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| Juliet and Cappy |
Marcy: What’s that?
Cynthia: That’s my friend’s little girl, Juliet, looking completely adorable in her Cat In The Hat costume with her best bud, rescue kitty Cappy.
Marcy: It doesn’t sound like Seuss. It sounds like Shakespeare.
Cynthia: Actually, this is a kind of Horatio Alger rags to riches story. Cappy was an older kitten living with his colony on the mean streets of Los Angeles back in 2008.
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| Cappy and his semi-feral siblings |
Cynthia: I worked with The Kris Kelly Foundation to TNR (trap/neuter/release) the colony. We found homes for five of the littlest kittens but the teenage kittens (the ones pictured) were really too feral to find homes for. Except Cappy. Kind of.
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| Cappy and his brother living on the streets in Los Angeles |
Cynthia: He was very scared but curious.
Marcy: Curiosity killed the cat ya know.
Cynthia: In this case, curiosity saved Cappy. He would linger a little longer after he ate to see what I was up to. Eventually, he started brushing up against my legs. And that was when I knew I had to at least try to find him a home.
Marcy: Who wants a semi feral cat? No one.
Cynthia: That’s what I thought. No one. I put out a plea on Facebook anyway, and lo an behold, my friend Heather asked to meet him. She fell in love, took him home, and spent a tremendous amount of time taming him. She also spent a lot of money on vet bills since Cappy had health problems I wasn’t even aware of…
Marcy (admiringly): I bet he was bad. Feral cats are so bad. Just like the Cat In The Hat. He’s such a bad kitty.
Cynthia: Yes. It was quite challenging. Taming a semi-feral cat is not for the faint of heart. But Heather and her husband, David, are extraordinary people. And now look at him!
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| Cappy at home |
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| Cappy performing Neighborhood Watch duties |
Cynthia: Instead of living on the streets, he is living in house with people who love him and take wonderful care of him. Plus, he has a new friend – Juliet – a cat lover and future cat advocate. I mean, did you take a close look at her sneakers?!!
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| Juliet and Cappy |
Marcy: That Cat in the Hat is so bad. He’s transforming little kids into bad kitties. He’s my hero. He’s so bad.
*It is very easy to get depressed and feel hopeless as an animal rescuer. The problem is so immense. Someone compared it once to trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon. So when a cat I have rescued has such a happy ending as Cappy and his Juliet, it makes me so incredibly happy.
21 Comments
What a beautiful story! I love it! I love a happy ending, too. Cappy looks so content and happy. Could that little girl be any cuter? The answer is no! Oh my gosh! Juliet is adorable. She makes my uterus hurt. And the costume?! And her shoes?! So cool!
Thank you for sharing such a beautiful story!
Jenni
Your comment about your uterus hurting is hysterical! OMG! And, it describes the feeling perfectly. What is it about little girls that makes us big girls melt? Juliet is sooooo adorable. I can't get over how happy she is in that huge hat!
xo,cynthia
That costume is so cute!
I'm so glad Cappy found a home.
Hi Liana! Thank you so much for stopping by and commenting!!! I loooved your outfit on Roxy's blog today. I am headed over there soon to comment.
I am always so happy when one of the cats I rescue gets such a good home. Sometimes they don't always turn out so wonderful.
xo,cynthia
What a great story, thanks for sharing.
I'm a huge animal lover and would like to get involved in animal rescue myself but I'm kind of scared, specifically for the reasons you listed at the end of your post. I can barely make it through the ASPCA commercials, I'm not sure what I'd do at a shelter where I would I couldn't "save" them all. Not a reason to not help, but I gotta get myself over that!
How did you "dip your toes" into the rescue arena?
Oh wow! These are fantastic questions, Lisa. I don't know where to start. I think you may have inspired an extensive blog post about this.
If you feel too emotional to walk dogs or socialize kittens/cats at a regular government funded shelter that's okay! Smaller non profit rescue groups need help too.
The two most pressing issues are money and fosters. Animal funding is dead last in charitable giving. Rescue groups are constantly competing for money. Vet bills (even with a non profit discount) are sky high. In rescue, even $5 or $10 towards a vet bill can make a difference. Seriously. Most rescue groups will let you give directly to their vet too. Let's see…
Transport is sometimes needed for animals going to and from the shelter to a foster home. Or, from a foster home to adoption events and back again. These usually take place on weekend afternoons at pet stores.
Social Media. Rescue groups often need help with this.
Taking great photos or videos of the animals they have up for adoption. I have a friend doing this at a city shelter and the adoption rate has gone up so significantly she was thanked by the mayor.
Donating food. Many rescue groups depended on getting pallets of food from Natural Balance but NB recently discontinued this in kind giving. Many rescues are scrambling now for food.
Save all of your old towels and blankets and donate them to a rescue or shelter. Also, leashes, crates, food bowls, toys – all are welcome to shelters and rescues.
