Conclusion

Lynne asked my to evaluate Project Purr as my final blog post. I’ll do my best.

Obviously they’re not perfect. Project Purr needs a big technology upgrade. First of all, Lynne needs a cell phone. The main Project Purr line needs an upgrade as well. They could convert a lot of their paper (like newsletters, surveys, and any other snail mail) to emails. The Facebook page is excellent, and Lynne does a great job keeping it going.
Lynne and Margaret both need to eat. They don’t seem to understand that food is what keeps them healthy, and without them, Project Purr wouldn’t exist. They need to take a scheduled break every day to eat lunch. If the Animal Shelter can take an hour off, Lynne and Margaret can take at least a half hour. Toast with peanut butter and bananas does not count as a full meal.

Speaking of breaks, sometimes the work can be really hard and very depressing. Putting a block on it can help, but hurts more when the block goes down. Talk about it, and stop for a little while for a break. Use the break to take a rest, pet a cat, or think about something that is not related at all to cats!

Lynne is afraid to tell the public about where the cat colonies in the county are. She’s afraid that those places will become dumping grounds. She needs to get over that fear. Dumpers are going to dump, and it’s better that the cat ends up in a colony that is well taken care of. And the positive publicity will bring the people in!

Lynne doesn’t want to give up control of anything, because she feels like other people won’t do things right (at least that’s how I’ve been interpreting her). She needs to realize that it’s okay if people don’t do things exactly right. After all, they don’t have the experience she has. She needs to accept it, and know that people will learn. And she needs to take advantage of the amazing people around her! Project Purr has so many great, willing volunteers who just want to help! Let them in! There’s no shame in asking for help!

I'm very lucky to have been allowed into Project Purr. By being an intern and spending a summer living and breathing cats, I've learned all the highs and lows of cat rescue. Running a non-profit is even more difficult than I thought, but is also an incredibly rewarding experience. It's not just about the cats either, it's also about the people. Meeting and interacting with like-minded people brings me hope for the world. If there are so many great people out there, then we must be going in the right direction.

Project Purr is an unsung hero of Santa Cruz County. It is made of people who have literally devoted the rest of their lives completely to cats. They live and breathe cats and never get tired of it. And the cats they work with are incredibly afraid of them. These are cats that, when given the chance, will bite and scratch out of fear, they are not cute and cuddly kittens. And yet, Project Purr loves these cats that everyone else overlooks. Are they crazy? Yes, but crazy in a good way. They are changing the way Santa Cruz views cats, and decreasing the amount of cats that go into the shelter. They are saving lives and preventing suffering. They are heroes!

Finding a New Intern

I had the honor of being Project Purr’s first intern. In the spring, I knew I needed to do an internship in the summer, and started brainstorming where I could go. I had trapped with Project Purr before (I did the trapping, Lynne did the rest) and I knew that I wanted to do TNR in the future as part of my career as a veterinarian. I emailed Lynne, very unsure that she would even consider an intern because I knew how busy she was, but luckily she was happy to have me and somehow made room in her schedule.

I guess I was a good slave, because now she wants another intern now. She asked me to find out how to get UCSC or Cabrillo interns, and I’ve been busy at work getting all of that set up. I’ve written out job descriptions, and filled out all of the paperwork. Hopefully a great person will answer the call! If you know anyone who would be willing to do an internship with Project Purr, tell them to call Lynne at (831) 423-MEOW or email at info@projectpurr.org.

Last Day of Trapping

Just because the mom cat is spayed doesn’t mean the Lighthouse Field colony is done. Those three kittens are still out there, and the unknown number of unaltered black cats are also still around. On Thursday I went out trapping again, for the last time. I wanted to see if I could get any of the black cats. I did my usual routine, but even after waiting a little while I still didn’t get any cats. I ended up leaving, because I had to go feed some goats, and then came back before it was dark. I had trapped a cat, but it was an older black and white one who already had an ear tip.

