesting our help to give us that information from the get-go rather than offer up the story that fifteen cats just showed up on the porch last week out of the blue for no reason.
Umm, what? Cats congregate near a food source. What you're saying doesn't add up and we all know it's not true.
The other problem with the aforementioned help request scenario is this: it takes time to move a colony of cats. They are invariably not fixed and so must be trapped, taken for spay/neuter/vaccinations, and then moved to their new location. This must all happen within a couple of days of trapping since we, in fact, do not have a big warehouse where we keep the cats.
And since we have limited manpower and access to spay/neuter appointments, we can realistically only handle a few cats at a time. Furthermore, a great deal of planning is involved in relocating feral cats, as well as with TNR in general.
But people want all the cats gone now. Immediately. "Are you coming with traps?" Right now, right now.
It's hard to understand. And again, we do not have any place to keep feral cats long term, nor would we want to.
Feral cats become very stressed in captivity. TNR is a short-term activity, per cat, for a number of reasons, the most important being that feral cats tend to shut down if they are confined for very long. They do not eat, they hide. Generally, they are very afraid. It's cruel to keep them like that any longer than is necessary in order to do the basic things that need to be done to stop the cycle of reproduction and vaccinate them against disease.
So, when it's asked of us to come get a whole colony of cats at once, well, too bad so sad, it's just not going to happen. Simply not possible, and even if it were we wouldn't be inclined to hold the cats long-term just because someone wants them to disappear.
Another scenario that comes up quite often is one in which someone has been feeding a few cats for a while and the weather turns cold. Again, this is suddenly an emergency that needs to be dealt with right now, right now.
Offering people the advice to provide the cats with shelter and start trap-training the cats themselves is usually met with incredulity-to-refusal. "You want me to do what? Isn't that your job?"
In fact, no, it's not our job. We are volunteers doing what we do because we care about the cats and know how. We're not miracle workers who can accommodate every request for help immediately.
See, the crux of the problem central to this particular post is ignorance. This is all I am saying: if you're asking an all-volunteer animal rescue for assistance, take a few minutes to understand what this organization actually does and what it can do. Asking for the impossible will only cause frustration on both sides. And understand that there's no giant warehouse where we keep the cats.
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