Welcome to Animal Posse, the podcast dedicated to the people and rescues making a difference in the lives of animals. We are back with Rachel from the Jefferson, SPCA. Everybody loved listening to your shows before Rachel.

Thank you. I hope they did. I hope they felt my passion of how much I wish that there was a shortage of animals.

Yeah. Every rescue wishes for a shortage of animals.

I know. I feel like this kitten season's hitting a little harder. I feel like all rescues are feeling it. I feel like the shelter's feeling it really bad. I don't know. I thought I went into this and I had all the supplies. 'cause I know if you have everything and you're prepared, usually it doesn't happen, right? Knock on wood. I haven't had panleuk, but there's a certain medicine you need and it's not a medicine that our vet directly carries

Uhhuh.

And so I was like, I'm just gonna order it and let it sit in this cabinet. And ever since I've had it. I've never needed it. Another rescues had to come run to me to borrow it, and I've had to give that, and I ordered another one to replace it, still sitting in the box. So

that's a good thing.

So I'm hoping that I thought if I had all the kittens supplies and everything ready, I had clavamox and all the dewormers and everything that I wouldn't get hit and they keep coming. But I am sticking to my rule of I won't take kittens unless you have the mom too. Singletons are different when they fall out of cars and random, like that's hard to say no because we don't know where it came from. Right. But if someone's Hey, I have this litter of kids I found and I'm feeding 'em, and I like take them in, I have to have the mom.

What do you do when they claim there is no mom around.

If there's a litter of kittens around and you say there's no mom, I'll call bs. Mama Cats tend to have their litter away from where they normally feed. We had the one with the lady that opened her laundry room right before Easter and freaked out and found the kittens, and she's I've never seen cats around here. And that was because mama cats tend to have 'em away from their colonies because they wanna keep 'em safe from the other adults. So you can say the mom's not there, but she put them there on purpose to protect them. I'll send a trapper out to go help and that's what we did in that situation. Or I dunno what to tell you. You're not gonna get help from me, I'll tell you that. You have to keep looking for mom. Cameras set a trap, figure it out. Mama's around there somewhere,

right? Yeah I'm the same way. When they contact me and they want me to take kittens, I'm sure I'll take the kittens, but you gotta go get that appointment first. So far the ones that I have have been receptive, which is a good thing. but you do get the ones that are like, oh, I'm on my third litter of kittens.

Like you don't understand. But it was funny 'cause now that you say that we have Rebecca's flyer for the TNR Academy. It's taped on our wall inside Jefferson Feed. And they had two EMS people that were walking around, like through our cat area, just like everybody comes in 'cause it's like the petting zoo. And they were reading her flyer and they were like, wait four months. Cats can get pregnant at four months. And I guess, I would think like being a an EMT and a paramedic, they're educated people, they're not, uneducated, but it's something that they didn't even know. I dunno. I guess we just have to keep preaching it every day and every day until they all realize, but they were just shocked and like they were just walking around petting the cats and they were just doing like hand sanitizer as they were leaving and then just read that flyer,

I think that a lot of people, when they find that out, they, it's something that they definitely did not know because I think a lot of vets that aren't doing the massive spay neuter or for the fix a feline. They really don't wanna touch a cat until they're like six months old. And so I think people are under that train of thought that if the vet's saying, okay, you can't come in to get it spayed or neutered until it's six months. Then it can't get pregnant until it's six months. And that's definitely not true. So I do find, when I tell people that it's like a shock and they're like, okay, let me go get 'em all spayed and neutered.

I know the stigma with spay and neuter of dogs and like how some vets wanna wait for large breeds and I guess I can understand that I'm not necessarily a vet. I feel like in a shelter environment we can't stick to that rule because you just don't know. Like when you're adopting it out, you really don't know. And then if you adopt 'em out and you say, Hey, you have to pay this spay neuter deposit and come back when they're seven, eight months old, once like the growth plates change. But what if they don't? And what if like you're so bogged down that you can't go find them or go after them. Or what if they moved and you can't? So like I feel like in a shelter environment, you just can't wait. But I know some people find dogs or find puppies I should say, or get 'em free off Facebook or whatever. And sometimes those vets push 'em to wait, but I feel like. Should you use your best judgment,

right

Like they did come seek you for health and for care for their animal, but are you 110% positive, they're gonna come back and spay and neuter it like when they're responsible?

Yeah. Now I just saw something too, and it's one thing that I didn't know. It was a graphic and it said that when a female cat goes into heat, she will typically stay in heat until she's mated or pregnant.

Oh.

So I didn't know that.. Now, of course, this is the graphic that I saw. I don't know how true it is, but

I feel like that makes sense because well, on the amount of kittens that we have right now that we're dealing with, but it's always hot in Louisiana,

right

So I feel like. How would a male not find them? If they can smell a female and heat up to three miles, I'm sure they're gonna find it within a couple days. Yeah. I don't know, but I guess like in a shelter environment sometimes, like we have, moms that we have with kittens that like will hold them and let 'em nurse and like you can tell when they go into heat, but I don't know. I guess we've never been told by our vet that I know whenever they're in heat and they fix 'em so say we had a mom Ellie, and when she got fixed, like she had six kittens that we took. We took all of them 'cause we wanna fix the mom. And when she did get spayed, she was in, heat and I expected that. But I guess I wonder if the symptoms were always there. She was always like sassy, like she hated it.