There are still cats at Lighthouse Field that need to be trapped. I had to go back to college, and Vermont is a little far away to trap from. I wish I could say that someone will continue trapping the colony, but right now no one has stepped up. Lynne and Margaret say they can trap after the next rummage sale, but they’re so busy I can’t realistically think that they’ll be able to devote the time necessary. After all, it’s much more important for them to keep Project Purr running than to work on one colony. I can only hope that someone else will be inspired to trap, or that Project Purr will get a new intern that wants to trap there. And who knows? When I’m back for Christmas, maybe I’ll start trapping there again.

Drop Trap at Lighthouse Field

After all of that trapping, I still had not gotten close to catching the mom cat. She was trap-savvy- there was no way she would ever go into a trap, no matter what I did. Lynne decided it was time to use the drop trap.

The drop trap is just like one of those traps you would set up as a kid. It’s essentially a box propped up by a stick. The stick has a string attached and when the cat goes into the trap, you pull the string, and the cat is trapped. Very basic concept, right? The actual drop trap is a little more complicated- the “box” has a wooden frame and is covered in mesh. There’s a door that fits the usual Have-A-Heart trap exactly, and piece of wood that counter-balances the trap. The stick has a bevel in it so it fits the wood of the trap perfectly, and the string is strong twine that is 80 ft long. The drop trap has the advantages of not looking or sounding like a regular trap, so the cat doesn’t suspect a thing, and gives the trapper the ability to choose which cat to trap. The disadvantages are you have to be there to pull the string, the drop trap has to be placed on a very flat surface so the cat can’t get underneath it, and if you don’t do it perfectly, then you’ve lost your cat and the cat will never go back in.

The Lighthouse Field cats are usually fed between 9 and 9:30am, so Lynne and I decided to get there a little before 8:30 so we could set up before mom cat got there. We set up on Giselle’s porch, a flat cement area where the mom cat is usually fed. We saw mom cat (a distinctive grey and white beauty) and her three kittens (a black one, a tabby, and a grey and white) as we were setting up, and it didn’t take long for mom cat to figure out that we had put delicious breakfast out early. As she was investigating the trap, another cat showed up. It was the skinny old black cat, and he was hungry. He went straight into the drop trap, and started eating. Lynne had put three large cans of cat food on a plate as bait inside the drop trap in anticipation of other cats eating first, but this old guy ate almost all of it! When he was finally done, Lynne had to refill with some tasty tuna. She made a lot of noise with the food dishes around, as if she was feeding, and called, and sure enough, mom cat went in!
That wasn’t the end of it though. Mom cat knew something was up, and she stood up as she ate her food. We were waiting for her to crouch (so she wouldn’t be able to turn around and escape) but she wasn’t going for it. Finally, Lynne gave the string a very hard yank, and mom cat was caught!

We ran over, secured the drop trap, and transferred mom cat into a regular trap. It was hard to get her into the trap, because she was slamming herself into the mesh trying to escape. Lynne called it “popcorning.” After years of experience and trial and error, Lynne knew to bring a metal rod to prod the cat into the trap. It was hard, but it was so good to finally get the mom cat.

Mom cat went immediately to surgery, and was released the next day. (Don’t worry- her kittens were already weaned, so they were fine.) When Ariel saw mom cat with her ear tip, she called me and told me it had almost brought her to tears with joy. This mom cat had been popping out two or three litters a year for a long time, and was the one no one could get. Having her spayed will hugely decrease the amount of cats born in Lighthouse Field, and she will finally have a life that doesn’t surround kittens.

The Case of the Missing Trap

When Lynne went to release the longhair kitten, she saw the mom cat. It was early in the morning, and she saw cats I hadn’t seen before. Specifically, she saw the mom cat with three tiny kittens. In a perfect world, everyone would be happy to see these new additions, but that’s just not true right now. After this summer, even hearing the phrase “feral kitten” gives me this awful sinking feeling. I know that these kittens are not probably going to find homes, and if someone doesn’t trap them, then they’ll end up having kittens of their own. The kittens that Lynne saw were about eight weeks old, which is too old to socialize, and too young to fix.