Some rescue groups have days where they organize people to go to low income areas with free spay/neuter vouchers.
All of this stuff is desperately needed by rescues. Your best bet is to research some of your local rescues and ask what they need. You can find a lot of them at pet stores such a Petco and Petsmart on the weekends if you want to meet them in person. At these stores the rescue groups are legitimate 501c3 non profits.
Whew. I need to organize this into an easy to read post or a video. I think a lot of people are like you and want to help but don't want to get mired down in emotion. And really, that is not a necessary component of animal rescue. And we need you!!
Oh – i got involved in rescue because of the cats you see in my post who lived on my street. I couldn't bear to watch them multiply and the people who were feeding them were getting desperate. I just happened to run into an old friend who had started her own animal rescue (mostly dogs at the time) non profit and we figured it out by networking with other animal rescues.
Wow, thanks so much for your response, Marcy! This is really helpful!
I currently donate money (to local shelters or to help specific animals) but that's about all I do right now and I am thinking more and more that I would like to get more involved. I'm totally one of those people who feel more for animals than other humans sometimes.
I think this would be a great idea for a series of blog posts – a lot of us are animal lovers but we don't do a lot with it. You can help provide info and encourage others to help!
I totally agree…you have some awesome ideas Cynthia…you must do a post! Lisa, thanks so much for asking…I thought I knew all the ways to help, but I just got a ton of ideas from this.
A couple other thoughts I had…you can donate items directly to Petco and Petsmart…they will go to the charity at that location. Some shelters are looking for people to take older kitties home for the weekend, since they get played with the least. Fostering is great too and can be for around a month or so and is a great way to get a pet w/o long term commitment…although you are likely to adopt them in the end…this happened to me and my mom 3 times. 🙂 Also, if you are new to volunteering w/ animals, I would do it at a petsmart or petco…they make it easy to do and a lot of times you'll be helping people pick out the perfect pet (which translates to snuggling with a bunch of pets while you work).
Cynthia – if you do decide to do the post, let me know if there is ANYWAY I can help…I can help with the research or proofread or whatever….I'm just really excited about the idea. Keep up the great work!
Thank you, Merrie!! Isn't it interesting how Lisa's question really hit a nerve?! I got really excited too because I know people love animals and want to help but want to avoid getting depressed. I need to wrap my head around this to see if a written post or a video would be best. Hmmmm… maybe I'll try with video first. Thank you for offering to help. Hmmmmm… I have got my thinking cap on!!
xo,cynthia
I think that a video sounds a great!! If there is anything I can do to help…let me know. At the very least, i'll link to it from one of my posts. Can't wait to see how this turns out!!
All I can say is "aaaaawwwww." That brought a tear to my eye.
Awwww… me too. Every time I get a good update on a cat I have adopted out, I get tears in my eyes.
xo,cynthia
you're all a bunch of mush heads.
meow,marcy
I love all these beautiful pictures of Cappy! Cynthia loves the black and whites!!!! Great story!!! I love the Cat in the Hat!!!!!!!!!!! xoxo
Don't these pictures of him make you so happy? Who would have thought that this semi feral would have such a happy life. Thank you, Kris! btw, cappy really looks a lot like marcy!
xo and meow, cynthia + marcy
You'll have to share your TNR stories with us sometime..I never got to TNR those kittens bc I got sick and then had to move, but i know it's WAY more challenging than it looks. Also, major props to Juliette…I can't even imagine the patience and love that she had to put into taming Cappy. He looks like a sweet kitty now though, so I'm sure it was worth it. (I also love the new pic of Marcy…super cute yawn 🙂 )
They had a really rough time of it for a while. I am just so happy that Cappy came around and became such a house cat. You could tell he was drawn to people. That is too bad about the kitties. I wonder if you called some rescue groups who do TNR if they would go to your old place on their own to trap them?
xo,cynthia
I tried and a hit a dead end. The TNR clinic only comes out to trap for 3 zip codes in PHX. I even tried the city of phoenix, but they only define dogs as stray animals, so they won't pickup cats.
What a wonderful person you are to help Cappy and the kitties, he is as adorable as his human sis Juliet. She is the cutest little cat lady in training I've ever seen in her Dr. Suess hat- SQUEEEEEEE!!
My mancat Kaspars had a good laugh listening to Marcy's comments- he says she sounds like a kindred spirit. Kaspars nickname at home is 'beastie boy' and it fits him to a T! He is a mischievous mancat whose antics give me far too many premature grey hairs than I like, yet is so loving and gentle you cannot help forgiving him in an instant. ��
Our cats have us wrapped around their furry paws! Good thing there is hair dye if we don't like the gray they give us.
Love the nickname "beastie boy" for Kaspars! That's adorable!
xo,cynthia
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