Welcome to Animal Posse, the podcast dedicated to the people and rescues making a difference in the lives of animals.

Today I am super excited to welcome Nita Hemeter We are gonna talk about TNR and her organization Trap Dat Cat.

Hey Dixie.

How are you this morning

I'm alright.

Tell me a little bit about yourself and what led you to start trap Dat Cat

My name is Nita. Hemeter. Theresa Bridges and I started Trap Dat Cat a nonprofit in April of 2020 and it was, I started trapping cats in 2014 and at first it was slow going and then I got pretty good at it. Last year. TRAP DAT CAT trapped 3,270 cats.

Wow. Yeah. That's remarkable.

And yeah, I always say better to turn off the faucet than mop the floor. You wanna help cats? The best thing you can do is get 'em fixed, whether they're your pets or people are feeding cats, but they're not fixing them, of course, when they don't fix them. Then, there's more and more kittens born. Cats can get pregnant as early as four months. Gestation is 62 days, give or take. And New Orleans is a perfect environment for cats because we don't get, really cold weather. Although it did snow this year. But it's, warm. There's lots of places to hide. So cats are just being outta control.

in New Orleans too, 'cause I don't think a lot of people understand we don't have one kitten season like a lot of places do. We just have a

Exactly.

Continuing nonstop kitten season.

Exactly. And right now I think we aborted this week, maybe 24 kittens. And do I feel bad about that? No, I don't. There are no homes for these cats that are born. And a lot of people say, oh, I found homes for my kittens. Maybe you did. But what you did, you just took homes away from other cats that are already born. All the shelters and all the rescues in Louisiana are filled with. Wonderful dogs and cats that need homes and there's just not enough homes. It's a major problem here, and Theresa and I realized, impact we could have, and I believe we are having an impact. When I first started trapping cats, I would go out and just about every place I went, there'd be, six to 20 cats. And while I still run into some, but it's gotten a whole lot better than it was, five or six years ago.

On average, how many cats are you trapping a night?

That can vary. As far as weekly, we probably average 50 cats a week. Last week we trapped 68. And it's not just me trapping because I tell people, call me all the time, can you come out and trap these cats? It's no, I can't trap every cat in New Orleans. What I can do is I can load you traps. Show how to use them. You trap 'em, bring 'em to me, put 'em on my porch. I explain how to label and all that. Put 'em on my porch and then I'll feed them, run them back and forth to that, get 'em fixed. I'll bring 'em back. And then you come pick up. So that's not, say I don't trap and our volunteers don't trap because we do, but we try to. The only this works is if everybody participates. And now, I've had so many connections with people that are feeding cats. If a new cat shows up, they call me and they come get a trap and they trap the cat, they know what to do. So we're slowly educating the community about the importance of t. And how this helps the cats, saves them money. 'cause feeding 20 cats, that's a lot of cat food. I know we're making a difference.

Yeah. Definitely.

Yeah, we just need people to step up.

I know a couple of years ago there was a family member of mine and they said that they couldn't afford to feed the kittens that they just had. And so I'm like why didn't you spay the mom? Oh we couldn't afford it. And I'm like there's low cost in, we're very fortunate to have low cost programs here and we've had low cost programs for a long time, and so he was like I couldn't afford to spay the mom. That's not an excuse, because now you're complaining you don't have money to feed the kittens. And it's a lot more to feed the kittens than it is to just go ahead and get mom spayed.

Absolutely.

And then you solve the problem.

Yeah, absolutely. It's like I routinely tell people it's $60, give or take. To spay or neuter. And if you can't afford it, we'll pay. When we run outta money, we run outta money. And so far we're still standing. We have next to no overhead. Nobody's paid. We're all volunteers. Nobody's paying gas. We don't have a van. We just have my porch fortunately, the Louisiana SPCA, they're a huge help. So I take a lot of cats to the Louisiana SPCA. And then we also have participating vets, like Southern Animal Foundation, low cost animal medical Center on Washington Avenue. Dr. Wisdom out in Jefferson Parish on Jefferson Highway, Dr. Abadie we always need more vets to participate. we've tried, but I don't know. It's hard to get the veterinary community. Involved

You said you started in 2020 during the pandemic. Is there any specific reason that you started that time? What prompted you to start then?