Yeah.

But, that makes me think about my neighbor. I had the one neighbor that did not get their cat fixed and they called me and they're like, she's being so mean. And she's probably about, five, six months old and she's so sweet normally, and she's so great with our kids, and all of a sudden she's just slapping them. I was like she's probably in heat, sure enough, it's crazy. They paid like $2,000 for this ragdoll cat, but they like asked me to help get it fixed for free. Yeah. They're not my neighbors anymore. Thank me.

So any specific topics you would like to talk about today?

I wanna talk about pregnant spays. I think it's like a thing that a lot of people don't know about. There are some people that have some controversial feelings about it and they feel like it's abortion and. that's their right to believe that, but until you're like in our position where you're being outnumbered and there just simply aren't enough homes, I mean that, that's gotta be the same way for foster children. There foster children in the system and there just aren't enough good homes that can take them in. So that's the same thing with animals. If we aren't doing pregnant spays, which is where. a veterinarian spays an animal, and then they also usually give like a little bit of euthasol to each fetus to make sure that they humanely pass away. It sucks, but one, you're making too many animals, but two, like you're essentially breeding, in my opinion. You're taking away homes for five other dogs or five other, cats that are already born and waiting. So you're just making the problem worse than it already is. And there's a lot of rescues. Not a lot, I should say a handful, a couple that I know that were very into the puppy craze, like they all wanted all the puppies and one rescue had a volunteer come by or come through Jefferson Feed. And she was talking to me one day, 'cause I guess I had my Jefferson, SPCA shirt on and we were just talking about rescue and how long we've been doing it and such. And I made a comment of y'all have a lot of puppies. And she said, yeah, that's my job. She's I'm one of the volunteers that like, would drive all over Louisiana, taking all the pregnant dogs. So it's like the shelters knew to reach out to that rescue because they wanted pregnant dogs. And so she was driving all over getting these mutts from whenever, you don't know who the parents are, you don't know anything. All you know is they're pregnant. And I think she said she'd fostered a couple times, but when I said, I don't agree with that. I'd have to do a pregnant spay. And she's wait, dogs didn't have an abortion. I was like if you wanna call it that, I guess she's but wait, is there like a morning after pill for it? And I was like, oh Lord. So I was just really shocked. 'cause she was like, I don't wanna say she was old. She was probably like maybe mid fifties. Maybe she didn't have to work, which is nice. But I was just shocked that she never thought that like a pregnant spay was an option. And I didn't talk to that rescue or anything like that. It's their rescue, it's their choice how they want to do it. Just in my opinion in Jefferson Parish you have to have a breeder's permit to breed more than one accidentally litter a year. If you were going to other parishes outside of Jefferson Parish, outside of helping your own community to get all these pregnant dogs, and you're bringing 'em back here because you know they're pregnant and you're letting 'em give birth. That's not an accident. So I feel like they should be fine. I think it's like a thousand dollars if you have more than one litter a year. But there's a new dog that we have and the Jefferson, SPCA, his name is Kobe, although we wanna change his name to Tigger 'cause he has the perfect bounce. Like he is just boing boing boing. And he's probably like an 8-year-old rat terrier mix. And Martha, our volunteer dog adoption coordinator, went to meet him last week to pull him and mark him for us. And they brought him to us Monday or Tuesday this week, I can't remember. And Martha texted me, she said, Hey I'm like, she's off today. She's Hey, when you get a chance, can you look at the medical record and see when he needs heartworm prevention just to make sure I keep him on schedule. And he came in January 10th of this year and he's a small rat terrier and nothing's wrong with him. So why is this 8-year-old, 15 pound dog sitting in the shelter for five months with no adoption? That's just very weird. That's very weird. He's very sweet, loves people. The boing thing is hilarious, but it just blew my mind. 'cause usually small dogs like fly out the shelter. But is it because he's got like some gray on his face? 'cause he's eight years old 'cause he's not like super beautiful 'cause he is not a puppy. But here you are breeding these, you find this rat terrier mom thing that has puppies or is pregnant. You let her have five puppies and then you just took away home from him. So I feel like, people have that discussion or like, how do I have so many old dogs? Like old dogs are my heart. Like I just, I love senior dogs, like old geriatric blind. I just love all of it. But I just think about the ones that get passed over all the time because everyone wants, oh, the puppy. It's just so sad. Like why does that puppy deserve love? And all the excitement and this old dog doesn't, I just, that breaks my heart. Like I wish that we could teach people to get out of the hole. Kittens are everything. Puppies are everything. When people come in screaming, oh my God, look at the kittens. We do have cute kittens. I'm fostering a litter right now. They're pretty freaking cute. I get it. Like I, I don't want to foster, but I am. 'cause I wanna help my team, but I just wish we could change that whole stigma of thinking that everything's all about kittens and puppies.

