Just because I’m out of town doesn’t mean I stop thinking about the cats. Jim totally understands this, and accepts it for the most part. At this point he gives me updates without me even asking first. These past few weeks have been full of updates from him:

“The Feral Villa has arrived.” Which means he will assemble it. He even suggested we make a video of that. Stay tuned.

“The outdoor heating pad is here.”

“Dice ate dinner.”

“Dice didn’t eat dinner but all of the food is gone.” Dice is clearly sick so Jim knows I’m especially worried about him.

“Popcorn was eating the food in front. This time he jumped over the fence when he saw me.” Popcorn got his name because he slammed right into the fence once when he saw us, and then wouldn’t stop trying to escape from the trap when I TNR’d him. Popcorn was not injured in both cases, and it sounds like TNR made him smarter.

It’s nice to have someone hold down the feline fort while I’m gone. He also created this web site for me, and does the heavy lifting projects, like cleaning and organizing the feral cat supplies in our garage, and building outdoor cat houses. There’s nothing hotter than a guy with a soft spot for the animals. Our indoor pet cat, Mooha, has learned how to exploit that soft spot to her fullest advantage.

Here they are bonding over their mutual love of cheese.

I met up with Chicago TNR again over the winter to help with trap-neuter-return, TNR, for outdoor cats in Englewood, a neighborhood in Chicago’s south side. My friend George started Chicago TNR by herself last year and has been humanely trapping colony cats all over the south side. She started trapping the Englewood cats last November in partnership with PAWS Chicago’s low-cost spay/neuter clinic.

By mid-December, in just six weeks, Chicago TNR Trapped-Neutered-Returned 93 cats in Englewood. 32 additional cats were Trapped-Neutered-Relocated to farms and warehouses that contacted PAWS Chicago looking to help pull cats off the streets and also for rodent control.

I joined George again one day in December in Englewood, where we trapped eight of those cats in less than two hours, just by driving around. George typically drives the PAWS’ van loaded with Tru-Catch traps, pet carriers, cat food for donations and bait, and other items needed for TNR projects, including newspapers, paper plates, and sheets to cover the traps. The cats are everywhere outside there, and we decided just to go to places where we knew there were community cats.

I met up with George at this TNR’d feral cat colony.

These cats are well fed and have shelter under the front porch. We moved on to an alley right around the corner where we saw a few cats, including this orange and white cat with a flea collar. We asked around but no one claimed him as theirs, so we decided to try to trap and take him to the clinic.

He was suspicious but clearly hungry. So we set up a trap.

And got him a few minutes later. 

We quickly moved on to another block where George knew of a colony and visited the feeder’s house. A well-endowed male cat was hanging out on her front steps.

After a quick consultation with the feeder, who claimed him as one of her indoor/outdoor pet cats,  we got him into a carrier to be neutered as well. 

Around the corner from there we placed a Rubbermaid bin cat house for shelter.

It is well concealed from the street and you would hardly notice it, but hopefully it will help keep a few cats warm in the winter.

From there we moved even more quickly. The feeder told us about a few cats down the street, and we saw them right away. We placed two traps baited with tuna near another feeder’s front steps, and two cats obliged by going in them immediately. These cats were hungry.

The woman that was feeding them was moving out of the neighborhood that day and was very grateful for our help. She told us that there were other feeders on that block so these cats are cared for.

George and I decided to split up at that point and she drove to another spot while I continued TNR on this block.

A few doors down this long-haired beauty came running down the steps and out of the gate to greet me on the sidewalk.

I talked to her feeder as well, who said she was friendly, but they could not let her permanently into their home.  She followed me down the block once she smelled the food.

She was easy to gently push into a trap.
George came back at this point fairly quickly with two more cats in traps, and another pet cat in a carrier. So now we had eight cats. It was freezing outside and we decided to wrap it up.

She wanted to show me Sabrina’s Colony. This is a colony of over a dozen cats. Sabrina feeds diligently, and rescues friendly cats and kittens all the time on her own.

The cats are gorgeous and well fed. They all came running when they saw us.

This tabby cat appeared to be the ringleader.

We were out of paper plates, but we fed them anyways on the ground.

These cats have ample shelters on her front porch.

From there we took all of the cats to PAWS Chicago’s low cost spay/neuter clinic. We met up with a few other feral cat trappers who were also dropping off their cats. We made sure each cat in a trap was fed.  Every trap was lined with clean newspaper for the cats to sit on, and each trap was covered with a sheet so that the feral cats would be calmed in the traps. Here they are ready for their spay/neuter surgeries, vaccinations, parasite treatments, and ear tipping.

Once the cats are fully recovered from their surgeries, usually within 24 to 48 hours, George then returns the cats to where they were trapped. In this case, the pet cats were returned to their owners, and three of the cats in traps, including the long-haired beauty that ran to greet me, were relocated into companies requesting cats for rodent control in their warehouses, while also feeding and caring for them and providing shelter.

I look forward to helping George in this neighborhood again. There are too many intact cats running outside here and the residents welcome any help they can get.

My garage is currently a factory for making new outdoor cat shelters and cleaning out the old ones. Because of TNR, the population of outdoor cats in my colonies is decreasing, and I am able to consolidate some of their former shelters and move them into different areas. 

I donated some of the shelters to the Cell Phones Colony, because they didn’t have any to begin with. They are now keeping the cats warm in the auto lot. I’ll have to update more on that soon – there are now 11 TNR’d cats there!

Today I’m excited to go and help trap cats for a targeted TNR project with Chicago TNR on the southside. Any cats we trap will be taken to PAWS Chicago’s low-cost vet clinic. I’m donating Rubbermaid bin feeding stations and hopefully I can feed some ear tipped and TNR’d cats while I’m there.

These feeding stations are easy to make. I used bins that were missing the tops and couldn’t be used to make a cat shelter. Instead of throwing them out, you just turn them upside down and cut a hole large enough for a cat to feed in there. It protects the food and cats from the rain and snow.