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Stray and feral cats and kittens in Hyde Park need our help.
Hyde Park Cats: helping stray, feral, and needy cats and kittens in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood: hydeparkcats@gmail.com
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2008
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April
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- THANX!!!!!
- new target wears a bib
- Look-alikes = new targets
- Yvette's Cats
- THANX!!!!!
- extra extra read all about it!
- HOW TO HELP
- new target
- Izzie wants a home and a lap
- Stray Cat Strut
- cats I, J, and K
- THANX KIM!
- THANX GROUNDS of BEING!
- Cats F-H
- THANX KATHLEEN and CHELSEA!
- THANX JUDITH, SHOSHANNAH, and NORAH!
- HELP THIS CAT
- Cats C-E
- THANX SANDY!
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April
(19)
5 comments:
God bless you for all the work you do!
I support you 100%!
I have been helping cats in my neighborhood for 2 years now, getting to them young is the key. Unfortunately, not everyone is as nice as you. My next door neighbor shot one of my own cats in the head with a pellet rifle and its been an arduous task of taking him through court.
Please take care of them well... life is too short for them as it is and they didnt ask for their status in life, it was given to them...
I, too, commend you for your heartfelt effort to help feral cats survive humanely.
And I agree with the previous poster that "getting to them young is the key".
I am taking care of four,born feral,now mostly domesticated cats, in my office in New Buffalo. Zelda (who is actually a male)and Zippy (his sister) appeared at the rear yard of my office during the middle of winter about 7 or 8 years ago, they were kittens, about 5? months old...They were so cute and hungry..feeling sorry, I started feeding them. One thing I would like to stress to your readers is that once you start feeding them - they are yours!
The trick to domesticating a feral cat, hopefully a kitten, is to keep moving the food closer and closer to you when feeding them, eventually getting so that you can even touch them and then touch them. it might just be a pat at first but they are hungry and will become more at ease, because after all you are feeding them. Then eventually you will be able to pick them up. They need human contact and after some work (many months), will purr because they like it, just like Gilligan, a feral kitty now about 4 years old, is sitting here on my lap as I type, purring away....
I, too built a little house out of styrofoam for Zippy because, being more wilder by personality (also lived in a hole in a roof of a neighboring shed which she accessed by propelling herself from a tree), she would not come in for a couple of winters..now she feels very secure and comfortable here.
Little Lucy, the third cat, appeared. She would stand outside my full height glass doors here and just stare in...all day.. until winter came and it was hard to get work done and I said, "just come in already" and now she's always around my feet, purring.
My elderly parents have one of my other feral kitties (they worship him) and I have found homes for others.
I, truly, appreciate your dedication to helping feral cats.
Sometimes its easy to think we're alone in our pity for animals but there ARE others like us, we just need to find each other.
Best wishes to you. I appreciate you and all that you do.
We also have a (formerly) feral cat and 2 of her 4 kittens - it took her the better part of a year to purr but now she almost never stops! She even purrs when you talk to her!
Special thanks to Jill Adams, who was featured in Mary Schmich's column. I'm sure she's a wonderful receptionist: kind, organized and can-do attitude! I hope she is rewarded a hundred-fold for her kindness.
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