Pet Talk

by Cathy Davis
    Words cannot begin to describe the pain and agony that someone goes through when they have experienced a tragedy. I will not make an attempt here to paint a mental picture for you because I have never been through this so I cannot even imagine the sadness or despair, I will just try to tell you the story and the need.
    Recently there was a fire in Houlton resulting in the loss of life of 9 beloved feline family members.  Three kitties were saved, thankfully. The house is a total loss. The owner is obviously a huge cat lover so when neighbor cats wandered into her yard over the years, she took pity on them and fed them and six of them moved into her barn permanently. They are comfortably situated and depend on the kindness of humans to provide their nutritional needs and fresh water.
    The home is not likely to be rebuilt and it is now going to be a hardship for the owner to continue to travel to this location to feed these barn cats so we are asking for your help, we need to find someone who will agree to take one, or all, of these cats. None of them are fixed, but that’s the easiest part of this to address. Houlton Humane Society has no more money left in our spay/neuter fund but we will find, somewhere, somehow, the financial resources to assure that these animals are altered before they are placed in a new location.
    All you have to provide is a warm clean barn and a promise of food and medical care if needed. We will catch these babies and have them fixed and deliver them to your door if you will just agree to take them in.
    Since these cats have lived in a barn all their lives, they may be somewhat “feral” – what this means is that they haven’t been socialized all that much and may not be comfortable with human touch or moving into a home and using a litter box.   That’s not to say you can’t work with a feral, because you can, and if you have a heart and a passion for feral kitties, please help us out here.   I know of several situations where outdoor cats successfully transitioned to happy indoor cats, clean and loving and extremely loyal companions. 
    I don’t know any of these animals so I won’t offer any promises that they would make good house pets, but I also don’t want you to shy away from helping because you think they’re going to attack you every time you walk into the barn because that is not what a feral cat is, it’s not how they survive. They aren’t ferocious or nasty, they’re just skittish is all, they don’t like to be picked up and hugged, but given time, patience, and love, many of them do come around.
    My little Boo was not feral when we adopted her but she was terrified of everything and acted very much like a feral cat and it took her a year before she climbed up into my lap and she’s been there ever since!
    The owner of this home is heartbroken. She has to go back into this burned out building and try to salvage what small portion of her life that is not in total ruins, and in the process she has to deal with the memories of all the kitties who lost their lives. The very least we can do is try to help with these remaining barn cats.
    You might be asking why we don’t just trap them and take them to the shelter and put them in cages but I have to tell you that this is not what is in the best interest of these animals.  That would stress them so bad that they would become even more fearful, they would likely get sick from the stress, it’s just a much better plan to transition these animals from a comfortable environment to another similar environment and the bottom line is we want to do what’s best for the animals. 
    If you have any kind of solution to help with these kitties, would you please call Heather at the shelter at 532-2862 or email me at houltonanimalshelter @gmail.com, or call me at work at 532-2345 so we can work together on this issue.
    Please, think of what you would want someone to do to help you if you were in this situation and if you can help, please do. Thank you.