Because nobody was doing anything. There was nothing going on and we were able to find, a couple of that would help. And if you're out trapping, you're not really. You are not really being exposed to people. You're outside

Uhhuh.

So it ended up, that was the beginning and somehow we survived.

Now for anybody that's unfamiliar, can you explain the TNR process?

Sure. It's basically trap neuter return. It is not trap neuter. We take the cats. People ask me all the time, can you take my six kittens? And we work with various rescues like big, easy and Zeus, and of course Louisiana, SPCA and Spay Mart Arno. So if there is room, sometimes we are but able to get the kittens and to foster, we foster kittens here at my house and we have a few fosters, but that's not our focus. Our focus is getting all these cats fixed because that's the only way out of of this. We are not gonna adopt our way out of this because there's just so many. People ask me all the time, Nita, do you know somebody that wants a cat? And I'm like, if I knew somebody that wanted a cat, they'd have a cat. I don't know anybody. So it's trap, neuter, return. And a lot of people, I'd say most people want the cats back. They love the cats. They're committed to the cats. And once they're fixed, they won't have any more cats, any more babies being born, and it works pretty well. Of course some people are irrational and unreasonable, but we just deal with them the best we can, it's a major problem.

What about behavioral things with cats? So for people who do see cats coming around that are not spayed or neutered, and you hear, cats fighting all the time you might have spray marking, you may hear the females in heat. How does TNR address those issues?

It eliminates it. People call all the time, oh, my cat had his eye ripped out, and my first question is. Is he neutered? No. That's why he's getting in fights and with other cats and he's mating with females and we just need to get him neutered. And I've had a lot of people tell me. Oh, since we got, max Neutered, he's gotten real friendly and he is sleeping in the bed with us and so forth. So getting him spayed, neutered helps a lot of those behavior issues. The spraying stops, it takes a couple of months for the behavior to go, for the hormones to go away. But, I've had a lot of people tell me that, oh, this cat was so mean, and now he just, he loves me and yeah. So that's nice to hear.

It is. And I'd like to mention something else too, when you spay and neuter them and they're feral after they're spayed or neutered, you don't see 'em as much anymore. They keep a really low profile. I know there was one that was coming around me by my commercial area and he was. Going in and out of this busy parking lot. It was making me a nervous wreck, so I trapped him right away. I got 'em neutered. And I barely see him now.

Yeah. It helps just all kinds of problems. Plus, if you wanna talk about money, it costs a whole lot more to round up impound animals. Than it does to just get 'em fixed.

Absolutely.

And I think a lot of municipalities are realizing that. I think Facebook has been a big help, social media and putting a face to the homeless animals, dogs and cats. And the benefits of spaying and neutering. I've seen just a huge change. I've been involved in animal work for almost 50 years.

I just spoke with Kelsey and she's at the Washington Parish Animal Shelter. Now, of course, they're not as big of an area as New Orleans, but she was telling me they started their program in 2020 and now they get fewer CAT calls and that's, it's remarkable

Yeah. Anna Zareal told me a couple of weeks ago that their cat intake is way down. And, I know why it's just gotta be everybody participating in this 'cause I cannot do it all.

Yeah. And it's very easy to trap too. You just have to learn how to work the trap. And then other than that, you just set it up and you just watch it and you wait.

Yeah, I love trapping. I wish I could spend more time trapping instead of organizing. I can hear the sound of a trap closing a mile away. I joke with people,

Uhhuh

and it's like hunting for good

what are some of the biggest misconceptions people have about community Cats and the TNR program? Most people are appreciative and they get it. I will say that. Some people are difficult to deal with and they like to see the little kittens, I think. Yeah

It's some kinda weird thing that the older kittens are so cute. And then they don't realize, most of these kittens born on the street are not gonna make it. They're gonna die I was trying to think of the percentage, but I think it's something like 80% of kittens born on the street end up dying within six months.

I know you addressed the controversial subject of aborting the kittens.

Yes.

