Unowned cats are humanely trapped in the community. This can occur by individuals or through organizations, such as The POUNCE Alliance. POUNCE is prepared to provide traps to local partners and teach proper procedure on how to humanly trap a cat in need. Records are kept as to where each animal was trapped to ensure it is placed back in the proper location.

The unowned community cats are brought to our on-call veterinary partners. Our team of volunteers examines each cat for identification, health, age, and claw status prior to surgery. The community cats are then spayed (for female cats) or neutered (for male cats). This stops them from being able to reproduce. We vaccinate, treat for fleas, spay or neuter, provide wound care if warranted, and ear tip each cat. An ear tip is when the ¼-inch tip is removed from the cat’s left ear during surgery. Ear tipping is a universal sign of a community cat that has been spayed or neutered. By ear tipping a cat, it helps others identify this animal in the community, and if it ever gets trapped again, it can be released immediately. 

Community or free-roaming cats who are healthy and have a clear food source will be returned to the location where they were caught. We look at many factors to ensure each cat is healthy before placing it back out into the community, including: 

• They have claws.

• They are not kittens of socialization age.

• They are not injured or sick.

• They are not senior cats who may struggle to survive.

• They are healthy and have a body mass, indicating that they have a regular food source.

Since we save many cats and kittens from off the street, we always need fosters who can help socialize feral kittens. Feral kittens are not used to humans and are scared, timid, or defensive. Most kittens under 12 weeks old are able to be socialized if given proper assistance. If you’re willing to take on a project and have some free time, you can help us save lives!

If you’re looking to gain some medical experience, or better yet, already have experience, we always have kittens and cats in need of higher level medical care. We frequently acciqure felines with illness or injury who are tame and unable to return home. We can teach you exactly what to do to give the cats the proper care they need to recover. If you’re interested in working in the veterinary field or are just up for a challenge, fostering a medical cat will teach you a lot and strengthen your skill set as a foster parent.

Friendly, healthy cats and kittens may be eligible for our adoption program if space allows. We DO NOT euthanize stray, healthy, unidentified cats when our adoption program is full. However, tame cats are returned to colony often due to lack of space. We ALWAYS need more fosters fo tame adults and kittens to give them a new lease on life. For a list of our available cats and apply to adopt, check out our available animals tab!