When I went out to trap the other day, I knew it wasn’t just the second black kitten and the random black cat I needed to catch. There were three kittens and who knows how many more cats. This problem was bigger than I thought.

Well I went about my business as usual, but didn’t catch any cats immediately. I wondered if the second black kitten had seen its siblings being trapped and was now trap-savvy. So I left the trap open just in case and went home to have dinner.

Around 7pm I biked back to check the trap. Except when I got there, it was gone!

Was it stolen? Sometimes that happens. Did someone see the cat in the trap, think the trap was inhumane, release the cat, and then take the trap with them? I had no idea, but I was freaked.
The first thing I did was call Lynne. She didn’t pick up, but she usually doesn’t, so while I was waiting for her to call back, I went and knocked on Giselle’s door to see if she knew anything. She didn’t know, but we both noticed two traps that had been left on her porch. I decided to call the number on the trap and see if that person knew anything.

The person who picked up was named "Melody" and was the daughter of the lady (Ariel) who feeds the cats. She had heard that Lynne and I were planning on going after the mom cat the next morning, and had thought we would need her two traps. She had noticed a cat in my trap, and had taken it home with her because she thought it would be left there overnight. They lived nearby, so I went to their house and picked up the second black kitten!
I had a long talk with Melody about the cats in the field. I tried to convince her and her mother to use one or two large terra-cotta pot plates as bowls for the cats, instead of a lot of shiny pie tins. I tried to convince them to stop feeding on Giselle’s porch (because she hates it), but both of those were mostly unsuccessful. I feel like the only way to possibly get them to change is to physically put the terra-cotta pot bottoms in the not-abandoned house’s yard and take away the pie tins. I also tried to find out how many cats in total and how many unaltered cats there were, but neither of them knew. I also explained my trapping tips, and encouraged them to trap. (They have trapped in the past, but were both too busy now.)

Anyway, I took the second black kitten back home with me and it spent the night in my shed before going to surgery the next morning.

Hauling Books

At the most recent rummage sale, a man had approached Lynne asking if she wanted a lot of books. Apparently he owned a storage unit company, and a used book dealer had left two entire storage units full of books. There were so many books, that Project Purr could only take half of them for that rummage sale and agreed to take the rest for the next sale. Over the course of the summer, Lynne and Margaret had taken trips to the storage unit to take loads of books to Project Purr’s storage area. On Thursday, Lynne and I took the last two loads.

It was exhausting work, putting heavy boxes of books into the truck, and then taking them off the truck. Luckily at the storage unit, the owner and his friend helped us quite a bit. They both seemed like pretty shady people, but they ended being really nice. It was funny though, because the friend thought I was married, and the owner thought I wasn’t in high school yet! I guess I look younger and older than my age at the same time! The owner had a purebred Rotweiller, who was a little less than a year old, and the sweetest thing ever. He needed some serious training (he didn’t know his own strength) but all he wanted was to play. I played with him for a little bit, and tried to do a little training too. I have to admit, though, he needed to be neutered!

Anyway, I don’t know if there’s much to be said about hauling books, except that you have to raise money if you want to do cat rescue, and it may involve manual labor.

Longhair Kitten Caught!

On Friday I went out to trap the second black kitten, the last in the litter. When I arrived I saw the kitten sitting there in his usual spot in the bushes. I did all of my usual things- picked up the food, called for the kitties, and set the trap in the regular spot. As I was picking up the food, I saw a black feral without an ear tip (which means he had not been trapped yet). This concerned me, because I had thought that the only cats I needed to trap still were the second black kitten and the mom. Then as I was setting the trap, I saw another kitten of the same size as the others. This one was a longhair tabby. I was shocked- how could I have not seen this one this whole time, and how could that mom cat raise a litter of five?! Well I ended up trapping that longhair kitten, and it did not take long at all. (I don’t have a picture, sorry, I forgot!)