Christmas 2012

      S t i l l w a t e r     C a t     H a v e n

Feral and Homeless Cat Rescue, Monitoring and Maintenance of Cat Colonies, Cat Adoptions and Sanctuary.    Stillwater Cat Haven is a non-profit 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization located in Anderson, California

Our Holiday letter:          December 2012   

We wish you all a joyful, productive 2013.  And we thank all of you who helped us this past year.  We had thought to send a separate thank you when donations are received but failed to establish such a system.  This past year has been more difficult for us due to increasing numbers of cats being rescued, both abandoned and feral, and most particularly small kittens.

‘Be Patient’.  What blessing we miss if we are not patient.  I have felt our Lord’s encouragement in our rescue activities.  But patience is difficult for me to maintain, especially since our funds are diminishing rapidly and adoptions are mostly few and far between.  Another theme that warms my heart is ‘Have a Little Faith’. Most of the reward of this work requires these principals in order to continue!

Our kitten stories make up most of this letter!  We have had many kittens all year long, a different kind of year than in previous.  The first memory is my crawling under an abandoned house through cobwebs and minimal clearance to try to get to crying babies on a dark and raining night only to be frustrated by plumbing pipes and an interior footing.  With some dear friends and helpers, Barbara and Michael Titus, we were able to pull loose some exterior wood siding and reach and scoop the babies up with a fish net from outside of the house.  We had been trying to capture the pregnant mother for days, were successful finally but realized at spaying that she had already given birth.  We released her at the site and followed her to the abandoned house crawl space.  After the rescue of the babies the mother was now free under the house, and in a desperate effort we placed the babies in the back of a trap and with great fortune the mother went into the trap to be with them.  Oh, such incredible happiness resulted with this capture of the momma together with her babies!!  They have been cared for at our home and the babies have become habituated to humans and are optimum adoption kittens rather than isolated wild cats struggling to survive.

The second memory is about another pregnant mother cat living between the I-5 freeway and behind the Shasta Factory Outlets. She was very cautious and aware and was finally trapped and spayed after a long period of trying.  She also had just given birth, but we were not able to find the babies the night of her trapping.  The following evening after her spay we brought her back to the site to be released if we could not find the babies.  On arrival I heard the babies crying.  Royal Blue, my helper at this time ran to the sound, nearly stepping on them in the blackberry patch we had searched so carefully the night before.  Royal picked up 4 cold, damp, tiny ones, maximum 3 days old with umbilical cords still attached, and barely alive.  We put 2 with the mama in her trap and I took the coldest 2 with me inside my shirt and next to the car heater.  Soon I could feel both starting to move, and once home they were put with their momma in a warm cage where they were soon nursing with a mom who was loving and licking them.  This family was fostered to some special school teachers in Dunsmuir and they were all eventually adopted to great homes.

Royal had been feeding stray cats at the Clear Creek Trailer Park and we trapped and neutered most of them.  We neutered the cats of three families living in the Trailer Park.  We also trapped cats and kittens of a nearly blind 85 year old lady who lived next to the Trailer Park and could not see the dead or sickly animals that had been abandoned by her tenants.  Another woman who had recently become homeless had been feeding stray females but did not spay them.  There were 3 females who had had kittens, who also had had kittens, who etc., etc.  We have taken 15-20 cats from her site most of which were in very poor physical shape.

We have helped in another Trailer Park filled by people who appeared to be on drugs and alcohol and with free-running dogs.  Intervening in these places can get very overwhelming!

Here at the home/sanctuary we have finished a building addition that includes a cat treatment room, an enclosed shop, an office area for Don, and the room for the existing well, pump, and pressure tank.  We since determined we needed more shelter for the winter and the current enlarged population of cats.  We bought a 20’x10’ portable carport for the frontyard where we can put food and shelter inside when it rains, and we are building a 8’x15’ enclosed shelter in the back.  We still need another pen(s) for the teenagers not ready for release, and/or recovering sick cats who do not need to be in our sick bay.  We also want to insulate and improve the existing garage to be more hospitable for the sanctuary cats when they are looking for winter shelter.  We want to provide dental work to 3-4 cats at approximately $300.00 each, 1 eye removal, and be able to continue our spay and neuters.

Recently Paula Carpenter, who works with another nonprofit rescue group, agreed to dedicate some of her time in maintenance of our internet sites keeping them up to date and connected with all of other rescue groups and interested people, including our Facebook, Petfinders, and our stillwatercathaven.com website.  Hopefully our adoptions and donations will increase with her commitment.

Our lives have become totally involved with Stillwater Cat Haven, leaving little time to consider alternative retirement activities. The demands and the extent of the need are overwhelming.  We would welcome any and all support.

Very truly yours,

Joan Neptune