And there's enough out there that people could just foster. 'cause I guess that aggravates me too, is people who wanna adopt a puppy or a kitten, and then they're like, oh, let me keep it for three months. Oh yeah, he's not cute anymore. Can you take him back?

Yep.

And that makes it more difficult. It'd just be better off if you just fostered and there is a shortage of fosters.

Yeah. But it's very hard to foster fail, I'd have to say. Rebecca's our queen of foster failure. Although I think Beth's trying to beat her all of a sudden her husband's doing like a new documentary series on YouTube and he made this whole like thing about how all the kittens they fostered and the ones they foster failed on, and they have this new one that like fell out of a car engine that somebody found after they left an event of ours on Saturday. Like a singleton. And he has a broken leg. That's the worst part. He's a four week old kitten and he has a old Dr. Wisdom said an old fracture. What's an old fracture on a four week old kitten?

Right. What happened that he got that

No telling. So we're just letting him play. He's healing. He might have a bum leg with arthritis, but so far she thinks he's not, that he hopefully won't be an expensive kitten. But Beth's husband's already like leaning towards maybe we need a six cat. And I'm like, y'all are becoming bad fosters.

It's gonna be a tripod. Oh yeah.

They're like, and they're normally good. And she's even fostered a pair Nemo and Nigel. I did, I don't remember if Nemo, I know Nemo lost a leg, but I don't remember Nigel had something special about him, but she let them go. The foster had to come to her house, like the adopter had to come to her house and she had to fill everything out. I processed the application, but she did the adoption at her house and she let them go, and I was shocked. So she's really one of our good fosters. She's not a foster failure. But it is hard, but you have to make that decision. I have dogs, so I can't keep 'em because not all my dogs are cat friendly. There's no way 15 dogs are all cat friendly. But I wanna I've already started promoting 'em for adoption because I want people to fall in love while they're cute and I could give it to you as soon as it's two pounds and fixed. But it just, it stinks.

Yeah. That's what I try to push the pre adoptions to. So at least that way, as soon as they're spayed or neutered, they go out the door and then you can help some more.

Yeah, the puppies I feel like oftentimes at the shelter, like if the accidents happen and they, they do give birth. 'Cause they they didn't spay the mom before it happened, like how many times, like it's very frequent that they'll find that dog five and six months later stray. So many people want puppies and then once they, they grow up, they don't want 'em anymore. And you know that rescue that was well known for it, if you looked at their Petfinder, it was like all these juvenile dogs, like people passed him over 'cause they weren't like really what they were looking for. 'Cause they were all mutts. Like you didn't know who the dad was, you didn't know where he came from. And it just think if they didn't let those dogs give birth in the first place, there would not be fivejuvenile dogs that people are, weren't super interested in. Like they're probably the sweetest dogs ever. It's not that they don't deserve a chance or a home, but you just created a need for five more homes and you shouldn't have that's not rescue, and I found that article, like I was looking up on UC Davis's website. Let me see if I can find it. And I get like the whole feelings about it and you don't wanna have to like spay a pregnant animal. This one was like a question from like a shelter person, and she was like a shelter manager and she said, like we're an open admission shelter. We have periodically we find ourselves into a situation where we have a pregnant animal and some of our staff is just so against it. What can I do to help them understand that we're overpopulated. One of the veterinarians responded that lemme make this a little bigger 'cause my eyes are still blind. So there's no fetal suffering during pregnant spay. So while it's a fetus and while it's in utero, there's no pain, no suffering, they're unconscious the entire time. So nothing is gonna happen. Nothing is gonna hurt that fetus. If they're euthanizing it before birth. So there's no pain to that fetus according to this veterinary thing from UC Davis. I guess the other question I couldn't find anything. I was looking for some of it to find if there was something about the disconnect. A lot of people will say that mom's gonna miss her babies, or she's gonna know and she's gonna be suffering. But for the most part, like I haven't found like an official source from a vet written. Most vets are like, it's not like that. They said usually as far as cats, if she raises a litter of kittens, so she has those five kittens that she's raising and they're already like, walking, talking, whatever, and she does get pregnant again. She automatically goes to protect the ones that are inside of her and she no longer cares about the ones that are outside and raised, like there's no feelings at that point. She's just protecting herself and the new ones and she doesn't care about the old ones. So from my understanding is that they don't have that emotional like connection. If you take their babies and kittens it, like it's a human action. It's a human emotion that we are like reflecting on them.

You mean when you take 'em in utero?

Yeah. Yeah. Like they're gonna they're gonna know they had an abortion and they're gonna miss him. I don't think that,

Right now, see, I find it different when they actually do give birth, if you take their babies, they go around very distraught looking for their babies.

Yeah.

So don't take baby kittens unless you know the mama is not around. If something happened to the mama, then that's another story. But

yeah,

Most of the time mama is around. You can watch 'em. And see if she returns. And if she doesn't return for 10 hours, then you have a problem. But

shoot, you say 10 hours. I say 48. If she didn't feel like the place that she picked was safe enough, she might be looking for another safe place to move 'em. I say as long as they're not sitting in like a wet puddle. Something that's dangerous or wide open. I feel like they're okay.

