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.