Do you find like the vets are very willing to do that? Is there a like kind of a limit when the vets will not do it?

I know there's a couple of vets that do have limits, but the vets we work with, they realize, there's just no homes for these kittens and better for them to never be born than to be born just to die. Or, clog up the sheltering system. For those people that don't wanna abort. It's okay, then you take all these kittens they don't want 'em,

Do you ever have cats that have kittens in the trap?

Yes. I think last year that happened three times. And if they're born in the trap, we take them. We'll find a foster or shelter or somebody. Yeah. There was one last year that I'm recalling that the cat was taken to a vet had kittens at the vet in the trap, and so they ended up, holding into the mama and the kittens and then getting the kittens. Adopted out and the mama went back. The mama cat went back to her caretaker because she did have a caretaker. Now I think that happened last year three times. It hasn't happened this year yet.

Yeah. We're just getting into the really,

we're just getting into it. Yeah, it's interesting. The winter solstice. What is that, December

21st?

The 21st? Yeah I was reading something and it said that's the time when, the days are getting longer. And it sends a message to the cat's optic nerve. That it's time to breed. So that's why we start seeing lots and lots of pregnant cats. in March.

Yeah. It's that circadian rhythm

and then just continues. Yeah. Yeah. It just continues, up until October or something. But right now we're in the peak of it.

Yeah. I think here we get maybe one month off where it's like a little slow.

Yeah. Yeah. And if people wanna argue with me about it, I have so much to do, our volunteers and I, we I just, okay. Then you deal with it. I'll move on to the next one. I'm just not gonna argue with people.

And how many volunteers do you have?

Kate's over here right now helping in the cat room and washing traps and helping with the laundry. And we have. I think six people that foster. And then I have a like six people that help me haul back and forth to the vet. Two people that come in the morning that help me change the newspaper in the traps before we take 'em to the vet. And then feed the ones that have come back from the vet. I have two ladies that live near me, and so they'll come like Monday through Friday to help with that. Thank goodness. Sometimes on my porch I'll have 21 to 30 cats. That's routinely I'll have 20, 25. It gets to be crazy. So it takes a lot of volunteers. And of course I always need volunteers. They have volunteers that will take laundry. 'cause as there's just tons of laundry trap covers. I have a volunteer that makes trap covers. I just tell people there's always something to do over here. Now, and I encourage people to go volunteer at these other rescues and go volunteer at the Louisiana SPCA or Jefferson Parish Shelter, or Jefferson, SPCA. There's just a million things that need to be done

How do you identify and prioritize the areas that you go trap in?

I get calls night and day, so it is pretty much just come get a trap your hood, talk to your neighbors. And I have a list. I get a request for trapping through Trap Dat Cat through our organization as well as Louisiana SPCA. So to be honest, I prioritize what's near me. I do go out to New Orleans East, but I live uptown, so that's, a long haul. And New Orleans East is very underserved. A lot of people, if somebody's elderly, of course, they maybe can't do it. So we'll go out there and just do what we can. And I always tell everybody, we gotta get every cat, otherwise we're not doing anything. And a lot of people do call me back, oh, need this other cat showed up? Can I come get a trap? Yes. They come, they sign out a trap and go trap and then bring the cat to me. I have a lot of problems with people returning traps, so I have to really read them the riot act that these traps are a hundred bucks and we need our traps back. And I don't know what it is that. I have to be mean to people to get 'em to understand that, if we don't have these traps, we can't help cats. One lady stole two of our traps, and so we filed a police report, and of course nothing's gonna happen, but at least it's on her record. She just won't give them back. And we've tried, going over there and. There's lots of crazy cat people.

Yeah, I know. I had a situation it was a couple of years ago where I was trying to clean up an area by me. So many cats and I was doing a really good job of getting them and I noticed there was a new one over there. This lady had contacted us in this area. I was already familiar with it. But she was like, oh there's kittens over here and there's cats. And it was like, okay I'm gonna come and I'll try to help. I put the trap out and I told her, don't touch the trap. Leave it right where I put it. if the cat goes in it, just gimme a call. And I had to go run down the street real quick. I come back, she moved my trap. So then I go move my trap someplace else. She basically told me, oh, I can't put my trap there because there's a lot of kids in the area and they're gonna steal my trap. And I'm like, why would kids steal my trap? So I think it was her. I think she's the one that just had a problem.

