Caregivers and Advocates

Are you seeking information on how to care for stray and feral cats? Do you want to start an organization or work to change public policy to help feral cats? The information you are looking for can be found on this page.

Quick links to...

Caring for Feral Cats: Hands on

The Basics of Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR)

• Five FAQs (frequently asked questions) About Stray and Feral Cats and Five FAQs (frequently asked questions) About Spaying or Neutering Stray and Feral Cats
• The ABCs of TNR - The perfect introduction to Trap-Neuter-Return
• Talking the Talk: Essential Feral Cat Advocacy Terms
• Trap-Neuter-Return: Why to Return and Not Adopt
• Do you believe she deserves to live....even though she lives outdoors? - is the first in a series of educational brochures to help you begin a dialogue in your community about feral cats. With this brochure, you can help correct misconceptions about feral cats that too often lead to inhumane and ineffective attempts to confront the complex issues surrounding feral cats.
• Easy Ways YOU can Help Feral Cats - Outlining five easy steps for assisting outdoor cats, this brochure makes Trap-Neuter-Return accessible to any audience. The case for Trap-Neuter-Return is bolstered by identifying three "solutions” that are really deadly traps. Ideal for introducing Trap-Neuter-Return to a new community.

TNR Instruction

• Trap-Neuter-Return: A Humane Approach to Feral Cat Control - Instructional video to be purchased.
• Trap-Neuter-Return: A Humane Approach to Feral Cat Control – Instructional video clips online.

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• Selection of Traps and Equipment
• Trapping Kit
• Trapping Guidelines
• Doorhanger
• Humane Trapping Instructions for Feral Cats
• Bringing Feral Cat Populations Under Control: Targeted TNR
• Dos and Don'ts of Stress Reduction (for Cats and for Trappers)

   

  Tips on Hard to Catch Cats

• What is a drop trap? How does it catch more cats? Purchase a FOLDING droptrap! (And add your own ideas and feedback on blog!)
• Drop Trap Instructions - Build a trap that is sure to catch trap shy cats.
• Drop Trap Design Bank - Includes several drop trap designs.

 

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Taking Care of a Feral Cat Colony

• En Español
• Advocating for Feral Cats: An Overview - and What You Can Do
• Colony Management Guidelines - Indy Feral
• Feral Cat Colony Tracking System - Tracking each cat in your colony is an important part of Trap-Neuter-Return. This chart will help you collect and maintain valuable information.
• Feeding Guidelines - Stanford Cat Network
• Flea Control - Free introductory chapters to The Complete Book of Flea Control.
• NMHP forum question: Tracking feral cat data to prove TNR is working
• NMHP forum question: Statistics and definitions: What can they do for you?
• NMHP forum question: How can we get vets to work with us?
• Homeless and Feral Cat Population Control Tool Kit - Presented by Project Bay Cat Collaborators: City of Foster City, Homeless Cat Network and Sequoia Audubon Society
• A Few Neutered cats: Five ways to raise just enough money to get the job done! - Gives tips on raising the funds to Trap-Neuter-Return and take care of feral cats on a small-scale.
• Making Feral Cats Welcome in Your Community: What the Neighbors Don’t Know, You Must Tell Them (formerly: Community Benefits of Feral Cats) - Includes tips on keeping cats out of gardens and off of vehicles.
• Tricks of the Trade: Essential Feral Cat Care for Long-Term Management
• Feral Cat Feeding Station – Build this to keep your cat’s food and water protected
• Fuller’s Feral Feeder - Feeding station plans designed by Bruce and Muf Fuller, of the Merrimac River Feline Rescue Society
• Raccoon-Proof Feeding Station
• Equipment links page

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Preparing Feral Cats for Winter

• Build an Inexpensive Cat Shelter – Lists materials and provides pattern for building wooden shelter.
• Outdoor Cat Shelters - Indy Feral
• How to Build a Weather-Proof, Inexpensive Feral Cat Shelter - Spay and Stay
• NMHP forum question: Trapping in the winter

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Keeping Neighbors Happy

• How to Live With Cats in Your Neighborhood - Provides an explanation of eight common cat behaviors along with straightforward, humane solutions in a bulleted, simple to follow list format. (Also available in brochure form in our Marketplace).
• Why Do Cats Do That? - Provides an explanation of outdoor cat behaviors for the layperson who would like to understand what draws cats to, and how to deter them from, certain areas. (Also available to order in our Marketplace).
• Mediation - Cat Welfare Society
• How to Talk to Absolutely Anyone about TNR
• NMHP forum question: What to do when people threaten caregivers

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Moving Feral Cats

• Safe Relocation of Feral Cats – When cats must be moved as a last resort, this provides essential information for successful placement at a new location
• Barn Cat Flyer - Barns are ideal places for relocation when feral cats MUST be relocated. This flyer can be used when advertising for them.
• FAQ: I am moving and I can't take the feral cats that I am managing with me.

