HO! HO! HO! Town Cats Announces Reduced Adoption Fees!!!

To kick off the Holiday Season, our adoption fees have been reduced to $50 for one kitten or cat or $90 for a pair to help stimulate the economy and to find more homes for our cats and kittens!!! These rates will continue through January 31, 2009!!!!

Click on the adoption button to see our adoption site locations and pictures of the cats/kittens - or call 408-710-4081 to adopt today!

New for this year!

Town Cats 2009 Calendars!

also ... don't forget Town Cats T-Shirts!!!

Available at www.towncats.org/gifts.htm

GREAT HOLIDAY GIFTS!!!

Have your pet's picture taken with Santa and benefit Town Cats as well!! Click here for more details, locations, dates, and times!

ANNOUNCEMENT!

Alviso Ranch Cat Adoption Fair for Friendly Abandoned Ranch Cats!
(full story below - view the flyer!!)

December 6th, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.

AND

December 20th, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.

URGENT!!! 100 Cats in San Jose STILL Need Your Immediate Help!

Town Cats has been asked to help with a huge emergency cat rescue project in San Jose. A long-time horse boarding ranch closed on August 10, 2008. The ranch was in operation for over 30 years. During that time people have used the land as a dumping ground for their unwanted cats. Without first being neutered or spayed, breeding has produced multiple colonies that numbered over 200.

The ranch property is owned by the City of San Jose. The City of San Jose Attorney's office notified Town Cats on August 9, 2008, that the cats need to removed from the property when the lease expires in October. However, the city of San Jose Animal Control does not have the room to house this many cats and many are wild/feral, not adoptable, so Town Cats is leading the drive to save these cats and relocate them to new ranch/outdoor type homes. If you have property and need some cats for rodent control, we please consider saving these cats! We will trap, spay/neuter, vaccinated, deflea, deworm and health check them prior to taking to their new outdoor homes.

We need your help to save these cats today! We need food, litter, equipment and monetary support for to help with the vet bills and aftercare for these cats. Use our donation button and the PayPal feature to donate money with your credit card.

UPDATE as of 11/15/08:

A date and location has been designated for an adoption fair for cats rescued from the Alviso Ranch! The fair will be held on December 6th, 2008, from 10 to 4 p.m.; email us at towncats@garlic.com for the location. Please come and meet the cats and volunteers who have been working so hard on this project! More info is available here (.pdf).

Town Cats now has a temporary location in San Jose to hold cats waiting for spay/neuter or foster homes or relocation! Also, a couple of foster homes have signed up as well as a couple of feral relocation properties. We still need lots more feral relocation properties and monetary donations for medical costs. A Big THANKS to the volunteers who offered to help in this project.

Update on the number of cats: SO FAR Town Cats has pulled and placed 50 cats, horse boarders took 50 cats with them when they moved their horses and there's about 100 left.

Some of the friendlies rescued from the ranch have already been vetted and are up for adoption:

Allie	Cricket ADOPTED!	Shasta
Smokey	Socks	Ginger

You can find out more at the volunteers web site dedicated to this project: http://67.155.107.232/AlvisoRanch/AlvisoRanch.htm

See what aired on the various media sources below:

CBS:
http://cbs5.com/pets/sj.abandoned.cats.2.794766.html

Mercury News:
http://www.mercurynews.com/petsheadlines/ci_10229693?nclick_check=1

ABC:
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local&id=6335826

KTVU:
http://www.ktvu.com/video/17227226/index.html

• All donations are 100% tax deductible.
  
• We need donations of food, litter, traps, cages, holding pens that can be used for imprint pens and we need folks to help with trapping at the site.
  
• We need folks to volunteer time to care for the cats at our holding locations.
  
• We need people with property/land where we can imprint and relocate the non-domestic - feral cats. Ranches, farms or any land that needs free rodent control with caring folks who will feed and tend to these felines while they work for free.
  
• We need folks who can transport cats locally to/from vets and holding locations as well as to new outdoor homes that may be far away like Redding.

Thank you for caring!

Town Cats Volunteers

Meet Sasha Kwapinski, our December, 2008 / January, 2009 Volunteer of the Month!

Special Donations Appeals!

New - Sponsor a Foster Kitten program!

Click on the picture below to read the story of this mom Silver, who was cruely abandoned with her babies! Kittens like hers will benefit greatly from sponsorship/donations!

The survival rate of unweaned kittens separated from their mothers is very low, the younger the kitten is removed from its mother, the lower the chance of survival. Town Cats gets many pleas for help from the public and local municipal shelters to take in and raise unweaned kittens. We always recommend the finder keep the kittens with their mother for as long as possible, but sometimes people will stumble on a lone baby kitten or a litter of kittens who's mother has died or rejects the litter and who will not survive without human intervention.

Municipal shelters in our area contact us to take young kittens that they otherwise would end up killing upon arrival because they are not equipped to provide round the clock care for these babies. Without round the clock care the survival rate of unweaned kittens is very low. This is very costly in terms of the monetary, emotional and physical demands on our volunteers. The rewards of course far outweigh the costs and the volunteers who raise these babies are very special indeed and derive much satisfaction when their charges are adopted into forever homes! We need to support our volunteers who raise these babies and need your help! Every year we successfully raise more than 100 unweaned kittens, the youngest litter we raised and adopted out in 2007 was just 17 hours old when they arrived at our foster home. In 2007, many of the kittens also had to have extensive surgeries for prolapsed rectums and urethra repairs which cost us about $4,000. We are still short $2,300 to cover these surgeries (See Appeal for Donations to the 2007 Unweaned Kittens Fund under Donations).