Yeah.

why do you reach out for help though? And then tell me you're gonna steal my trap,

yeah. It's unbelievable. We had this, yeah, that's happened to me before. This man had hidden one of our traps in his car. And so we're out there trying to talk to him, and finally his wife screams out from the window give the ladies their trap. It's in your car. I don't get it. I really don't.

How do you handle situations where a trap cat is found to be owned or it has some kind of medical problem?

Oh, I have a chip reader. So you know, if the cat looks friendly, I'll scan him for a chip. And I think in the past couple of weeks we've had three cats that had chips. One of the cats with a chip, the owner, who the cat was registered to, did not want the cat back. But a lot of people do. We trapped one cat that had been missing for 10 years.

Oh wow.

And they came right over and picked up the cat. The cat was trapped in New Orleans East and the people were from, I think, Slidell.

Oh, wow. Yeah, I guess he got a ride.

He got a ride with somebody. I don't think he swam over the lake, but yeah, we had one Mardi Gras Indian that just refused. All the neighbors are complaining, all these cats all over the place. And so we're out there trapping and he pulls up in his van and takes two of our traps and throws them in the street and breaks one of them. And the neighbors are afraid of him. So it can get crazy. One lady has 41 cats in her house. I have begged her to, and they're friendly

Uhhuh.

I have begged her, bring me the cats, let me get 'em fixed. Or she's gonna, end up with 60 or 70 cats and then realize she has a problem. I've literally begged this woman, so I just gotta let that go.

So none of 'em, none of them are spayed or neutered.

Some of them are.

Wow.

Yeah. I don't know. She's one of these that thinks she's doing a good thing by giving them away to people.

Uhhuh.

When we run across people that, they wanna keep the kittens, we're like, okay, great. 'cause they wanna give them away. Just let us get 'em fixed first before we give them away. Let us get 'em fixed and vaccinated because, the cats get an vaccine and a rabies, and of course a spay neuter. So that gives them a better chance of survival and we know that, those kittens won't be, starting the cycle again of breeding.

Now, recently on Facebook, I saw a post where some woman was really, infuriated because her outdoor cat came back with an ear tip. So what do you think about situations like that?

Ear tip, cats are protected under the law. It's the universal symbol that this cat has been spayed or neutered and vaccinated for rades. And it also prevents somebody like me or you going over there and trapping the cat and the cat's already fixed. And people say, oh, I wanna go through your program, but the cat, I don't want my cat ear tipped. Then you go to a private vet and you get 'em fixed and microchipped and you pay. $200 $300 or more and you could do that rather than pay 60. The cat's ear tipped and most people will go, we'll accept that.

So is there protection for ear tip cats in your area too, where like the shelter won't pick those up

Yeah, absolutely. The shelter won't pick 'em up. They're protected under the law. And you can see ear tip cats in China or England or France. It's the universal symbol. That these cats are spayed, neutered, and protected. So why would you not ear tip,

right?

All of my cats are ear tipped, even the friendly ones, right?

Yeah. I don't mind the ear tip at all,

Yeah, me either. It's I don't want somebody coming over here and taking my cat.

What are some of the success stories that you have had to keep your team motivated?

We have success stories every day. For every cat we fix, we're saving thousands rather than taking one kitten and. Using up a huge amount of resources to get that cat at home. We're preventing, all this suffering. And community problems with cats, roaming and yelling and spraying and bothering neighbors and. To me, every cat that we fix is just saving so many down the road.

Yeah, absolutely. What are your feelings about breeders?

I do not understand why anybody would be breeding a dog or a cat when all of our shelters are full. Even purebred animals. I think a quarter of the dogs that end up in shelters are purebred. And there's all these rescues that specialize in, poodles or Dobermans or German shepherds or cocker spaniels. There's rescue specific for specific breeds. Puppy mills, I don't get, I've never. All of my animals are rescued. And my, like my neighbors, all of their animals are rescued. I see people walking down the street and I can tell, oh yeah, I re rescued this dog from Zeus, or Big Easy, or wherever.

