George's Friends

Aunt Scraggly Drops the Electric Slide

rocketpants — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 13:37:12 -0800

NOTE: We don't have any pictures of Aunt Scraggly, which is, I acknowledge, my fault. Because she is so wild, our opportunities to snap a shot of her standing still out in the open are very rare. We are still on the lookout for opportunities. If we do get a picture, we'll replace this little note with it. Thank you!

Okay, it's easy to trumpet this as some sort of Biblical miracle - I won't do that. It's really just nature taking its course, but still I find it incredibly exciting. Aunt Scraggly can walk! Those of you with more veterinary experience are laughing at me right now. Cats are incredibly resilient, you're thinking. This is not unusual. But still, please, allow me this moment of absolute awe.

If you'll remember, Aunt Scraggly is a cat rescued by your donations after she was (we believe) shot with a pellet gun and left dragging her hindquarters, barely able to move. We got her medical care and brought her back to be quarantined just to be safe about diseases we had missed. When she left the vet, she was still crippled - able to move her hind legs but dragging her hips on the ground behind her. Sort of like a groggy cat version of the Electric Slide.

Yesterday on our thrice daily check-ins with her in quarantine, we discovered the clever old girl had escaped by (we kid you not) tearing a hole in the drywall and escaping into the attic! Our attic is a maze of ductwork and joists and things that cannot support our weight, so finding her was not really possible. We left the attic doors open and left food out in the civilized areas so she'd come out into the house proper.

Last night she emerged and this morning we observed that she is walking very well. Not normally - she still can't lift her hindquarters to their customary height. However, she is moving her back feet independently and supporting her weight. For those of you familiar with '50s rock and roll, you'd recognize her gait as Chuck Berry's duck walk. When she saw us she showed us just how well she can run and scurry.

We'll be watching her for several more days yet, but we have no reason to believe that she will not be able to resume a normal life.

Thank you for your extremely generous donations! Aunt Scraggly's fierce determination to live in the face of cruelty and extreme hardship is frankly inspiring to me. I am grateful that we were able to give her a chance.

And now we move on ... to spaying kittens! Expect a report later in the week about the catching and neutering of the summer's kittens in Andalusia.

Thank you!

Filling the Kitten Queue

rocketpants — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 22:26:13 -0800

In our Andalusia pilot, we're getting to know the neighborhood cats. At our first trapping station on East 2nd Street, we've identified twelve cats we can fairly easily reach:

6 kittens: two all black, one black tuxedo, one gray tuxedo, and 2 brindle tabby and white bookends
1 siamese, who we've been calling "Tiny Smart Kitten" since she was a baby two years ago
1 big beige tabby tom (what a bruiser he is!)
1 big tuxedo tom
Aunt Scraggly
Aunt Scraggly's daughter, who looks almost exactly like her
a brindle saddle-backed girl with a big white belly

(There are a handful more, but they haven't been around consistently in the last few weeks.*)

So that's a dozen cats in a 1-block radius who will be spayed or neutered because of your donations. Soon we'll also have enough for a second trapping station, so we can move on to the next block. More importantly, with every cat we touch, we learn more that we can pass on to other communities.

We'll be putting the trap out next week to start catching kittens IF we reach our Sponsor a Cat goal at your left. Won't you consider a donation?

Remember that your donations don't go towards neutering one cat. They also prevent a litter of kittens to care for next year, and the next...

Thank you!

George's Friends

* One of those is an exceptional tame tomcat we named Ted, whose owners we never found. He's been gone for two weeks now. Our hope is that he's gone back home. Also, there's one opossum who must think he's a cat because he is everywhere the cats are. We will not be spaying the opossum, if you're wondering.

Aunt Scraggly is Safe!

rocketpants — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:27:56 -0800

Strange and wonderful news from Aunt Scraggly, our first local cat in Andalusia. If you'll remember, she's a familiar cat in the neighborhood who showed up nearly a week ago dragging her hindquarters. We assumed she'd been run over and had broken bones, and mounted a herculean effort to catch her and get her care. Your donations were timely and generous, helping us get equipment to catch her and covering most of her care. After a weird 5-night vigil during which we nearly despaired of ever catching her, we finally confined her last night and got her to the vet this morning. I mentally prepared myself for having to put her down.

