Need Advice

[sukie]

Hi
I volunteer at an animal shelter in Washington. We have quite a few feral cats here, and unfortunatley they don't get adopted very fast. Some of them have been here for years! I was wondering if anyone might have some ideas on how we might get more exposure for the feral cats? I really love all our feral kittys and I would like to see them get good homes. Please let me know if you have any ideas that might help

Thanks
Jenny

 

[hissy]

I first applaud your shelter for taking them in, so many shelters do not. I would start a web page with photos of them, and perhaps ask for local volunteers who have time to come in and socialize them (after being screened completely that is) I know with the real wild ones, they end up going out to barns after they are spayed and neutered of course, and I have one lady who has a goat farm that has about 10 of my rescues already. Perhaps you can run an ad in the Capitol Press to the farmers advertising mousers for their barns? Good luck

 

[sukie]

Thanks for the advice! We have a couple of people who work on taming them in a seperate facility. I myself have even worked with some of them. We do post pictures of the cats in a newspaper just for adoptable animals but I 'm not sure that enough people see it. Same
goes for the web site. Is there anything we can do to change this?
Also I get the feeling that some people are afraid of the feral cats.
Is there a way to teach people that feral cats are just as good a pet
as a domestic cat?


Jenny

 

[hissy]

It is so hard for me to change some people's beliefs, it is like they hear the word "feral" and think wolves or something. Maybe calling them abandoned, or misplaced, or something would work? They are such wonderful loving cats once they trust you, but they have that radar that domestics don't have and they instinctively know who is a bad person the first time they meet them. Great judges of character, and really great mousers!