What are your future goals for Trap Dat Cat and are there any new initiatives or projects that you're working on?

I would like to see more of the rescues have traps to take some of the stress off. I would like to, see more rescues have just even a small team of trappers and I know Jefferson, SPCA does. This is a big area to cover and I can't do it all. I know Juliana in, on the West Bank, she traps a lot of cats on the West Bank. She's in Jefferson Parish and we have a couple of trappers. Catherine in Algiers. She traps a lot of cats over there, we're not there yet. Our goal is to try to keep educating people and just keep stressing spay neuter, TNR. Be a responsible pet owner, just get your animals fixed.

Do you think there's any kind of way to help to educate the public on that?

I think just by us being out there, most people know us now. I I'd love to see like people go into the schools and the veterinary community. I think most vets will tell you that, like 90% of their clients' pets are spayed, neutered. I, I've asked around, and that's the percentage I get. So I would like to see the vets lower their prices. Somebody called me last week, they got a price for neutering, a cat, a ma, male, cat, $800. Now maybe that included, shots and combo tests and all that. I dunno. But, so they came right over here and went through our program and plopped down 65.

Wow. Yeah. I just took in a little cat she's a year and a half and she wasn't spayed. Now the owner did ensure to keep her inside. So she never did go outside, which is great, but she wasn't from this area, she had another one that was neutered. And I said, why didn't you spay the female? Can I ask? And it was, the vet told her it would be better to wait till the female was a year.

Yeah. The vets need to step up and I think a lot of them are, we are fortunate here. We have. Like four vets that will, give us reduced prices. We had one cat this week. Lady brought me this stray cat she picked up at Costco. Friendly, had a broken leg, so Southern Animal Foundation ended up taking that cat. And they amputated the leg, I think Friday, Thursday. And the cat's doing well and they're gonna hang onto the cat and find that cat at home. And we are fortunate here. We need more vets. But we're pretty lucky out in the rest of Louisiana. Most parishes don't even have an animal shelter. There's a few small organizations, we're able to help St Bernard has a trapping group and they're doing really good. but they're brand new, so we're fortunately able to help them. And yeah there's other little groups that it's just gotta be everybody. I know there's lots of cat lovers. And. They just have to understand what the impact is on the community when they allow these cats to breed.

So what advice would you give someone who is thinking about starting a similar organization?

Be prepared to be overwhelmed and worn out. As everybody in rescue is just overwhelmed. It's just never ending. My phone never stops. Just never. And it's just gotta be everybody helping and everybody can do something, go to your shelter and wash laundry for 'em, or go walk dogs or go play with kittens. Or if your neighbor has a breeding animal, talk to 'em. And again, I think social media has put a face to all this. When I first started. In the eighties I was volunteering at the Louisiana SPCA. They were taking in 17,000 animals a year.

Wow.

It was unbelievable. Now I think they take in maybe 5,000. That's a see change. Yeah. In a relatively short period of time and. It's, it's a national problem, obviously. It's in, the more educated areas where there's lots of money for animal control and shelters it's not as bad, but it's bad all over the country.

How was your group funded

donations? Strictly donations. We're lucky to have a couple of people that donate regularly. And then, I beg people to donate anything they can when they bring me a cat. And so far, we've survived. It's a miracle. There, I, it really is a miracle, but, we have no, no building. No car, no electricity, no water bills. Just my porch.

Before we end the call can you tell us, what is your biggest need and how would people get in touch with you?

More volunteers. Money for spay, neuter. Talk to your vet about participating in our program. We have a website, www.trapdatcat.org. You can go on there and donate. You can send cat food. There's just, a million ways to help. Trap your neighborhood. Just get involved. If you don't live in New Orleans, go volunteer, for your local shelter.

Absolutely. Thank you for taking the time to speak with me this morning. I really appreciated it and I enjoyed our conversation.

Thank you, Dixie thank you so much for doing this. Thank you. Thank you.

Goodbye.

Bye bye. 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.