Well, she's home now and the news is very good, if quite weird. She was anaesthetized and x-rayed for the cause of her failing back end, and the vet (very surprisingly!) found no structural damage. No broken bones, no spinal injury - nothing. No fever, either, or any other evidence of disease (though he's running more blood tests just to be safe). He did find a pellet-gun pellet embedded in her head, outside the skull. Her skull was not cracked, which is great news. The working theory is that the shot may have given her a severe concussion and caused some paralysis that may be temporary or permanent.

He recommended, to our surprise, that we just take her home and release her. Actually, he recommended 10 days of quarantine since she scratched me up pretty badly, just to make sure she's not carrying something that could be a danger to me. If she remains unaltered and healthy for 10 days (and if I get the all-clear from my doctor), I'm going to release her into the neighborhood. The vet says she'll be a little less able to escape predators now, but predators are not a major concern in this quiet neighborhood. Since there isn't anything we can do for her short of very expensive diagnostics, I agreed. We did not spay her today, but she'll be in the rotation before kitten season next year for sure.

Your donations covered most of the cost of trapping equipment, x-rays and other medical care, and her care during quarantine. Thank you very much! This story has also captured the imagination of more donors, and contributions to our cat sponsorship fund and equipment fund have increased.

Since I have her confined for a few days I'll try to get some pictures so you can visually bask in your success. She's now a very weird-looking cat, with hind legs that work strangely, but potentially a quite healthy and happy part of the neighborhood again.

Thank you so much for your compassion and quick action. She doesn't know it, but she has a lot of good people to thank right now.

Jane

Aunt Scraggly Update

rocketpants — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:29:38 -0800

Aunt Scraggly is still fighting to stay alive. We have a trap set for her near where we believe she is staying. She remains, however, extremely wily even in her weakened state. In the meantime we've caught and released two adult cats and several kittens (one of them twice!), so we know the trap works. We remain hopeful that Aunt Scraggly will soon venture into the trap to eat the tasty treats we leave there for her.

Meanwhile, thanks to the generosity of our friends, we have raised just over 3/4 of the money we need to help her. Our goal graphic doesn't reflect that - there's a time lag for updating it - but we're almost done. Just a few more small donations will give us what we need.

Thank you!

Jane

Immediate Need: Help Aunt Scraggly!

rocketpants — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 12:04:00 -0800

Hello, friends of George!

As I'm rushing to put together all the pieces of this effort, I'm confronted with an immediate need for donations. Aunt Scraggly, a neighborhood stray, appears to have a broken leg or hip since Friday afternoon. She's camped out under my house right now, but she manages to get out to the food and water at least once a day. She must be in great pain but is being very brave, and she can still move faster than I can. It's impressive how scrappy she is!

I have a plan to capture her tonight (she's very wild) and get her to the vet in the morning. Whether they'll be able to repair her broken bones is unclear, but I want to get her some relief for the pain she is in. She cannot survive the winter with broken bones.

So Aunt Scraggly needs your help!

If we are able to keep her alive, we'll want to do the following for her in addition to repairing her injury:

* spaying

* vaccinations

* basic medical exam

I don't have a total for what this will cost, and I am willing to cover a good deal of it myself. I am asking George's Friends to help her by raising $150 in donations. This will cover most of the cost of spaying, or the cost of having her humanely put to sleep.

Please consider giving any amount. Small amounts are welcome and encouraged! You can pay using our secure online donation system by clicking the ChipIn button on the widget above (requires Paypal) or send cash or checks to Jane Brooks at 414 E Second Street Andalusia AL 36420. (Until we have our account set up, please make checks out to Jane Brooks.)

She is a beautiful, strong, smart cat. Let's give her some relief and help make sure the rest of her life is much better than it is today!

Thank you!

Jane

Getting Started

rocketpants — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 13:30:00 -0800

First of all, thank you to all our friends who have provided time, ideas, and pledges of support to George's Friends. I'm excited that we may be able to make a difference in our community, and to pass what we learn on to other communities.

