Welcome to Animal Posse, the podcast dedicated to the people and rescues making a difference in the lives of animals. Welcome everybody, and we are back to finish up our conversation with Rachel from the Jefferson SPCA.

So yes, I have 15 dogs that's the weird thing about whenever I go places and I bring my dachshunds places, they're like, oh, do you breed 'em? No. Like why? Just 'cause I have a lot of them. I don't wanna say you should have a license to own a pet, but sometimes I feel like you should have to go through animal shelter training to own a pet. So you realize what's happening in your own backyard that you don't know. The people that were at the rabies drive, the majority of people that had intact animals were pit bulls and they were breeding 'em. And I was like, there are dogs that look exactly like your dog in the shelter homeless right now. And they're like, nuh. I was like, oh yeah. And they're like, there's no way. I'm like, yes way. There's beautiful colors blue. The tri colors that they're liking now. Everything that you want from an animal is probably in the shelter.

I seen in one of my groups, somebody post Maine coon cats.

Ugh.

And I didn't know if she was a breeder, and so I asked her, Hey, are you a breeder? Oh, of course. She's very proud about that. She's a breeder. And so I'm like I hope you're spaying and neutering 'em, before they go out. And she's oh, these are pedigree. And I'm like, they're a dime a dozen in the shelter. They're all over the shelter.

Yeah. I just don't care. But even if the ones that are like mixes that's like the hard thing with the adoptions, if you put like a certain breed, people come and they fight over him. We had a kitten so cute one time he wasn't maine coon, but he was just like long hair. And one lady was like, I will adopt six cats plus him if you let me have him. Like it didn't matter. Like she would've done anything and everything. I wanted just to get that long hair cat and like it blew my mind. People come in all the time like asking us, do you have this, but I feel like those cats usually end up getting turned in because there's some like medical issue the person can't afford. Anyway, I feel you've had a lot of pure bred things lately. I try to stay away from 'em. I had the one bengal because of one of our connection of one of our volunteers, but the frenzy that's around them and then, but they're so high maintenance and I just don't know. I'd rather just the low maintenance, domestic short-haired cat if I was gonna have one,

Definitely the ones that I just had, I can't imagine the amount of brushing and grooming that those two would require. His hair on his tail was probably about six to eight inches long. It was insane.

Yeah. And that's why, I feel like you have to go through classes. Some of ours, like whenever we do adoptions, like we like to do sleepovers, especially if they're like, with the bunnies and stuff, we'd like to do foster to adopt. And so I like to give you like, four to six weeks to make sure, and then you're like, Hey, is this really what you want? Do you want to scoop a litter box every day? Do you want to brush the hair every day? Do you want to make sure this is gross? But rabbits, if their poop's not a certain way or consistency something's wrong. Red flags. And are you okay that if there's an emergency, you're driving the LSU or you're paying $500, you don't have any options. Like you have like for an emergency. I'd rather people be like, okay, this is not what I really wanted and give it back to me. Versus me adopt and be like, return it and hide it, or, oops, sorry. Hide it or dump it somewhere else. That's my fear. I'd rather you try it out and be, and come to me and say, no, I'm sorry, this is not what I wanted. Because it's just, you just don't know what you're getting into. But like the longhaired thing I have two long hair, three longhaired dogs and I hate it. It's not that the hair in the house bothers me. Vacuuming, sweeping that is nothing. Keeping up with grooming and longhaired animal is awful. Like I just, I don't know why people just go absolutely haywire over it. And I'm like, I would rather, sit in a playroom somewhere and have 50 cats running around and the one that like bonds to me, no matter what it looks like, is the one I would want,

yeah. And it's a shame because people are always attracted to the more pretty ones, with the longer hair.

Yeah.

cause I'm the same way, I. I like the one that's gonna come to me.

Yeah. And maybe it is fluffy. Occasionally, maybe it is like the most gorgeous thing ever, but for the majority of the time it's a brown tabby for me.

I've got the tuxedos.

You're like one of our volunteers, Julie, she loves a black and white cat. Can't pass it up.

I'm not even that much of a fan of tuxedos, but it just seems like all I get are tuxedos. Yeah, that's it. All the ones that love me are tuxedos

I have two tuxedos right now with FIV. You know what? Anybody that wants 'em, they're a bonded pair. I took them from a vet that rescued them. That's another thing I wanna talk about. FIV You ever really think about that? I saw a meme shared the other day or like a graphic and it said if your vet tells you if you have a FIV cat, it can't be around other cats or anything like that, or you have to euthanize it, fire your vet immediately. I agree with that because I guess like they have to tell you like the risk of it, but so many vet cats have been cheered around recently about being FIV positive and everyone is pushing that they have to be the only cat and they don't, and it's just so frustrating and infuriating. We have so many like that we take, I wanna take 'em all because I wanna break that stigma. So I think it's something we need to talk about like more frequently. Or like Cole and marmalade. I dunno if you ever follow them on social media.