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Information for Your Veterinarian

• Feral Cat Management Julie Levy, DVM. Excerpt from Shelter Medicine for Veterinarians and Staff reprinted with permission. Please e-mail ACA to obtain a copy.
• Eartipping: Feral Cat Identification Protocol
• Early Age Spay/Neuter Before Adoption – Sterilization from 7 to 16 weeks of age.
• To Test or Not to Test? Is Testing for FeLV and FIV in Feral Cats Always Necessary?

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Testing for FIV/FeLV Viruses

• To Test or Not to Test? Is Testing for FeLV and FIV in Feral Cats Always Necessary?
• Should We Release Feral Cats Who Test Positive for FIV?

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• Surgery Recovery Instructions – What to look for while feral cat is coming out of anesthesia.
• Early Age Spay/Neuter Before Adoption – Sterilization from 7 to 16 weeks of age.
• Eartipping: Feral Cat Identification Protocol
• NMHP forum question: Microchipping feral cats

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Caring for Kittens

• Neonatal Kitten Care Kit
• Hand-Raising Orphaned Kittens booklet
• Basic Kitten Care - What to do when you find neonatal kittens by Tompkins County SPCA.
• Link to Mother/Kitten FAQ’s
• Socializing Feral Kittens - Tompkins County SPCA

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Tame Cat Information

• Do-It-Yourself Fence for Domestic Cats and Homed Feral Cats (Not appropriate for feral cat colonies)
• Congratulations! You're the Proud Owner of a (Formerly) Feral Cat and She's Hiding Under the Bed
• Lost Cat Recovery Program
• Top 10 Ways to Decrease Your Allergies to Cats!
• Allergic to Cats?
• Fencing and Enclosures - where to purchase

  
  Adoption

  • How to Find Homes for Homeless Pets
  • Sample Adoption Contract
  • Sample Adoption Application
  • NMHP forum questions: Adoption

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List of Feral Cat Organizations

• List of Feral Cat Organizations by state

Taking it to the next level: Organizing and Advocacy

Changing Your Community

• Advocating for Feral Cats: An Overview - and What You Can Do
• How to Create a Grassroots Community Program to Help Feral Cats
• How to Hold a Workshop: “Helping Community Cats”
• Guide to Local Government
• The Humane Solution: Reducing Feral Cat Populations with Trap-Neuter-Return: Video to be purchased
• Are We Prepared to Pay the Price?
• Bringing Feral Cat Populations Under Control: Targeted TNR
• The Strategic Campaign for Change: Sound Planning and Effective Negotiation
• Tracking Our Success – Why TNR has become accepted in the last decade.
• TNR: How Neighborhoods and Communities Can Stop Feral Feline Overpopulation
• Website Template - Add the truth about feral cats to your own website with this ready-to-use web page. Download the PDF file to set up on your Web site as a PDF page and/or a downloadable link. You may need to contact your Webmaster to install. Click here for instructions.
• Truth Card Series - This set of full-color flyers is an ideal way to inform people about feral cats and Trap-Neuter-Return , and to dispel the most common concerns about outdoor cats. Topics include: The Truth About Animal Control; Rabies; Predation; The Vacuum Effect; Viruses and Feral Cats.
  
  Discover the truth about...
  • Animal Control and Shelters (English) (Spanish)
  • Feral Cats (English) (Spanish)
  • Feral Cats and the Vacuum Effect (English) (Spanish)
  • Feral Cats and Predation (English) (Spanish)
  • Feral Cats and Rabies (English) (Spanish)
  • Cat Viruses: FeLV and FIV (English) (Spanish)
  • What Americans Really Think About Feral Cats (English)

How to talk to...

• How to Talk to Absolutely Anyone about TNR
• How to Talk to Animal Control
• NMHP forum questions: Talking to animal control, farmers, apartment managers, people with different motivations, a park board, humane society, or those who promote cats staying indoors.

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Issues Affecting Feral Cats (Policies/Positions)

Law and Policy

• Alley Cat Allies Survey Conducted by Harris: US Public Opinion on Humane Treatment of Stray Cats
• American Bar Association: Animal Law Committee - Who Speaks for the Animals?

