To the editor:
Will it ever slow down at Halfway Home Pet Rescue. The kittens just keep coming and coming. We get one space free only to find nine more waiting at the door. But we are seeing some good signs too. We are seeing fantastic results in an active public interest of animal welfare issues.
This interest and sense of responsibility is a huge success to HHPR. No longer do most of our calls come from people who find kittens in a box at the side of a road or on their doorstep. Now it is the cat owner, himself, who is calling and asking us for help. The media exposure helps. The education of our children in the school actually educates some parents that leaving a box of kittens by the side of the road or the drowning of newborn kittens is not the kindest way to curb pet overpopulation. It takes time, education and dedicated volunteers to create kinder world for animals.
The relocation of HHPR has taken a lot of man hours of hard, heavy work while volunteers have also been tending the largest number of orphaned kittens that we have ever had at one time. It has been 24/7 work and (knock on wood) so far every single orphan has survived its abandonment issues. That is our biggest and most precious miracle. We thank the volunteers and this community for the hard work and the prayers that saved these babies. What a great successful team effort.
Keeping the pet food pantry open has interfered greatly with our volunteer hours of direct cat care and the paperwork required for in this mission. Preparing our new home at 489 Main St.; our commitment to the 27 very young kittens currently in our care and foster care; and the many young adult cats residing at HHPR have exacted a super hero effort from all HHPR volunteers. Our highest priority is to aid the most desperate pets — the orphaned, the starving, the ill and the injured strays. We have decided to close the pet food pantry in order to concentrate on the priority of helping cats in the most desperate, life-threatening situations, our shelter cats and our feral foster barns. Whenever extra food is available, we will call those people considered “greatest need” on the pet food pantry list.
Many thanks to all who have contributed to our recycling projects of used shoes, ink cartridges and returnable bottles and cans. You may drop your shoes off at 11 Pioneer Ave. in Caribou or at either TD Bank in Caribou and Presque Isle. Our new shelter location at 489 South Main St. is open by appointment only for adoption and on every Saturday afternoon from noon to 3 p.m. HHPR is a 501 c3 non-profit and our mailing address is PO Box 488, Caribou, Maine 04736. Our website is www.halfwayhomepetrescue.org please check us out on petfinder.com and see us on Facebook. Call 999-1075 for more information.
Norma Milton
Caribou
