Trap-Neuter-Release Update, Summer 2020

I haven’t really gotten to know many of my neighbors over the past four or so years I’ve been living with Christian. Usually, if anything, it was just a smile, wave, and general pleasantries in passing. But now since quarantine, I have introduced myself to and conversed with several of them. It is one of the silver linings I’ve discovered while being largely house-bound. Most notably among my new acquaintances is the family that lives two houses down from us, in whose yard I typically see the neighborhood kitties spending their time. We happened to be out on the same beautiful Saturday doing yard work, and I struck up a conversation about the cats to see if they were actually feral. I didn’t want to trap and neuter someone else’s cat (though intact cats should absolutely not be allowed out.)

Catching Kitties

Evidently our neighbors have been feeding and trying to trap the cats for several years, meeting with occasional success in catching the young males, but never the mama cat. The long-haired grey cat that I assumed to be the mother of the litter from two years ago is incredibly elusive, and they confirmed that she has birthed multiple litters so far. Their nickname for her is “Hussy.” I thought it a little unfair to slut-shame her for following her instincts as a female cat, so I selected something less judgmental but still related in a very subtle and esoteric way: Olivia (Hussey).[1]

Olivia was taking care of kittens that appeared to be around two months old, but we believed she was pregnant again (which is possible, even for mother cats that are currently nursing.)[2] Christian had seen Olivia and Tom Jr. (a black and white cat, most likely Olivia’s kitten with Tom Sr. from two years ago) in the act in mid-April. We had not heard any caterwauling for several months, and Olivia was looking plumper than usual. We had to catch her before she gave birth again.

Christian and I talked it over and were fully prepared to convert my office into a space for Olivia to stay while she gave birth, and to nurse her kittens for two months until they were old enough to get fixed. We knew that the kittens might likely never leave the house again because we would not be able to part with them. It would mean a lot of extra work, very likely some heartbreak, and a lot of added stress for our kitties Pumpkin and Siegfried, but we knew it was the right thing to do to try and catch her rather than just let the problem literally multiply.

Within about a one week period, our neighbors caught all four of Olivia’s kittens and posted them as free to a good home on our neighborhood message board. Then a few days later, we heard crying cat noises near our house – it wasn’t caterwauling, and it wasn’t fighting. We were not sure what had happened. The following day we caught one of the young male cats (a little tabby we called Tab-let), and, in texting back and forth with our neighbors, we found out that they had caught Olivia! It was an incredible amount of progress in such a short period of time. It was also where the book-learning came to an end for me.

Lessons Learned

I had done a lot of research back in December when I wrote the previous post on kitty shelters and the benefits of TNR,[3] but none of that had prepared me in the least for actually trapping my first feral cat. Because of long wait times at animal shelters and vet offices due to COVID-19, Christian and I knew that it may be next to impossible to get an appointment for TNR services in the immediate future. To that end, we agreed to put any trapped male cats in our bathroom because of the hard surfaces that would be easy to clean in expectation of spraying, pooping outside the litter box, or even blood from fighting.
Please note: I am NOT recommending this as a course of action, as you will see below.

I was in the kitchen making sourdough pancakes (yet another quarantine project)[4] when I heard the trap close. To date, we had caught three robins and zero cats, so I wasn’t overly optimistic, but when I looked inside, I saw our Tab-let! And here is the point where my lessons-learned begin:

1. I did not cover the trap as soon as he was in it. Kitties will calm down a little or a lot if they can’t see out of the trap. Using an old bed sheet is ideal. We learned this by the end of our time with him, but things would have been easier overall if we had known that from the start.
   
2. I took him inside to the bathroom before calling around to see if any services were available that day. It was the Saturday of a holiday weekend, so I assumed that we wouldn’t be able to get any appointments until the following week at the earliest. It happened that there was a spay/neuter clinic going on that day, but by the time I found that out, he was already out of the trap, and there was no way he was going back in.
   