Legislation

• Anna’s Law: Tragic Death Leads to Act Designed to Save Lives in Illinois Animal Shelters
• Legal Analysis: Illinois Adopts an Animal Control Policy for Feral Cats

Rabies

• Rabies Control and Feral Cats in the US
• NMHP forum question: Overcoming the rabies fear.

Returning Feral Cats Instead of Adopting Them

• Why Trap-Neuter-Return is the Solution to Feral Cat Overpopulation—And Trap-Neuter-Adopt is Not

Sanctuaries

• Why Sanctuaries are not the Answer for Feral Cats: A Case Study of a Feral Cat Sanctuary
• The Fight Over Ferals

Statistics

• A single female cat and her offspring cannot really produce 420,000 cats over just seven years.
• Dr. Griffin's Favorite Quote: If one unspayed female cat produces two litters per year, and two kittens per litter survive to reproduce, and none of these cats are ever spayed or neutered, the total population multiplies in five years, or ten generations, to 59,049.

Wildlife Issues

• Urbanization to Blame for Decrease in Some Migratory Bird Populations, Not Predators

  – Research from Ohio State University

• Cull Upsets Island's Ecological Balance
• Addressing “The Wisconsin Study” - written by Laurie D. Goldstein with assistance from Christine L. O’Keefe, PhD and Heidi L. Bickel
• Why Banning Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) Programs in Pennsylvania Is a Bad Proposal - Presentation to the Pennsylvania Game Commission by Alley Cat Allies, October 3, 2003
• Stray and Feral Cats in Pennsylvania – Presentation to the Pennsylvania Game Commission by the Central Pennsylvania Animal Alliance, October 3, 2003
• Understanding Cats & Predation
• An Assault on Stray and Feral Cats
• Feral Cats on the Firing Line: For all the Talk of Cat Predation, Science Exonerates our Feral Friends - San Francisco SPCA
• Plight of the Vanishing Songbirds - Defenders of Wildlife

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Scientific Studies

• Building the Body of Scientific Evidence that TNR Works – summarizes five scientific studies
• Addressing “The Wisconsin Study” - written by Laurie D. Goldstein with assistance from Christine L. O’Keefe, PhD and Heidi L. Bickel
• Plight of the Vanishing Songbirds - Defenders of Wildlife

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Starting an Organization

• Starting a Nonprofit Organization to Help the Animals - Guides you through the process of starting a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
• Volunteers: Getting Ready for Them, Finding Them, Keeping Them
• Website Template - Add the truth about feral cats to your own website with this ready-to-use web page. Download the PDF file to set up on your Web site as a PDF page and/or a downloadable link. You may need to contact your Webmaster to install. Click here for instructions.
• NMHP forum: Public Funding for Spay/Neuter
• NMHP forum question: Developing a committee to start a feral cat program.
• NMHP forum question: Getting feral cat groups networked and coordinated

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Fundraising

• Foundation Center - the nation's leading authority on philanthropy, connecting nonprofits and the grantmakers supporting them to tools they can use and information they can trust. The Center maintains the most comprehensive database on U.S. grantmakers and their grants. It also operates research, education, and training programs designed to advance philanthropy at every level. The Center has five regional library/learning centers and its national network has more than 340 Cooperating Collections.
• Getting Your Paws on More Money: Overcoming Fundraising Phobia
• A Few Neutered cats: Five ways to raise just enough money to get the job done! - Gives tips on raising the funds to Trap-Neuter-Return and take care of feral cats on a small-scale. (also linked to above)
• Grassroots Fundraising Journal
• Fundraising Tools - Shelter Source
• Grant Sources - Shelter Source

• *Attention Florida residents! A grant application is now available for funds collected from the Florida Animal Friend spay/neuter license plate fund. The committee will accept proposals for feral cat sterilization programs through 4/15/07.

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Media

• Media Guide (from the Protect Florida's Cat Campaign)
• Sample Press Release
• Ads - These attractive ads, in English and Spanish, can be printed in newspapers and newsletters, used as flyers and handouts, or hung as small posters. All ads are available with and without the NFCD logo in both color and black and white formats.
• Tips for the volunteer photographer

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Spay Day Packet

Your Complete Guide to Organizing Spay/Neuter Clinics for Feral Cats

The Spay Day Packet contains everything you need to know to organize spay days in your community, including:

• videos from nationally known authorities in feral cat management, addressing clinic organization/operations, veterinary protocol/techniques, and early age spay/neuter;
• policies and procedures covering set-up and day-to-day clinic and volunteer management.;
• factsheets and white papers on every aspect of clinic operation, including the specifications of nine highly successful spay/neuter programs.

This packet costs $25. Ordering information can be found here.

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