Yeah.

Some people are like, the sun. I'm like, I know, but kittens need to be like, what? 130 degrees?

And I guess I'm saying that from a very like tiny perspective, like a, week old newborns.

Yeah.

I'm a bottle feeder and a lot of people even say, Hey, you gotta bottle feed these newborn kittens every two hours. And I do. But you gotta think when it's mama's milk, mama's not doing that every two hours.

No,

you'll never see mama with the kittens for every two hours. It's not like she walks around with a stopwatch. It's oh, it's two hours. I gotta go back and be with the kittens,

I think, rabbits, I think you only have to do every 12 hours. So I'm like, I could bottle feed some rabbits, but don't sign me up for that. But yeah, like I think if they're already born, she's definitely looking for 'em. But I don't think, even. Say she got pregnant again. I think like she wouldn't, so maybe if in a rescue situation, like I did return three moms this week. I swear I'm not a monster, but the people that were feeding the two adults, they wanted them back. And the other one, she just really hated us.

Yeah.

Like my caretakers, really were like attached and, I get that. But she was just slapping us and she'd had, like inconsistent stools for a month. And we've thrown every dewormer, every antibiotic, every topical dewormer. Oral dewormer, everything. It was just not getting better. And I was like, I think it's just stress. I think she does not want to be here. She does not wanna be in a cage. Who wants to be in a cage? I don't, it's not like I wanna keep animals in a cage, but she's very unhappy in a cage compared to the other 60 cats we have in cages. Like we take 'em out and they play and run and things like that. 'cause we have the two playrooms in our areas. But she was just miserable and she just kept slapping me. And her feeder was very safe. They bring the cats inside at night. They have a covered patio between the house and their shed. They also have this huge giant shed and they're well cared for. So like why that's one less animal I had to find a home for. 'cause I'm already like struggling thinking about the 55 kittens I need to find homes for. Like that was a safe place to put her back. And they did. They did take good, very good care of her. She showed up actually that had never seen her before and she showed up and then got in the routine with the other two cats and then gave birth in their dining room. She was probably from somewhere else and found a safe place to have them and didn't realize it. So they might not even see her, but she's, back where she came from. Ear tipped.

Yeah, no more babies for her.

Yeah. So that's my rule. If you want me to help you with kittens or a litter of kittens, I have to have the mom like, I can't continue this cycle. I. The current litter of kittens I have right now. There was a trapper went out, Karen and she got the mom and she said Hey, can you foster these kittens for a little while? I'll take over. And I was like, I'll take them permanently to foster 'cause I want you trapping. And she also caught two other adult females from that same colony. And they were both pregnant.

Yeah.

So they had pregnant spays and, the feeder was grateful. She just didn't realize that she could have had. Three would've went to 18 that quickly. And she said it was sad, but at the same time, like trying to find homes for 15 cats, she understood it. So I think it just, we just need to talk about it more, is the pregnant spay. It's not like the fetuses don't feel it, I don't think there's any pain or anything like that. That maybe there's some discomfort for the mom. I don't think she really knows them yet. 'cause they're not born, it's a judgment call. I think you have to look at the big picture as far as like the homes, like me thinking about that Rat Terrier sitting in Jefferson Parish Animal shelter now JPAWS since January 10th and everyone looking him over 'cause he's eight. Not that cute. And he's a small dog. He is only 15 pounds, 16.25 or something. And he got passed over because everybody wants a puppy. I think we just need to change that stigma and learn as rescue, that pregnant space are very important and that we need to get on board with them, and we need to find homes for the animals that are already here that we had no control over.

Yeah. It's heartbreaking, but at the same time it's the truth. You're gonna have that many more. I know my cousin had reached out to me a couple of months ago, and she had a bunch of cats show up by her. Most of 'em, luckily they were already. TNR. So she had a male. We got the male done, and then it was like, I guess a couple months after this, she's they have two females over here. And she's they're both really big. She's I think they're pregnant. And I was like, okay, I'll get you the appointment right away. And I'm like, I'll give you the traps. Go ahead and catch 'em and get 'em in. And she's but what if they're pregnant? And I was like if they're pregnant, they're gonna have four to five each. So I'm like, do you want 10 more cats around? And so she took 'em in and it was, each one of them, I believe, had five kittens, So that would've been, 10 extra cats. And that's that many more that you have to feed too.

Yeah.

Even if you planned on, neutering and spaying them too. Still, that's 10 cats. That's a lot.

And the weight, they get bigger and bigger. Like feeding kittens kitten food is more expensive and you do go through a lot more of it. So it can be just expensive as feeding, 10 adults.