3. Because I already had him trapped, I was able to get an appointment the following morning at Humane Animal Rescue in Homewood.[5] Several shelters that provide TNR services in the Pittsburgh area instruct you to make an appointment and then “trap the cat the night before the appointment.” Given our success rate, we found those instructions to be laughable. I know people who have canceled many an appointment because they were unable to trap said cat in the suggested time frame. I have not been able to confirm this, but I imagine that shelters expect at least a few cancellations on any given day, and the fact that I had already trapped the cat gave me an advantage in securing a time slot.
   
4. No one recommends bringing feral cats inside your house, especially if you have cats of your own. There is no guarantee that the animal is healthy (they could have FIV,[6] feline leukemia,[7] or even fleas[8]), and if it gets out and interacts with your cats, the consequences could be disastrous. When you take a cat for TNR services, it must be in a trap, not a carrier. This was a hard and fast rule for every shelter, clinic, and vet’s office I contacted, though it is not always specified on the website. And once the cat is out, there is no guarantee it will go back in.
   
5. Two of our friends suggested getting Tablet back in the trap by covering it so it looked like a cave. When we went to grab him, the first attempt resulted in some Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon-style parkour off the ceiling. (I do not exaggerate – he was hovering above the door at one point.) I moved the covered, open trap closer to him, and after looking back and forth between us once or twice, he ran straight in.

After we got him back from the surgery later that day, we kept him in the trap and put him on the porch, covered, out of view and out of the sun. He had a disposable pee pad in there with him, and I was able to slip a little dish of food under the door and then fill it with water using a straw after he had eaten. He was very alert and ready to go about 12 hours after his surgery, so we released him in the back yard, and he was off like a shot. I only saw him once, one week post-surgery, which is not surprising, but I’m glad to know he’s OK.
Update: as I was looking for photos of him to put in this post, he walked past my porch for a little photo shoot!

As of this post, I have not seen Olivia post-surgery. I had a sick feeling in my stomach thinking about what happens at a spay/neuter clinic when a pregnant cat is brought in, and my friend who has been doing TNR for years in her neighborhood confirmed that it involves an abortion. I disagree that it’s “for the best,” as we would have loved and cared for those kittens if Olivia had landed in our trap, but the other side of the argument is that there are so many cats that needs homes that a litter of four more kittens is just that: four more.

In the end, we will keep going. There are at least two more kitties in the neighborhood that don’t have ear tips. The process was emotionally exhausting, and we have nothing to show for it (other than an immaculately-scrubbed bathroom), but we feel it’s the right thing to do.

If you’re in the Pittsburgh area and want to get involved, you can check out the following resources:

• Facebook group: Pittsburgh Feral Cat Movement
• Homeless Cat Management Team (spay/neuter clinics)
• Humane Animal Rescue (TNR services)
• Animal Friends (TNR services and trap rental)
• Frankie’s Friends (TNR services)
• City of Pittsburgh Spay/Neuter program (for city residents only)

Do you have any experience with TNR programs? I’d love to hear your stories.

Thanks for reading!

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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivia_Hussey

[2] https://www.thesprucepets.com/heat-cycle-after-giving-birth-555430

[3] https://radicalmoderate.online/trap-neuter-release-programs/

[4] This post is on its way soon, pending kitchen successes and lessons learned.

[5] https://www.humaneanimalrescue.org/veterinarycenters/spay-neuter-services/

[6] https://www.vet.cornell.edu/departments-centers-and-institutes/cornell-feline-health-center/health-information/feline-health-topics/feline-immunodeficiency-virus

[7] https://www.vet.cornell.edu/departments-centers-and-institutes/cornell-feline-health-center/health-information/feline-health-topics/feline-leukemia-virus

[8] https://www.vet.cornell.edu/departments-centers-and-institutes/cornell-feline-health-center/health-information/feline-health-topics/fleas

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