Yeah, I'm familiar with them.

Marmalade was FIV positive. So frustrating. Like the things we deal with in rescue all the time. Like I, I'm counting down the days till I can retire. Like I just go work at Michael's and Craft.

So how do you think the community could get more involved to help?

Spaying neuter is like the only way that we're ever gonna get out of this. The only way. So that is talking to your neighbors, that is learning to trap cats. Even if you're not even a cat person, like some people will come in and say, I'm not a cat person. Neither am I really? I have 15 dogs. I don't have a cat. I have a porch cat, but he broke up with me for the neighbor across the street. But I did get him fixed. But trapping cats is the greatest need. If we could just have a kitten season that wasn't so overwhelming, that would be amazing. I remember when I first started volunteering at the shelter in 2012, and that was just like when I was at the West Bank, 42 cats would come in the front door every day. And you could only pop so many cans. There are times when we get frustrated and our cat caretakers are like breaking down and it's so sad. And they're babies and they're so little. And then, sometimes they're born, like I see some of the colonies. They're born with deformities. If like you would've fixed that mama Cat five litters ago wouldn't have this problem, wouldn't have cat suffering, wouldn't have like endless Door opening of Hey, I need someone to take these kittens.

And another thing about that is when you see baby kittens, do not take 'em unless you know that the mama is absolutely not coming back for 'em.

Yep. Definitely don't catnap. Definitely. But I wish people would just reach out before then. It's talking about spay neuter,

right

like even if you're not a person that wants to trap cats, then tell your neighbors like, Hey, do you know that there's a TNR program in Jefferson Parish and like it's free to get your cats fixed Or, I had a person reach out to me last week. They have 28 cats that they feed, that they have tracked and logged on their cameras. They're so proud of only one is ear tipped.

Nice.

But I wanted to reach out because one is injured. You couldn't reach out to me like 26 cats ago. No. So it's just. I don't know how to change that. So it's more about just education, talking to your neighbors, maybe your neighbor's not on social media. Maybe they don't, listen to podcasts. Maybe they don't know. Like they live under a rock. They love cats, but they just never thought to get 'em fixed. It doesn't make sense to me. Like, how can you see a mama cat? Just give birth over and over and you not want to like, fix it.

Yeah. I know once I was talking to somebody and she was telling me she feeds cats. And so whenever somebody tells me that, I'm like, oh, are they spayed or neutered? And she said, no, they are not. And I'm like don't feed 'em unless you're gonna spay or neuter 'em. And her response was I can't not feed 'em. And I'm like, just take 'em to get 'em spayed and neutered. I'm like, it's free. But it's no interest there. None.

Yeah. It's gonna come out the sky and someone else is gonna fix it for me. And that's the part, like our wellbeing matters too like we matter. And so like I can teach you how to do something. It's like the teach the man how to fish kind of thing. Like that whole theory, like you can trap and you can save endless lives. We had a trapper that went with a lady. She's I don't want you trapping 'em. But the neighbor called because she was tired of her dog killing the kittens. That was the problem. She's I don't mind the cats. I really don't. But I have a German shorthair pointer, and he's very active. He was killing kittens. She's like picking up dead kittens in my backyard all the time. It's just weighing on me and I can't keep doing it. And so the neighbors agreed. All the different neighbors were like, Hey, you can trap in my yard, you can trap in my yard. So we got 'em all fixed. Unfortunately one of the mama cats died. The lady's response was, she's had litter after litter for many years and she'd never had a problem. Now you just killed her. You were so worried about her passing away, but you weren't worried about the 20 kittens that she had next door that your neighbor's dog killed. Like how does that mass?

Yeah,

like she passed away. And that's super unfortunate, but it's probably 'cause she's inbred and she's allergic to anesthesia. It happens. There are so many cats and you just don't know what's going on. We can't do pre-op blood work on every cat. It just,

And it's rare too.

Yeah, it's rare. It's not very often that we lose one. It's not, we try very hard not to. We've had some have allergic reactions and we've caught it and reversed 'em and then try, there's another anesthesia method they can do, but I just can't see how you can keep feeding cats and then knowing that they're out there not fixed. I can't imagine like it's just. Not having healthcare and like having babies. That's how I feel about it. I guess like some people like have it in their mind with their animals and they can have babies, but they can get babies stuck in their birth canal and they can die,

I don't think people think of that at all.