Oh definitely

but I think there is there's a little bit of a disconnect or like an illness. There is a feeder that we know of and he discloses to us that where he feeds, he takes the kittens home. So he lives out of Jefferson Parish, so I don't have any control over him. But I'm trying to figure out where he feeds in Jefferson Parish so I can go over there and trap and like figure out if it's public property or private property so I can intervene. Because I can't imagine like what's happening in his house, like he's taking them all home. 'cause he is I just can't fix 'em and I can't have them abort the babies. That's just so sad. But he is taken him to his house and I don't think he's getting 'em fixed. So I don't know how many he has. I helped a couple not that long ago, that had 42 in their house.

Oh wow.

Yeah. And some of the adult females they gave me were pregnant.

Oh wow. Oh my gosh.

So he didn't know, but like he could touch most of 'em. Like he put 'em in the traps. I just brought the traps and I met 'em outside of his house and I let him take the traps in and place the cats in 'em. And then it was just unreal. And he said at first, it started at this little colony that he fed by work and oh, they had a litter of kittens and so he just took those four home. And then just kept on going and oh, that mom had another, so took those four home. It just kept on going until the point where he had 42 cats in his house, unfixed, the colony, had his work unfixed, and it was about to get really bad.

Yeah. I can't imagine the number that, that could have turned into. Quickly,

imagine feeding 42 cats. He was talking about how much cat food he goes through and then he is keeping 'em inside because he doesn't wanna, that's the best way to keep him safe is to keep him inside. But like the amount of litter he was going through, the amount of cat food he was going through, like he said, we just they're making ends meet. And all I could think about is like, how much more money could you have if you didn't let that get out of hand? Especially in Jefferson Parish,

right

I could make your spay neuter of your cat free. That is not a problem. Also you don't realize the, even of diseases you're spreading by not having the span neuter done. Like having it repeat the cycle over and over. Like if they're unhealthy cats, if there's something like parasites and stuff, you're just spreading it and making it worse. More cats there are like, they're more unhealthy. It's really hard to keep that many cats healthy and safe. flea prevention, some. Dewormers, all that. It gets expensive, like to think about that. So you really have to clear your mind and think about what you're doing. And while you think, spaying and neutering them, or doing a pregnant spay is more harm than good, but you could be doing like so much worse to them that you can't afford the situation you're got yourself into. So now you're neglecting the animals that you have. You can't even give them like the parasites, the flea preventions, all that stuff. But you just have to think about all the things, like you have to think the big picture. You can't think oh, I just don't wanna hurt these five cats right now, or I don't wanna abort these. You just have to keep thinking how much, like you said, the cost is gonna go up. What's the kind of care you're gonna provide for them? Where are you gonna find all these good homes? I adopted a cat to a person that found a litter of kittens and I didn't wanna hurt her feelings, so I let her keep one kitten. She messaged me two days ago that she hasn't seen her in a couple days. I waived the adoption fee 'cause she's the one that found the kittens And I said, I had never found the mom that's on me. I did leave knockers door knockers everywhere and no one ever seen that mom. I found like a dad I found a male cat in the neighborhood and he had eartips. I really don't know where she came from. Like I rode around, I only found one other person that feeds in the whole neighborhood and they weren't feeding either. The mom had 'em behind a house that was being built, like it was a vacant house. It was like brand new, like studs and everything. And the mom had the babies there and, I made her sign the contract that she was adopting it from me and I highlighted out in our contract, you have to keep it in. You have to keep it inside all the time.

And just even thinking about putting a tiny baby outside like that. I'm for indoor only. Of course. But if you were gonna put one outside, why would you put a tiny baby like that outside? That's like throwing a 2-year-old outside.

Yeah. She's about six months old now. I actually still have one or two of her litter mates. 'Cause now they're not tiny kittens, so nobody wants them. But it's just like I told her not to. And then like where you live, like the coyotes are everywhere. Yeah. We got, word that close to a local rescue that we know that's in River Ridge has seen coyotes while they're out walking the dogs in daylight. So they're out there, it's just not safe. And it breaks my heart because I'll let her keep that one cat. And now it's like I'm beating myself up for it. I don't doubt that she loves it. I don't doubt that.

Right.

But like I said, keep it inside. I couldn't because she wants to go outside.

I hate that. I can't stand that when people say that. Okay. Because it's like I have a feral, like we couldn't touch him. He lives inside now.

Yeah.

And it's especially like when they're inside, they don't need to go outside. If you let 'em outside, of course they're gonna wanna go outside after that. But you can keep 'em in.

Yeah. Oh, you can get 'em the right entertainment, the right things, enrichment

Uhhuh

to keep them inside. So you can build a catio. I don't know about, I mean I guess 'cause I'm a cat person, but the ads for Catios are just rolling through my Facebook, like all the catio companies, and I think there's some guy locally that wants to get in that business and he's offering to do it at cost of materials. If someone will come, let him build a catio that's like a castle. Just to have experiments and then also have the pictures or whatever.

I might have to take 'em up on that. On my house

So there's, there's just so many things you can do. I just, I feel like there's a lot of tools. The internet's there, people like just use it, and they sell those catios that are like already built on Amazon that you can put together and you just put it like on the outside of a window. And I don't wanna say they're more than a couple hundred dollars.

