Patches was adopted indoors this week by another neighbor!

Patches was part of the Eleanor Rigby Colony that I started TNR’ing in 2008. Her feline friend, Clover, was just adopted indoors last month. Now a neighbor on that same block just took Patches inside. This means that since 2008, 18 cats and kittens have been spayed/neutered, and now the colony is down to ONE cat. TNR works!

Patches was always very motivated by food. Here she is eating on the ground before the monorail cats.

She’s on the left here, the first day I met this colony and started trapping. She’s watching me to see if it’s ok to eat.  Patches was easy to trap and bring in for her TNR treatment. She was always very skittish with me, but she bonded to her feeders. This colony moved through three feeders on their block. When the cats started being fed by a woman named Casey, Patches and Clover bonded to each other, and then bonded to Casey’s family. Patches loves her son.

And their dog. And then she loved going inside with them.

But when the weather is nice out, Patches enjoyed the outdoors. Who could blame her? Casey provided daily food and water.

Casey had a heated outdoor shelter for the cats in her yard. The colony cats also used the shelters under the original feeder’s porch. As the colony got smaller through the years, Patches was the only one who used these shelters.

As it got colder this past month, perhaps Patches had enough of winter, because she has now been indoors all week with her new family. She meowed at first, but settled in within two days.

The one remaining TNR’d cat outside is fed by yet another neighbor on another block, and that cat pretty much stays in their yard all the time, and is basically their outdoor cat. Casey also donated her heated shelter to them since she no longer has cats to feed outside.

I’ve left the shelter and tarp under the porch just in case another cat ever shows up, but there has not been a “new” cat on this block since 2010.

I will always check on this location periodically, but as fas as I’m concerned, this colony is a wrap. It’s done! All of the hard work of TNR has paid off, proving that it works – it is the most effective, humane way to control the stray and feral cat overpopulation outdoors.

I could not be more thankful this holiday season.

Last week brought incredible news: Clover was adopted off the street.

Clover was part of the Eleanor Rigby Colony. I started TNR there in December of 2008 for an overwhelmed, disabled, elderly feeder named Rosemary. This is part of what the colony looked like then. Clover is all the way in the back on the left. Her friend Patches is to the right.

Rosemary let me do whatever I wanted. I set traps all winter and stayed in her house for hours waiting for the cats to go in for TNR. I TNR’d eight cats, but did not get Clover.

I made four outdoor cat shelters and put them under Rosemary’s porch. That following summer, Clover had five kittens in one of the shelters.

They were tiny. The family stayed under the porch.

And even moved  to another shelter under the porch.

At first I wanted to wait until the kittens were weaned before bringing them inside for socialization and adoption. Clover acted feral and I did not want to stress her out. But, one kitten disappeared. And then I found another one dying. I rushed the kitten to the vet but s/he died on the way. I decided to bring the remaining cat family inside. This time, Clover was easy to trap. Clover was always protective of her kittens, and never sought attention from me. The little grey and white kitten in back also died after I brought him inside. The two other kittens in front were sick with URI but pulled through. Once they were weaned, three weeks after being inside with me, I TNR’d Clover and reunited her with her colony at Rosemary’s house.

The kittens were eventually admitted into Tree House. Their admission was delayed until they were a bit older, because their neuter surgeries were complicated – one kitten had a heart murmur, and the other kitten has an allergic reaction to the anesthesia. But Charlie Angel and Captain Jack finally made it. Clover was a very healthy cat, but her kitten’s illnesses showed how hard it is for them to survive outside.

Clover stayed outside with her colony for the next few years. Rosemary eventually disappeared in 2010. I never found out what happened to her, but her house is still there. The colony was now fed by another elderly woman named Eleanor. Then Eleanor died in 2012, and another woman named Casey started feeding the cats regularly. At this point, I had spayed/neutered 18 cats from this colony, but this past year there are only three cats left outside. The rest of the cats were adopted, admitted into shelters, or died on the street.

Even though Clover was fed elsewhere, she always liked to hang out under Rosemary’s porch, so I kept the shelters there. Someone put a cat bed under the porch for her.