Yeah. Or people got really mad at us when we removed most of the bunnies from all the parks, but they didn't know, so we had five babies and a mom and one of the babies was getting sick. And so they came and got me and they're like, Hey, can you rush this bunny to Avian vet? And I said, sure, I can do that. Not a problem. And one of our employees came around and she's Hey, there's a, something's wrong with the babies in the cage. And I'm like, I know I'm about to come. I'm just grabbing my purse and my keys to get, she's no, there are fetuses in. Like little tiny fetuses in the same cage. And I was like, what do you mean? Her babies are in the cage and they're like four weeks old. And she's no, like more of them are coming out of her right now. So that's when I had to look up like rabbit gestation period. So it was like 30 days.

Yeah. I learned that from, From James. Yeah. With Lola and friends. He actually told me about that, that they trapped the mom with the babies and then the mom had more babies. And I was like mind blown.

And they all died.

I did not know

that they all died. Then that makes me think like, how long was she in that Kenner park under that shed just having dead fetuses, like dead babies all the time, where is like her suffering ending? I wouldn't mind like bunnies in the park if they were fixed and microchipped and like we could ear tip 'em in some kind of fashion. Or tattoo their ear or something. And I knew that they were safe. Like they weren't gonna be like, attacked by coyotes, that'd be different, they shouldn't be out there anyway. They're prey animals. But I just can't imagine thinking about that bunny every night and you're so mad you took that bunny away from my park. It's so cute. And I'm like, it's so cute that she's just giving birth to dead fetuses, like over and over every 30 days. How is that okay? If you don't see the animal suffering, like in the front lines in your face, like, why do you think they're not right? Like, why would you want a cat to just give birth over and over?

And people don't wanna see it too. 'cause I've been brought kittens that have been practically dead.

Yeah. That happens

People just don't wanna see it. So it's like they'll see something going on and they're like, here, you take it, you deal with it.

Yeah, there, there was a guy that ran in the store yesterday in Jefferson Feed, and he was on a jog and saw a squirrel fall out of a tree came like in his tiny short snow shirt and everything with the squirrel in a box help. It's like, why is there a guy without a shirt in the stool? He was on a jog with a squirrel. But it's just awful. I know that on for April Fools, we played the joke for the fix a raccoon. I really wish we could it'd be so awesome if we could spay new possums and raccoons too. But who knows, like maybe in 10, 15 years we'll be that advanced and we will. But I just can't think about like, all those animals, like out there, over and over just making babies and, on the way to drop so we have the van and we do the mass appointments every week. You can drop 'em off to, get on the party bus as we call it. And one of 'em was giving birth as I was driving. Like I heard it like the baby crying I've always seen baby kittens, no big deal, but the sack the baby came out of. I'm sorry, I know I'm an animal welfare. I see gross things. I scoop my dogs poop every day, but ugh. I texted Rebecca she's the trapper that trapped the cat. And the sad thing is it's a baby. Like she's probably four and a half months at the most. She's a young mother. She was terrified. Like thankfully she's calmed down, made it very quiet. Our volunteers came and played some noise and she delivered two more overnight. She's okay now, but just to see that thing like loose. And then I was like, okay. So I didn't wanna move her in the van because I know they're supposed to eat it or whatever. Oh. I was like, ah, this is why I don't have children. I can't, this is gross. I felt so bad. I was like, Rebecca, it's all your fault. But she was out there trapping. She's trying, it's not like she wasn't trying, but that, yeah, that was that. That's what stinks. We have 20 appointments on Tuesday, and I only had six cats, so that's 14 appointments that went to waste. And I can't, I need more trappers. Yeah, if a person that was feeding every single day could just set a trap and get me one and bring it in, like it's not that hard.

I have a male that keeps coming around here and I swear he knows when Tuesdays and Wednesdays are.

Okay. The male's easy. You can give me that any day. If you catch it Sunday through Thursday, I will buy coffee or lunch or donuts for somebody. I will get it fixed. A male is easy peasy. I can beg, borrow and steal that. I can please stay late. I'll bring you more coffee. I can get that fixed. So Sunday through Thursday I can get it as a pregnant female. It's a little harder sometimes, but I'll still beg, borrow and steal for that. But I mean they're tricky, but Popeye's Chicken works, Cane's chicken, like I'll know that. One of my board members, the vice president. If I'm like out trapping, like she doesn't wanna get involved 'cause she feels bad. 'cause it's hard for her to watch the suffering and then like to know that they go back out there and they're like just cats out in the street. She's if they're not in a safe colony, I can't do it. But she'll go get me Popeye's and bring it to me wherever I'm trapping if I'm struggling so I appreciate it. It works,

yeah, it does. I like Popeyes and I like Jack mackerel.

Jack mackerel, huh?

Oh, it's disgusting. Yeah. You go buy it in a can.

Yeah.