Yeah. Another thing that you can do, this is something that I did with one of my cats. He would go to the back door and he would meow. So we had a stroller. We would bring him in a stroller. Yes, I walk cats. And it's totally normal. There's nothing wrong with that. But he wanted to go outside, so we bought him one of the two story things that you put the kittens in. It's like the big cage,

yeah. That's kinda how our cages are.

Yeah. So We got one of those, it was a metal one and we just took the bottom part out. So instead of it being on like the little plastic stand, it was right on the grass. So we would go outside and we would carry 'em out. We'd stick 'em in that. And he was happy as could be, just to sit in the grass for a little bit and just be in that. It's not like he had to go run around a lot. Then we would bring him inside and he was safe. Nothing could get him. 'cause it's a metal cage.

Yeah. There was actually a lady I trapped for and she said her cat wanted to go outside and so she had him in a dog crate in the front yard. And we were trapping cats. And she's don't mind me, I'm just giving my cat some outside time. And I was like, Hey, you're doing the right thing there. She was like, I don't want 'em to catch any infection from all these stray cats out here. So I thought it was pretty cute, but especially in a colony It was like a whole block. And she's like right in the middle. There's probably 40 or 50 cats. So she was doing the right thing. So it didn't get hurt. But there, there are all these things that you can do. But I just, there's too many homeless animals and I come across feeders they don't reach out like until they have the 42 and they're like, okay, we can't afford this anymore. We're living paycheck to paycheck. And then they asked for help because they didn't wanna do the pregnant spays, but like you just. We have to get over that stigma. Like we have to just think about the mass amount of numbers of that we're dealing with and do you know 20 friends that wanna adopt a kitten right now? Do you know 20 people that you trust off the top of your head that you would give them a kitten to raise right now?

I do have a question to ask you. When you said that you do require people give you the mom for a spay to take in kittens. And I agree with that, but. If you don't take those kittens in, does it concern you that those kittens might not necessarily be spayed or neutered if they don't have the mom,

No, because I just don't think they're trying hard enough. There's not a mom somewhere. Unless you gimme a picture of a hit by car cat, then maybe I'll believe you. I talked to the girl that like, we're taking a litter of kittens tomorrow. She has the mom and she's turned the mom into an indoor cat so I'm sure she was somebody's displaced kitten She said, she hasn't seen like a lot of stray cats as far as is there a dad because it takes two to tango.

Yeah.

So she said she would keep an eye out and we would talk about it and she could ride around her neighborhood and figure out like where. She gave me her address and I know that I've trapped in that neighborhood before, so there probably is like a new cat that showed up and, it just wasn't fixed and that's how it happened, That's the great thing about our trap map one of our volunteers lives close to their end, so she'll check and, we'll have more eyes on it. But if they're not willing, to put in the work to make sure the problem doesn't happen again. I just don't have any compassion for you. Like you're not helping the problem. And I had a situation where a Facebook thing happened and it turns out Rebecca was helping them thankfully. And I think Rebecca actually even tried to get the mom herself and she said it was very hard to trap and, those people were trying to bottle feed, but they couldn't because of their jobs, which I totally understand. And they brought the kittens to the shelter. And Michelle called me and she said, what would you do? I said, do you want my honest opinion? And I said, if you're overwhelmed and every one of your staff members that knows how to bottle feed has a litter of kittens, how can you ask them to bottle feed seven more? That's a lot. If you're supposed to be feeding him every two hours, by the time you feed everyone, you're back to two hours. It's been two hours to feed all seven that you're just awake all the time. And you have no mom and nothing. And there was some kind of confusion in the whole situation because I think that day they took in like 21 kittens. I know like over a 10 day period, they took in 177 kittens at J Paws. So I made her a post of to help out hey, like you have two hours people if you don't want us to euthanize these cats call the shelter. We need you to step up within two hours. We'll supply you with all the KMR you're gonna need. Like the staff is overwhelmed. There's too many kittens, there's not enough care. You have to think about. That was the other thing that the UC Davis thing mentioned. It was talking about why you should really be pro pregnant spay is because there really is not enough. For shelters, for municipal shelters to do neonatal care. It's not fair. Like you're making it worse. So if you're gonna let that mom be born and then what if the mom gets sick? Or what if, she's so weak and the parasites like, there's just not enough care to provide, there's just not enough staff. There's simply is not. If you're taking 177 kittens in, in 10 days, like that's just a lot to keep your eyes on. With two or three people that are assigned to like the cat area, like that's just a lot. You have to think about the big picture. The Post had all those people step up. So they came I think they split 'em up into two. Two.

Yep.

And one, so like they had somebody to take 'em on. But it's hard for every litter when you're taking in 20 to 30 kittens a day. Some of 'em are neonatals it's very hard to find fosters for them.

I saw that post and I actually commented on that post. 'cause I told people that I would be more than willing to teach them how to bottle feed.

Right.

Bring me the kitten, I'll show you what to do. You got any questions? You can text me even, when after you take the kittens and I have a bottle feeding class and foster class that I'm gonna do with Rebecca.