For 2008, we need a minimum of $10,000 ($100 for 100 kittens) to get us through this year's kitten season. This is for Formula, Kitten Canned Food, Kitten Dry Food, Litter, Litterboxes, Toys, Bedding, Dewormers, Shampoos, Flea Powder and Flea Products, Vaccines, Spay/Neuter Surgeries and Testing for Leukemia/FIV.

Without your support, these kittens will die. Please donate to help them today! And best yet, tell your friends who are looking for a new pet for their family to contact us as we'll have kittens ready for adoption soon! Town Cats is a registered nonprofit 501(c)(3), and monetary donations are 100% tax deductible.

Sponsor a Foster Kitten Goal: $10,000
Amount Received (7/21/08): $6,400
Amount Still Needed: $3,600
If Paypal doesn't allow you to indicate which fund you are donating to, please send us an email and let us know!

Visit Our New Adoption Location!

We are now showing cats every day of the week at the PetSmart on Curtner in San Jose (185 Curtner Avenue - Curtner & Monterey Rd. - San Jose, CA! Cats featured there have been rescued from the San Jose shelter on Monterey. Stop by whenever you have the time and meet some of these kitties!

Click here for our other weekly adoption fair locations and
information on adopting!
Thank you!

County Spay/Neuter Program Needs Input from Morgan Hill!

Please call, email, or send letters to your Morgan Hill officials asking for them to participate in the Santa Clara County Spay/Neuter Program!

October 1, 2007: Gilroy has now agreed to join the program!!!!!

Click here to read the full story!

This is a short movie we received via email from someone who made it for their ethics class for animal rights. Here's the preface sent with the link and we agree: It is one of the most powerful and important short films you will ever see in defense of animals. As people, we are commanded to be responsible towards our animals: "In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind." (Job 12:7-10) We feel that it every person's responsibility to be a caring and good pet owner. So, if you love the little creatures of this world please watch this short (3 min) film.

http://brightlion.com/InHope.aspx

Need help with spaying and neutering?

Info on Local SPAY/NEUTER Programs: Assistance for spaying/neutering of both tame cats and trapped ferals

Listen to a Town Cats volunteer and the Executive Director/Founder of Town Cats in an interview on KBAY! Scroll down to 4/29/07, and select "Rosi Marco of Town Cats" (name misspelled). This interview is about spay/neuter programs, and what people can to do help! (Note: You will need iTunes, as this is in the form of a podcast)

http://kbay.com/skin/blurb.php?sectionId=185&contentId=353211

IMPORTANT PLEA:
Town Cats just saved our lives!  So please come adopt us!

Noche	Orion	Bon Jovi
Jonathan	Mojito	Charlie

Town Cats received urgent pleas from volunteers at the San Jose shelter who asked if we could rescue these nice cats who were up for adoption, but due to lack of space were going to be put to sleep. They contacted every rescue group and shelter in the county and no one stepped up to help except Town Cats! 

They are now safe at the Town Cats shelter in Morgan Hill and will be going to adoption fairs in San Jose area, so please go to the fairs or contact Town Cats to make appointment to come meet and adopt them! 

Click here for locations and times of our adoption fairs

People Needed to Trap/Feed on Hwy 5
south of the 152 interchange!

There is a feral colony off of highway 5, south of the 152 interchange. A person who travels to Bakersfield from Gilroy area once a week saw them and Town Cats has been providing food, but the kitties need to be trapped and neutered. We are seeking people in that area who can help transport. Town Cats will use our vets and will pay for the spay/neuter costs, just need feeders and transporters. Contact us at towncats@garlic.com for more info and location.

Update on the Hwy 5/152 cats: As of March 7th, we've trapped, spayed/neutered/vaccinated/ear tipped and returned 10 cats at this location and one of our volunteers is going to trap another 10 on Saturday March 10th for spay/neuter and return.

Looking for a bunny? They get along great with cats! Visit www.therabbithaven.org to find the perfect bunny companion!

Out of the area? A volunteer working with us has been helping with overpopulation with reservation dogs/cats in the Navajo Nation (Arizona):

http://www.desertanimalcompanions.org
http://www.kayentaanimalshelter.org
http://rezdog.petfinder.org

Stray Cat by Francis Witham

Oh, what unhappy twist of fate
Has brought you homeless to my gate?
The gate where once another stood
To beg for shelter, warmth, and food
For from that day I ceased to be
The master of my destiny

While he, with purr and velvet paw
Became within my house the law
He scratched the furniture and shed
And claimed the middle of my bed

He ruled in arrogance and pride
And broke my heart the day he died
So if you really think, Oh Cat,
I'd willingly relive all that
Because you come forlorn and thin
Well...don't just stand there...
Come on in!

Need to find a home for a cat?

Although we'd like to be able to take in every cat we receive requests to help, since Town Cats is a small facility we can only accomodate so many cats at a time.  So we network with other no-kill rescue groups and shelters -- here's a link to other no-kill resources in the Bay Area to help you with your situation:

Resource List