And it's like the whole fish. But it's it's one of those things, like I find if I can't trap a cat, I always resort to Popeye's or Jack Mackerel. Yeah. And always get 'em after that.

Yeah. It's just the different things I like. Lately I've been do the tuna fish and oil. Because that's the one that like the kitten lady recommends in her video. And I've been like, I'll keep that one. And I was like, I use fancy feast food pate most, but I keep that and I'm like, oh, this is getting frustrating. And I usually get 'em with that. But I was having the patience. I don't know trapping used to be so relaxing for me. I miss doing it sometimes, but at the same time, I feel like I wanna teach more people how to do it versus just me doing it. But it's such a great thing if you're a book reader. Like you can read a book while you're cat dropping. I could sit in my car on a spring day and you hear that little noise whenever the trap closes. It's just like you won the lottery. But it's just so nice. So trap cat, cat p, why can't I talk today? Trapping cats can be relaxing in a sense. So I think people need to get over the stigma and the fear and like to say you're not a cat person. Like you don't have to be a cat person. But I guess Rebecca was a cat person. She like with JPRD, like she's the one that's doing our, the TNR training class right now. She does it once a month on Saturdays. The first Saturday of the month, and, she now has six cats. She's not a good foster. She's not allowed to foster anymore. She had two cats when she started volunteering, but now she's like a little cat trapping machine, once you learn it, just the bug bites you.

That's what I hear. A lot of people say that.

Yeah. Beth Cooney's, one of the trappers I've, I trained and I like, love, her passion, and she'll go scary places at night and get so many cats. So it's just really, I wanna teach more people to do it because I think it's just so easy and people have that fear. And I don't want anybody to say the age thing like that. You can't there's like an 80-year-old disabled woman, like there's a. Some of our other trappers like have bad back problems. They're like, I can set it, I just can't pick it up. And now I'm like, that's fine. Because if she can set it and just throw a towel over it so it's not freaking out, I can go pick it up. That's not a problem. We can find someone to come pick it up, but there's no reason that we could not place a trap on your porch and you couldn't set it and watch it. There's no reason.

Now I know with the TNR too, there's always cat haters out there. So you might be trying to trap in your neighborhood and you might have that neighbor that's oh, the cats are using my garden as a litter box. Or the cats are coming up on my porch. And so do you have any detterants that people could use?

I find the motion activated water sprinklers work the best. There is a video floating around on Facebook of me getting sprayed with one. I do have a new video I have not posted yet where I tortured some of the employees at Jefferson Feed. I put one in a potted plant on the patio and then we got our store Cat Giuseppe to run in front of it and like it sprayed all of us. It was very entertaining. They are cheaper in price, like I get 'em on Amazon. They used to be $75. I think they were down to 45 or 50. I find that they're the best. Some people will argue that they work at first and they don't continue to work. If you read the instructions, you're supposed to move it every seven days. So the cats don't learn the pattern, And then you have to make sure the motion activated sprinkler, it's the one I'm talking about, I think it's called the enforcer. You can put the sprinkler head at the top or you can put it at the bottom. You wanna consider a cat, a small animal. So you want to at the bottom and some people are installing it and putting it at the top, and they're not doing it properly. The one lady that her and her husband that took my advice on it, they set it up and she was like, it's miraculous. The raccoons are gone. The possums are gone. I love it. She even bought a cat trap to trap 'em herself to like at least get 'em fixed. She donated her trap to me. She said, thank you. They don't come in my yard anymore, so Oh great. Yeah. Motion activated sprinklers are the only thing that worked. Like the coffee and the forks and the, I know like on cars, I do think the what do you call 'em? Like the plastic spikes?

Yeah, I know what you're talking about.