What We've Done So Far

Website

I've created the beginning of a website (you're looking at it now) and begun to publicize it among close friends who are animal lovers. We have not yet settled on a name (our working title is George's Friends) (Note: Official name is George's Friends. 11/11/08) but I have begun writing some of the information we will need to convince others to help us. Watch this space as things come together. When we have a name, a domain, and official contact information, I will begin publicizing the site beyond my close circle of friends.

Our website is hosted by TypePad using my blogging account, so it's free to the organization. Our e-mail will be handled by g-mail or by the company that hosts our domain.

Donations

We've chosen Chip-In as our donation services provider. Chip-In offers a free, secure way to solicit, publicize, and track donations via PayPal. It also offers nifty widgets we can post on our site and others so you can see how we're doing.

We've also decided to use a project sponsorship model to ask for donations. Instead of asking for a steady stream of donations, we are creating specific projects with goals and timelines so that you choose what to give money for. Our first project is purchasing humane trapping equipment. We will also begin collecting money soon to help our first cat. You can donate in any amount via Chip-In, check, cash, in person or by mail.

What's Next?

Website

We still have a lot to do to finish our website. My goal is to have the website up and running with its own domain by early in the week of November 10. (Done: http://www.george-friends.com 11/11/08)

503(c)(3) Status

We are currently looking for a 503(c)(3) corporation that is willing to partner with us to offer tax deductibility for donations. Please contact Jane if you are interested in forming a partnership!

Research

I'm looking into organizations and clinics that provide low cost spay/neutering in south Alabama and NW Florida. The pickings are slim, but there is one clinic in Montgomery and one in Ft. Walton, FL, that provide services at a lower cost than our local vets. It is my hope that I can use this information negotiate lower prices closer to home. However, if I can't I know that the cost of gas + neutering in Ft. Walton is still cheaper than the retail price of these surgeries in Andalusia. With some planning I can reduce the time commitment of these longer drives, too.

Partnerships

Jason Reuer in Seattle told me about The Feral Cat Project in Washington State. It's a clinic that operates on donations and provides free spaying/neutering for free-roaming cats throughout the state. It has also received a grant from PetCo to mentor other orgs to create similar efforts elsewhere. I have contacted them, hoping to get a few minutes of their time to learn more about what we can do at a more grass roots level.

I am also planning to contact the ASPCA, The Humane Society, The Panhandle Animal Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) in Florida, and several other organizations that support spaying and neutering programs. Partnerships with these organizations will add credibility to our effort and help us better negotiate lower costs.

Finally, on Monday I will contact the two veterinary clinics in Andalusia and the Covington County Humane Society to begin negotiations for reducing the per-cat cost of surgery and shots. I am confident that with the force of a new organization behind me I will be able to move them to action. (Note: Negotiations are currently underway. 11/11/08)

Local Donations and Outreach

When we are ready to launch our efforts, I will go to local grocery and hardware stores, pet stores, and convenience stores with flyers and donation cans branded with our logo and information.

I will also issue a press release to Andalusia radio and television stations, get the word out on The Party Line (our free radio classifieds), and put up notices on Craigslist for nearby cities. We will accept donations in cash, check, or online, in person or through the mail.

I may also contact the local high school for ideas about how to partner with school groups to canvas or hold fundraising events like bake sales or car washes. There's a lot of competition in this town for teenage energy, but I may be able to sway the Agriculture, 4H, or Home Economics clubs to get involved.

Immediate Goals

Our immediate goals include:

* Complete website development

* Launch marketing effort online and locally

* Begin accepting donations

* Reach out to vets, organizations, and local leaders for help

Longer Term Goals

* Negotiate lower spay/neuter costs

* Establish (or borrow) tax exempt status

* Spay or neuter our first cats!

* Document successes. processes, and lessons learned in Andalusia

* Begin building a mentorship program to reach out to other communities

Again, thank you for your support with this effort. The beauty of working together and partnering with other groups is that we can make a difference without breaking the bank or making this a full-time effort for anyone.

The kittens! They will be so healthy now! :)

Jane