Yeah.

And we actually got people signed up from that post. So there are people that are gonna come, they wanna learn how to bottle feed from that post. So I think we got five people signed up. So at least that's a good thing.

I hope that they come. I hope more people are willing and they learn. It, it does take patience. I am not a bottle feeder. I can tell you that right now. I'll do it all day during the day while I'm at work. I'm your girl, but overnight, I need my sleep.

Well if you're feeding them consistently during the day, you can get some sleep at night. So what I'll do is I'll have a baby monitor where I can hear 'em. 'cause if they wake up, then I know they're hungry.

If they start crying. Yeah.

So if they start crying, then I know I gotta go feed 'em. But otherwise I'll push it to four or five hours at night. Now I'm talking about one week old kittens, once they reach like that. Two weeks you go six hours.

Yeah.

As long as they're eating good and they're not sick now, if they're sick, it's another story. I had sick kittens last week that were six week olds and I was getting up every two hours to feed 'em. Yeah. 'cause they wouldn't eat. So

Yeah, we've had a couple I've had to put my big girl panties on. I don't like needles. Needles are not my thing. But if the vet is not open and Amelie and Rebecca are looking at me like, fix this kitten. I'm gonna do whatever. Watch my kitten lady videos. And I'm like sucking it up and I'm doing it And like I gave two kittens last week or week before last B12 injections and like they're both fine now, but oh my God, like to warm it up, make sure I do it in the fluids and everything like that. And the kittens are surviving. They're okay. They're playing and roughhousing so it just depends. But it's just a lot. It's hard. Like I would really try to wait for the mom if I could. Because when you're putting 'em in that shelter environment there are already too many and it's just like the care and like the diseases and all that stuff like that. It's just you're putting 'em at risk. So while you think you're doing a good thing, you're already overburdening a struggling system yeah. Like I feel like a phone call would be better. If you have them and it's like, what the situation? What can we do? What are some other options? Or can you courtesy post this? And maybe we can have fosters come forward so like we don't have to, put them the shelter, that kind of thing. Maybe there needs to be like an emergency plan if there'd be a Jefferson Parish emergency line of bottle feeders on standby. In case that happens.

Yeah. You don't have that many bottle feeders though. That's the whole thing. And that's what kind of aggravates me when people just pick up the kittens and they don't wanna to listen. When you tell 'em, wait and make sure that mom's not there. I mean their situations Yes. Where mom might be killed. And so then you have to take those kittens, or like you said, it could be like a really bad rain and they're in a really bad spot. But for the most part, just leave them be because there's not enough bottle feeders around.

And then I know there's always that situation like where, the mom will also leave him if she knows something's wrong. We've had some we had one tab he's alive, but holy cow, he has all the things wrong with him. He's like a munchkin cat. He's tiny. He's got stomatitis. Like he has everything. Thank God we found the best home for him and they actually adopted four kittens from us. But super awesome family. They have that many kids. But they're financially able to take care of it. Like you're thinking about that mom's always best. And then when you're taking 'em away from them, like sometimes you're taking away what they need to thrive the most, like they're more healthy if they're with the mom overall,

Yeah, definitely.

But the people that are having like the thing about pregnant spays, someone blocked me over it, but I just, until you're in our shoes every day begging for people to adopt an animal and they only want the cute kitten or puppy, it just, it stinks.

Yeah.

Yeah. I just, I feel bad for the underdogs. I feel bad for the ones that are already there alive. Just waiting for a home patiently. And I also feel like adults, you know what you're getting. You don't know, like I had that friend that bought a dog and she paid for this awesome dog trainer and all these things for this beautiful dog and, got him neutered and everything. And then suddenly the aggression is so bad and they're even unable to rehome him he was aggressive to humans. Not even two years old and she had to euthanize him.

Yeah. It's a sad situation.

Yeah. So it'd been so much better to find a rescue of that breed that you're looking for. I know golden retrievers, that's what everybody wants and those are a diamond in the rough, it's hard to find. There are not many of those in rescue. But there is a rescue of the breed that she wanted. One of our friends Holly at Trampled Rose that I'm trying to make her come on here. She loves that breed too, so she has a lot of 'em. So I'm like, you could have this Bombproof dog and Holly's like a dog trainer and so she'll know all their quirks, like they're an adult and that family's very heartbroken right now. They're thinking right now they don't want another dog. They went through all that for almost two years and end result had to euthanize him. But I feel like people should get over that. You gotta have a puppy 'cause you have to raise 'em. 'cause if you raise 'em, like you'll know how they are. Yeah. Like you don't know that. You don't know what you're gonna get. And some people don't realize animals can be on mental health meds. Like they can be born with mental health issues and have damaged brain and all these different things or you don't know. Who was there in the beginning, what nutrients the mom or wasn't getting or whatever. So you really don't know. So you're better off having an adult that's been in a rescue and in a foster home and they probably work with a dog trainer. And you just know kids, cats, dogs, you just know,

Right And rescues know their animals.

