The work you do is amazing, and so important!
I agree, this whole adoption was a dream scenario, and I was so happy when the owners of the kittens wrote me back asking what kind of life I could offer the kittens. We do have our problems here too, this is the season for cat and kitten dumping, because people are going away for the summer. Just a few days ago there was an article in the newspaper about somebody leaving a box with a mama cat and her kittens in the forrest. Luckily somebody saw it, and got the cats. But I do think things have gotten better in the last few years. A few years ago you would find a lot of kittens being given away for free, at any time. Now it seems like there is lot less kittens, 90% has an adoption fee and most have a lot of people waiting to adopt. Both the animal rights group and people, on social media, has been working on educating people. Getting people to spay/neuter, chip, taking adoption fees and taking responsibility for their cats. We don’t have a problem with wild/feral dogs, because dogs typically cost a lot, and there has been good work done to give cats the same status as dogs. So something has changed since the last time I got a kitten, and that’s amazing. It also helps that the media reports on it, so that people can see the public outcry whenever somebody dump their cats. I’m guessing that is also why the number of homeless cats is going down. We do have them, but not as much as it used to be. Around here I haven’t seen a homeless in 15 years.
So people doing the kind of work you do is important, it’s the reason things have been getting better here.
You can have our winters! Pan hates the winter, so he makes himself an indoor cat between november and april. Medusa don’t mind, and all the Norwegian forrest cats I’ve had is Ok with winter, they were designed for it. But Pan is not having it! You’ll find him in front over the fireplace every winter.