Scat mats. Yeah. Those work, like I actually have a feeder who traps, but she just didn't want 'em on her car. She's I feed 'em, I love 'em. I just don't want them on my brand new car. So she uses scat mats to train 'em not to jump on her car. So there are cat lovers that still use those same, tools that they want 'em out of 'em. I think that's the one thing as being a feeder. If you love cats and you don't want to upset your neighbors. Whenever you start feeding that one, like I fed the one and I trapped him immediately. I still only have the one, but he actually lives across the street with Kiki. He likes Kiki more. He wanted a girlfriend. I get it, but I only have the one. So that's the importance. Like you need to think Hey, I'm feeding this cat. Maybe I should get it fixed. Like it needs to before it becomes a problem. Before you upset the neighbors, before you ruin all the gardens on the street. Our neighborhood's full of cats, but it's only one or two here and there. Like my entire street, there's, everyone has just a couple. It doesn't get outta hand. And no, I didn't trap all of 'em. I've only trapped like three of them. So like the people were doing it just being responsible along that street. Or along my street before I even got involved. I was only becoming the craziest cat trapping lady. I guess I knew about TNR 2000 16, 17, 18, maybe like maybe when best friends like first came here and like my friend Lisa used to release a lot at the shelter. But I didn't actually do it myself until 2020 to look for all the things and the ear tips and the tell. But I hate the cat haters or I dislike them very much, but I also understand it. But the motion activate sprinklers work the best. I think you have an obligation if you're a feeder, you have the obligation of being a good neighbor. I think if my, if I had a cats and if I was feeding 'em and it was my fault, I would probably wanna say, Hey neighbor, can I come scoop your yard here and there? I'd wanna be a good neighbor. Like whenever you have your elderly neighbor, like you pick up their recycle bin or you pick up their trash can I feel like if you're a cat feeder and you're causing the problem and they're gonna go in other people's yards, you have to be the good neighbor and scoop it. I feel it's like whenever you put all the signs for you to scoop your dog's poop, like people say, it's not really my cat, I just feed it. If you feed it. It's yours. Sorry for you. If you like had a child and you fed it, you know it is yours. So I think that being a cat feeder, you have a responsibility one to trap them, have the population under control. You're the easiest person to trap them. They're gonna trust you, they love you, they know you, and you wanna be a good neighbor. So if you can corral 'em to stay in your yard, if you could create a litter box. Pine pellets are very cheap. It's not like the best thing for litter, but the cats will go in it. You can get like an oversized plastic bin from like Home Depot and put the pine pellets in it. I think it's maybe five or $6 a bag for the pine pellets. They sell 'em at Jefferson Feed or different feed stores. And that's so much cheaper. And then at least give your cats a place to go to the bathroom so they don't wanna go to your neighbor's yard. So I just feel like you have an obligation. I have my 15 dogs. I try to get 'em in at night. If I listen for 'em, I have cameras in my backyard to make sure they're not disturbing my neighbors. Like you have obligations as a pet parent to not disturb your neighbors. Yeah, I can agree with that. Yeah. So I just, I see both sides. I had a person reach out to me yesterday that they think someone in the neighborhood's trapping. 'cause he said the cats are disappearing. He said, I'm not really like one of the, I think maybe he was a feeder, but he doesn't feed that much. And he knows that most of 'em have the eart tips, but he said now he's not seeing them at all. And I said, look for our traps have labels that say we're trapping or humane or whatever. And I said, usually like other official cat trappers usually put their name on their traps and they label 'em and stuff like that. And I said, go get a picture of the trap. If it doesn't have a label on it, or like a name or like a cover. If it's not lined with newspaper, like looking like someone humanely cares about what they're doing. It probably is someone not doing it properly. So if you see someone doing that, you need to record it and have video because it is against law to trap a cat and relocate it. Like you can bring it to J Paws, like technically in the ordinances, you can bring it to the parish, but most likely they're going to fix it and bring it back. And your tip it, so like you're gonna have it back at your house. But those are your only options. You TNR it yourself or you bring it to J Paws and they bring it back. You can't relocate it. It's just not fair for us to just wanna keep euthanizing animals. 'cause you don't like them. But if you think someone is trapping and they're not doing it, if it's not labeled, if it's not, it doesn't have a trap cover. Like the people that don't use newspaper, it, ugh, it like hurts my heart. I'm like, think about walking on those bars yourself. They're probably not doing the right thing. So definitely put your spidey senses up, video it, make conversation, ask what they're doing. Get someone involved, like it is against the law. You can, if you have video proof and evidence, I remember being a kid following my neighbor. My mom was like, get in the car. We're following him. I was probably 13 or 14 and he was doing something with puppies and my mom's get in the car. That was before smartphones, but we were going. Like you wanna have the evidence and you wanna, like you're protecting animals. That's, there's something wrong with that.

I see that a lot when people will say, oh, I saw somebody trapping cats. I think they're trapping them and dumping them, but they don't get any evidence.

Yeah.

And I'm like, but you go complain about it, but you're not getting any evidence. And with smartphones, there's no excuse for it.

I get fascinated every day with the project NOLA cameras, like the stuff they do every day. I'm like, that's so awesome. And like the facial recognition, everything. It's just like cameras are so important and they can do so much, but in every crime committed, you have to have evidence. We've all watched, legally blonde a million times. Like you have to have evidence. If you're accusing someone of that, you need to record it. You need to, put it in your pocket and record the conversation or whatever and get the camera out or, say that you're recording 'em. If you're out there protecting an animal, you're not doing anything wrong.

When it comes to your biggest need for volunteers, would it be cat trappers?