Yeah. They can make a recommendation and say, okay this one's good for you. This is a good fit. This is not a good fit. I had a lady that contacted me this week that wanted lemon. She's our lemon squeezy. We posted her she's an all black cat, of course Rebecca trapped her. Rebecca the cat tribe that keeps on giving. And she turned out to be super sweet, like she was very sick and we were just gonna nebulize her in the trap a couple times that day and then put her back like we gave her a convenia shot. Go back to where you came from. We don't need more animals to adopt out. And then they fell in love with her. And she's super sweet, loves to play, wants to be your best friend, follows you anywhere and everywhere. But don't pick her up. She does not wanna be picked up. And so I had somebody that emailed me because they wanted to adopt a black cat because they know that there's like a stigma behind them. And so I loved her for that. And she said she has a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old. And that's hard for me 'cause I know as at two and four you wanna pick up and you wanna hold your cat,

right.

I know that Lemon does not like to be picked up and held. I know that for a fact. She scratched my 9-year-old niece this week. She scratched me last week. Like she does not wanna be picked up. It's not her thing. And so she said, will you please keep us in consideration, for the future? And I said, absolutely. If I come across a Bombproof cat, I'll let you know. The term bombproof set her off. She was like really offended And I was like that's just the term. Like my friend has a dog with a 2-year-old and she calls her dog Bombproof and she would leave her kids alone with the dog, no questions asked. And it's just a term like, it wasn't like offensive. It's just like there are some animals that will let you hold them, snuggle 'em, do whatever with 'em. And they don't care. They don't react. And those are the best ones for kids. And so if I came across another cat that like was, didn't care what I did to him, then I'd be like, Hey, this is your cat, because it just goes with the flow with whatever you do. That's what I meant. And she got totally offended and I typed up a well thought out email, replied back to her and I hadn't heard back from her. So the term bombproof. Offended her. But we do have two new kittens that just came from foster home that were with children and dogs and cats. And so they're pretty great. And one of 'em was the foster mom's favorite. And so I left the door open. I said, you can definitely come meet them and sit in the playroom with them and have your kids play with them and see how they react and like. If you're okay with it, if they bite or scratch, if your kid does the wrong thing, like then I'm okay with it. My husband grew up with a dog and it bit him in the eye and actually has like a bump on his eyelid that he cannot wear contacts now. But it's funny, it's because he has that little bump in his eye and his mom's it was Tim's fault. He shouldn't have touched him. Like not every parent is gonna be that way. And say like the animal has boundaries and you pushed it and this is what happened. And like my dog Duke, I used him to dog test him with cats and dogs and everything. Like he's great. But when I first got him, he was a terror. He scared me. And I remember my mom brought him to me and she's I can't believe you're gonna keep this dog. He's like screaming and barking and crying in the kennel the whole way here. And he bit my niece in the face And my niece Sophie was like, it was my fault. Like I totally did it. I shouldn't have touched him the way that I did, the way I approached him, it wasn't his fault. And so like my sister was like, it's fine. It was her friend's dog. She's it's fine. I don't care. Like I'm sure like she said she did something wrong. I'm listen to my daughter and, but that lady still freaked out. She was like, I just don't know that I'll come across a mom that's always like you or a child that's it was my fault and I did it wrong. And she's scared. She was like, I'm gonna get sued. We're in this nice neighborhood, and I just, I can't, I'm scared. And so she asked me to take him and I love him, so I'm like, thanks to my dog. It's a hard decision, but I think adopting an adult animal whenever you I know a lot of people get puppies thinking like you raise 'em with your kids and it'll be different and there might be some science behind that. I don't know. My 9-year-old niece comes over and I have 15 dogs. There's only one I don't allow around her and it's a chihuahua. But all the other ones I allow. But the funny thing is, if I'm at her house and I bring the Chihuahua to her house, I'll allow her around it. He's just a jerk in our house. Like I know everything about him. I'm like, Hey, don't touch him right here. Hey, don't touch this. Hey, whenever you approach him, do this or Hey, he's blind. Let him like feel you out or smell you out so he can feel comfortable first. So like I know what I have in my adult dog, so I just think that, people should stop at the puppy and kitten stigma and go for the adult. If you are sitting there waiting for those puppies to be born all the time, that should really be. Aborted because we're already in an overpopulated system. You don't know what you're gonna get. Yeah. Like that puppy, like you don't know, like you don't know anything about if, especially these mutts that they're finding all over that were accidental litters. You don't know what you're getting. You have no clue. Yeah. So you're better off adopting adult and letting that pregnant spay happen and saving one that's already here, waiting for a home. Stop contributing to the overpopulation. 'cause if you as a rescue are not supporting pregnant spays, you're a breeder. That's the way I feel.

Thank you for coming on the show today.

No problem. I'll think about the next topic and I'll come back. I love it.

Yep. You're a favorite, so please come back.

Definitely. Thanks for having me.

And that's all the time we have for today's episode. If you are in animal rescue, or if you know someone that has a story that should be told, please contact us. We would love to have you or them on the show Thanks for listening, and please join us next week as we continue to explore the world of animal rescue.