Kotor Kitties doesn't have a comprehensive policy, but we deal with a low-income population that regularly abandons animals rather than spay and neuter their pets. I'm happy to share some of the thoughts behind our work, and our acceptance of pets along with community cats:
- Our mission is to prevent suffering, decrease the overpopulation of community cats, and improve their health through HQHVSN and TNR.
- We have no means test. We ask everyone who brings in cats to donate what they can--whether they choose to do it publicly, or privately put a euro in our donation cannister is up to them. No judgement, ever.
- If they tell us they can't afford any donation (we don't ask), we suggest some other ways they can help: share information with their neighbors, bring in a neighborhood cat--or 10! Share our posts on Facebook. Hang a flyer in their market. We make it easy for them to contribute and "buy in" to the message of spay-neuter. We've created loyal followers, and developed some grassroots leaders as a result.
- Early on, as we struggled with whether a pet should be sterilized for free as a "street cat" (in Montenegro there is no other term for community animals), we realized that most of the pets we were asked to help were adopted off the streets, or their offspring would be put into the streets. Why set up artificial barriers? Better to spay one now than 17 later....
- We want people to be honest, not lie. So we have an "open borders" policy in terms of where they live. Some people will drive 3 hours for free spay-neuter of a car-full of cats. God bless them.
- The values underlying everything we're doing with our program are compassion, kindness and respect. It we want to spread that, we need to practice it. So what if we occasionally spay the pets of privileged people? Better to do a couple of those than to humiliate the many people who sincerely need our help.
Good luck with your new program! It's scary when you start, and have no idea where the funds will come from. We started with a goal to raise funds and spay-neuter 10 cats. That was September, 2018. We managed to fundraise and spay-neuter 39 cats by December 31 2018. Celebrate those small victories!! We passed 4,600 cats this week, and are over 2,030 cats for 2021.
We've found people are very understanding when we apologize that we're slowing our work because we need to raise more funds. We prioritize pregnant or in-heat females when we have a desperately long waiting list.
Cheers for your work on this!!
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April King
Volunteer and Board Member
Kotor Kitties
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Original Message:
Sent: 11-27-2021 07:10 AM
From: Peg Lucky
Subject: Spay and Neutering for public
We are starting a spay and neuter program for the public so they can keep their animals even if they don't have the funds to pay for the medical. Does anyone have a policy or program they are willing to share with West Feliciana Animal Humane Society in St Francisville, Louisiana?
Thank you
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Peg Lucky
WEST FELICIANA ANIMAL HUMANE SOCIETY
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