Yes, definitely. We love volunteers in our adoption center at Jefferson Feed, we do, but it's also hard, like I, I prefer adults that are CAT ladies that know what they're doing. So they can just jump in there, start scooping litter boxes and know what's going on. Because sometimes, like it's a lot, we do have a lot of animals to take care of and, a short day and we don't have that many employees, so volunteers that would be needed. Either, cat trappers, it's just endless. That's what I want, like more than anything in the world. If I could my dream would be to have a map of Jefferson Parish and every a five mile square. Maybe think about I dunno how far is too far for you as like where you live to go trap. Like I could trap in my neighborhood and it's okay and I can check on it, but if I like sent you an address and you're like, okay, I'll go set a trap. So like you could have, two to three traps or up to five traps that you kept at your house. And I could just say, Hey, this address just sent in a request. And you go out there and you set the traps and then you're like, Hey, this is done. And then it could be like, we could come in the van and pick 'em all up. So if we had the entire parish mapped out where like we had the one person in like that, two to three mile radius or whatever that knew how to do it and they could just jump in on it and go.

Have you thought about trying to do something like that?

Yes and no. The goal, Rebecca came up with the goal this year, Jefferson Parish turns 200. And that's why she wanted to the TNR class. She's what if we could train 200 people how to trap cats next year? But no one signed up last month at all.

Oh that's sad.

Yeah. The first, The first month, I think there was three. The second month there may have been five. And then for March there was zero.

Yeah. I, thought about doing, trying to do something just to raise awareness.. So we thought it'd be cool for like cat trappers to see how many you trap., you take a photo of every single one that you trap. And keep track of it and see at the end of the year who gets the most.

Yeah.

Just to see, what everybody's doing.

Yeah. I know. I wish I had kept better notes. We keep a spreadsheet, we have a Google sheet that I invite like all of our trappers to if they wanna be part of it. And like you can see the addresses and the request as we get 'em. Most of the time they'll come from the shelter or like I said, I have that Google form. People can submit it. Or if they just know somebody that's been trapping forever. Some of our longtime residents or some of our longtime trappers, they just get, referrals from other people. But, we keep track and like some of the vet clinics will put how many if they were pregnant, like some people just, some of the vets just put pregnant. Some of the clinics put like pregnant times four, pregnant times five. So we'll keep that like on the spreadsheet sometimes, like, how many did we abort? Like that's how many cats you save from life on the streets. That kind of thing. And keep track of some of that just to like. Keep the statistics. But the list, it's just endless. It's rare whenever you can highlight one green to say that it's done and clean because, they're just, they show up. That's my I just want feeders to like trap more. So much you're the one there, when the new one shows up. If you're just learning about it and you need me to come help you trap 15 to 20 to get caught up, totally fine. I'm there for you. But like the one off, I need you to trap that one off. So yeah, trappers endlessly like donations are great that we use every day. Like food, litter. But like trappers hardcore always, like if there was a shortage of kittens, best feeling in the world, like I just, oh my goodness. If you had to like. Just settle. Like people had to have the best application. Like it would just, I dream of that all the time.

Yeah. And kittens are overrated.

Yeah. Oh, gimme old animals. All day ah, no puppies, no kittens.

They're cute for five minutes.

No, yeah. And the kitten poop is the worst smell ever. I don't understand why people love some ugh. Like I remember like when I first started volunteering, my friend Anita was fostering kittens and she's Hey, since you go to the West Bank shelter every day, 'cause you're addicted, can you bring my foster kittens to get fixed? And they like pooped in the car, like in the carrier raining on the way there. So couldn't roll the windows down. I thought I was gonna die. I was like, Ugh. Kitten poop is the worst smell ever. Old animals all day, every day. Big old giant cats. I don't have a tuxedo right now, but I have this black and white cat. He looks like a small Jaguar, I'll tell you that. Like he's bigger than a normal house cat. I don't know what he is. He's white and black, but he's huge. Like he barely fits in a cage. I feel so bad. He was adopted through our Petco partnership and apparently he had like maybe five or six cats. 'cause I think Spaymart took some back. He died and his family put all his cats outside in November. And so the neighbors were taking care of him and slowly trapping him and scanning their chips and figuring out, so we got two back. And I just, I remember adopting this cat out, or bringing him from the shelter to Petco. They usually don't come from us at, the shelter. We go to J Paws, pick him up, bring him straight to Petco. And I remember the name of him, but I don't remember him being this big of a cat. He's not fat. He's not overweight. He is big boned. I have no clue what he is. He's just huge.

Yeah. Cats, I think they reach their full size actually at five years old. Especially like your bigger breeds. 'cause I had a Norwegian Forest cat mix that was a rescue, and when he was like a year old, he might've been like 10 pounds. And by the time he was five years old, he could steal stuff off of the counter without jumping on the counter.

Oh man.

So yeah, 26 pounds. Oh. And he was a little runt kitten that was found right before Hurricane Katrina.