Last winter Clover and Patches really bonded with Casey, and she started letting them into her home. The funny thing is that these two cats don’t really get along with each other, but they seem to keep finding their new caregivers together.

Last week Casey told me a neighbor named Amanda was trying to adopt Clover into her home. Amanda was able to pick up Clover and take her to the clinic for a check-up, vaccinations, and testing. Clover tested negative and was docile at the clinic. She even let them cut her nails. So far she is slowly acclimating to being indoors, but is acting friendly with Amanda. If it doesn’t work out, Clover still has shelter and food outside waiting for her.

Fingers crossed, though, that she wants to stay inside. The Eleanor Rigby Colony is a perfect example of how TNR works to humanely reduce the outdoor cat population. From eighteen cats spayed/neutered starting in 2008, to an outdoor population now of only two cats. Amanda told me she used to see new cats and kittens outside all of the time. Now she was only seeing Clover, and is happy to try to bring her finally home.

Clover was adopted off the street by a neighbor last fall. We crossed our fingers that she would want to stay permanently.

Casey, her caregiver, just sent this photo. Thank you, Casey! The adoption is a success!

Clover is from the now “retired” Eleanor Rigby Colony. She was the one cat from that colony that did everything on her own terms. I couldn’t trap her initially with the rest of the cats. Until she had kittens. Then I was able to trap her and her kittens and kept them indoors with me for a month. The kittens were socialized and adopted, but Clover still acted feral. So I TNReturned her back to the colony. Throughout the years she went through three feeders until she found Casey. She warmed up to Casey, and would visit her indoors. Casey couldn’t keep her, but another neighbor, Amanda, found Clover and let her inside, and it’s clearly working well six months later. Cheers to Amanda and Clover!

Ben M. surprised me this week with another generous donation. This time it was a holiday gift for his friend Jason T. who asked Ben to make a donation in his name to his favorite charity.

 I’m floored. Thank you again.

Then we also figured out that we lived close to each other. In fact, Ben lives right in the middle of a few of my TNR’d colonies. When I mentioned that to him, he said he wondered why he’s only seen a few stray cats in his neighborhood.

That made my day. Yes! TNR works!!!

This is just one of the colonies right near him that I call the Eleanor Rigby Colony. You may recognize the photo from Tree House’s TNR handouts in their clinic.

Starting in 2008, I TNR’d, pulled, fostered and adopted 18 cats total from this address. There is only one cat left outside at this point. This photo shows a few of them, all of them TNR’d at first, and I’ve written about most of them. Starting from left to right:

Fluffy, the long-haired brown and white tabby was TNR’d, and then hit by a car a year later. Neighbors found her and took her to the ERl. She was euthanized because her back was broken. I found this out because the vet traced her microchip to me and called to let me know.

Patches is the short-haired brown and white tabby. She was TNReturned by me, and adopted indoors by another neighbor last year.

The only one currently left outside is the small black cat, who left the colony after her TNR and is being fed and cared for exclusively by another feeder. They named her Joker and she has shelter and full reign of their yard.

The long-haired black and white cat, is Dusty. He is the only male and was in charge of this “harem.” A few years after his TNR, a neighbor brought him to Animal Control, who traced his microchip to me. I was able to rescue him from animal control, and a friend of a friend adopted him from me. Since then, I’ve become great friends with his adopter, Greer. She has her own cat sitting business, Mama Bear Pet Care, and she regularly cat sits for me.

The other long-haired brown and white tabby is Clover. She had kittens before I could TNR her. I fostered and admitted the kittens to a shelter, and I TNR’d Clover after the kittens were weaned. Last year another neighbor adopted her indoors.

The grey cat is Gracie. Two years ago, she disappeared for awhile, and then a neighbor found her body in the alley underneath the train tracks. We don’t know what happened to her, but I suspected rat poison, since she was a great hunter and the city baits under the tracks all of the time. At least she had a good four years of being fed and cared for after her initial TNR, and she was definitely a neighborhood favorite.