Oh my goodness.

Like in, in New Orleans East.

Yeah. It's just funny the things that you get you find people like want the purebred everything. But some of the best street things we find are like the sweetest babies ever. Like my mom's ditch dogs. I love them to death. I don't know what they are. But my mom went into assisted living, and so now I have her dogs. And she wasn't the best mother of them. And like, whenever I knew her dogs. I feel like I saw 'em, I took care of 'em. I dropped off flea prevention and, heartworm prevention here and there for her. But I saw a video from like Mother's Day, like four years ago and Kenzie's, like walking in the background. And now that I have him and I feed a fish diet, I'm very like a strict mom, feed all good things. He looks like a full blown golden retriever. He's huge. And the hair is just like luscious. And mom found him in a ditch. Yeah. And I'm just like, I love this dog so much. I don't know what he is. He looks like a golden retriever. His nose is black, so I don't think he is. I have to DNA test him, but I'm like, this ditch dog is the best dog ever.

So where can people find more information about getting involved with the Jefferson SPCA?

The best thing right now is to email me. You can go to our website, jeffersonspca.org. Or email me Rachel, R-A-C-H-E-L, at jefferson spca.org, and I will put you in touch with Rebecca to learn to trap, or I'll find one of our trappers that's gonna trap so you can ride along. Yeah, we'll find you a ride along.

Yeah I like the idea of a ride along. That's cool.

Oh, definitely. Uhhuh. You can ride in the undercover van. our van's not wrapped. It's just white, so we always make jokes about it. But I do have a license plate that says most likely a van full of cats on the way for snip and tip.

Okay. So before we end, is there anything else you would like to add?

I don't know. I dream of a place where there was just a shortage of animals and we had stricter laws in and law enforcement, like it would just be a dream. I don't know that I wanna be the person that does it. 'cause I'd probably be very hotheaded, but I like helping people. I like, helping people keep their pets. If they wanna do right by 'em, that does make me happy. If they can't afford 'em, I totally understand it, but if they wanna keep 'em, I wanna help 'em, keep 'em. But if you don't like, truly love your animal like family, or you think of it as like a side hustle, I don't have respect for you. Animals are life. I love them. My husband knows what he got into. I know that he knows he did we dated seven years before we got married. But did he really know He's getting into, I don't know. But animals are life. They're just so loving. And I love watching all the transformations of all the animals that I've rescued, especially old ones. If you wanna change a life, like I, I know everybody comes for the kittens. I don't get it. Love an old animal. It'll be like the greatest love of your life of just, you just gotta do it. Don't get the whole like, they're gonna die. It's not like that. It's the love you can give a senior animal in the end, there's no better love.

I had 2 17-year-old cats. There was a lady that was passing away from cancer and she had no family to take 'em. So this was about 10 years ago, but I took in the two 17-year-old cats and they lived in an additional two years.

Yeah, it'll be like the best two years of your life. They're just like so loving and I have one now that's blind. I cannot believe he went blind, but he had detached retinas. We were doing all the medication. We saw the eye specialist, all that. But he just cracks me up. He's a little character, just like loud as can be. He's blind, but he walks around, gets around. He's probably only eight pounds. He had no hair when I got him, and now he looks like cousin. It. He just like, whenever he knows that it's like breakfast time, his bark, ugh. It makes my heart so happy. I'm just like, look at this little old dog, like you had no food and you were bald and you were covered in, fleas and dirt and everything and just, I love it. We call him the Charles bark and he barks food. It just, yeah. Let go of the stigma of baby things. There are kittens and kittens need homes, but if we could spay and neuter all of them there, maybe there wouldn't be that many kittens. But get an adult animal

and don't pick up kittens that are older than eight weeks old. if they haven't been tamed because they're not tamable at that point,

no. We have one that lives in our playroom and none of us can pet him. A certain volunteer that fostered, like a connection of a connection through a neighbor or something, her husband can come in and pet this cat. It's lived in our playroom for four years. It was too late, but a trapper picked him up and Yep. I don't wanna let him go back. To that trapper. So he's uncle Rip. He loves cats. Does not like humans. Yep. So I you're nice. I say five weeks, six weeks,

Yeah. I mean there's that point is if like seven is like the breaking point. If you don't get 'em before then just you're better off the TNR 'em.

Yeah, definitely. I mean we have some that we had to ear tip 'em yesterday. We've had 'em for six or seven months. They've had no interest. They're still very skittish. We've tried. So we sedated 'em yesterday and had 'em ear tipped and microchipped them or they were microchipped 'cause we're trying to adopt 'em out. And I called the feeder and she's absolutely they can come back. So we're gonna do exchange and put 'em back. And it's unfortunate, but in my mind I can't keep holding onto the three of them taking up an entire cage. When we're about to start kitten season, we don't have Joan anymore. Rightfully I don't blame her. Retire. Where's the next wave of the younger people? I don't blame you. You have to have a life. I wanna live my life at some point I'm gonna have to hang my hat up. I know people want me to do this forever, but I can't. But I have to be realistic. If I can't get 'em adopted, like the me we have that we had to celebrate this week, Dottie and Violet, the two cats we've had for 615 days this week got adopted yesterday.

Really? Yes. Oh wow.

So I haven't posted yet. We're gonna post it tomorrow for some feel Good Friday, but,

Oh wow.

615 days. Dottie, no one wanted her because she has herpes in her eye. Uhhuh, and everybody's oh, herpes. They're so grossed out by it.

Wow. That's wonderful.

It's just that one home that like changes a life. It doesn't happen as often as we want it to. We have so many special adult cats that like we are obsessed with and the ones that we are so in love with, we had a lady come a couple weeks ago and was like, I don't want your youngest kitten. I don't want your smallest kitten. I wanna help an adult. I wanna be a good person. She picked the two smallest kittens we had.

Yeah. That's like yesterday a conversation that I had was, somebody's looking for a kitten to live outdoors. And I'm like I might be able to find they a nice adult cat. Oh, we wanna experience a kitten. And I'm like, how are you experiencing a kitten if you're throwing it outside?

Yep. There was a guy yesterday, the rats are eating my tomatoes. I need another outside cat. I was feeding them like occasionally with treats and now my neighbor fell in love with 'em and let 'em come in her house. I'm like have you seen videos of coyotes ripping cats apart? It's not great for 'em to live outdoors. I love TNR. I'm okay with it, but at the same time, I still don't want 'em outside. If you're not gonna spoil the cat and love it the way that our. Caretakers, Amelie and Reesi are, as we call her, Maly, you can't have one of our cats.

Yeah. I want my babies to go indoors.

Yeah. My heart broke when I read that story the other day on social media that A tail in need posted where that cat got adopted in January and then a good Samaritan found it outside, beat up in March. Like cuts on its nose, all blood,

yeah. It was horrible.

And then the lady's that's my outside cat.

That did not look like an outside cat that looked like a cat that they didn't want anymore.

Yeah. That cat looked terrified and all beat up and bloodied in the face, like injured. It did not wanna be outside. So I just, I don't How do you sleep at night? I don't get it. And that's why I'm strict. I know i's so hard. But. The Miracle Homes, like they're far and few between. And then not everybody could be having, double digit animals. I don't blame anybody, I don't expect anybody to do that. But eventually, like all the good homes, like they're gonna run out. There's just not enough. If we keep at the pace that we're in I never thought I would see French Bulldogs in the shelter and there's five or six a week posted stray. Never thought that. Golden doodles, they're euthanizing some of them because they are just very evil. Not just they're mutts essentially. Some mutts are great, but it's a purebred mutt that they're making. It's not a good mix. And like they've had one that attacked like humans and animals. It just, I don't know. It's heartbreaking. All the things that, I feel like you need a class, like a permit. Like you have a permit to like, shoot guns or whatever, fishing or whatever craft or hobby or whatever. You have a license or a training class. I think you should have to go to the shelter and learn that before you own a pet to see what happens. Like the people that came to the rabies drive so much and they're like, oh no, we want puppies. I'm like, why do you not know how many homeless dogs are in the shelter that look just like this? No, outta sight outta mind.

Yeah. I wish there was a way to change that stigma because it's full of pedigree animals in the shelter and people just don't wanna go accept that fact or go look even.

Yeah, I'm the crazy dachshund lady. Every one of my dachshunds all rescues. Every single one of 'em. And that's why it's like people like, oh, you're gonna breed 'em because I have long hair, I have dapples and piebalds, all that, all rescues. Yeah. So it's, sometimes you have to have patience, it's crazy. I don't know, like when I first started volunteering, like it was, there are still a lot of pit bulls in the shelter, don't get me wrong. That's still very common. But like the beagles are so mistreated in our parish. Out of control with the ear, they clip their ears to like tag 'em. Like whoever's that's their dog. Every single one of 'em is heartworm positive. They're skinny. The worms, the parasites, they're in like deplorable condition. I had one that fostered through heartworm treatment and I got her adopted and she died nine months later 'cause of damage in her lungs from coughing from heartworms so long. Killed her. It's just don't get an animal if you're not in it for life. Don't get one bottom line.

Absolutely. Thank you so much for chatting with me today.

Oh, thanks for having me. It's fun. I can't wait to. Listen to more of them.

Hopefully I can get you to come back too.

Oh, definitely. Thanks for having me.

All right. 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.