Working with Animals

There is a sweet little colony of feral cats who live out on the island in a summer community named Reeves Park. Everyday I feed the kitties and share that responsibility with a wonderful woman named Flo. Feral cats are cats who were household pets who at one time they or their ancestors were dumped into a wild or neighborhood or city setting. These poor creatures have to learn how to search for food and defend themselves. These little darlings live a hard life. Because they live in the wild, they do not live as long as a housecat would and they live day to day, meal to meal. When I pull up in my car, they run around the house and greet me and whine until they get fed. In a way they are my children. I once had someone criticize me, telling me I should not feed them, house cats are not really equipped to hunt for dinner. Over the years they have done what they had to do to survive, I only live 20 minutes away from them now and I make the trip every day, and I share that duty with my partner and my children and my parents also help out here and there. It is a big responsbility. It is time consuming and its also costly. If a cat gets badly injured I can take it to the vet, it just costs money honey. We have adopted many feral cats through the years and they have brought much Joy and Love into our lives. The cats love unconditionally, no matter how their lives are going, they come to greet me and rub themselves around my legs and bring me such Love in my heart

Reeves Park is mostly a summer community with about maybe half the residents living there all year long. It is near the sound ( the ocean between the north shore of Long Island and the south shore of Connecticut )   it is woodsy and quaint. The area parts of it harkening back to a simpler time when there was such a thing as a summer home. When the weather turned cold you shut off the water and closed it up for the winter months. Over the years people come for the summer and they leave the poor cat that was an adorable kitten in spring, behind to fend for itself for the winter. Many times these poor cats are not spayed or neutered, so they have kittens and the population starts growing until some people begin to act on their behalf. Feral cats have a very hard life, they live outside in the elements. Their lives are full of illness and hunting for food and having litter after litter with most of them dying. Often the mothers die themselves giving birth. Many times they live their life with no human contact. They are fearful and are hard to house train. But they are beautiful creatures...

A woman named Suzanne who summers in the community took notice of the cats and decided to start a movement. Suzanne, who has no pets herself, was so upset by the way the cats had to live and how they kept reproducing, she researched the local feral cat charities. With some finagling, she managed to get some free spay vouchers from the local groups and many cats were spayed because of the kindness of strangers :)

When a sweet woman named Florence moved in, she noticed the cats and began feeding them and taking them to the local vets to be treated, as did our family. Flo has taken a  few of the cats in and also still feeds many every day on her front porch. After a few years of rounding up the cats, we believe we have almost all of them spayed. There is one elusive little female, I call Little Cleo, who had a baby we named Betty,who herself is now fixed but Little Cleo is tough to catch, especially because we are not out there all the time now. But we will see to it that we get her spayed also.

These cats are so beautiful and grateful, they walk into your heart and you cannot yank them back out. Once you start working with feral cats and you feel the love and the gratefulness they share with you.... You just fall in love. These cats are Gods' reminders that we all have to share responsibility with every living creature on this planet. We are capable of helping these innocent little beings who are born without asking to be born.

Look in my picture pages for some pictures of the colony at Reeves Park. If you would like to make a donation that can be used for feeding or veterinary care of these beautiful little creatures, send me an e-mail. I can direct you to where to send it :)  xoxoxoxo C xooxoxooo

Here are a few organizations who help the kitties out in Riverhead, NY

• http://www.kentanimalshelter.com/

Kent has an excellent spay and neuter program, they also offer vaccinations

• http://www.northfork.com/saves/

they help people spay and neuter feral cats

• http://www.volunteermatch.org/orgs/org19454.html

also known as Elsa's Ark, they rescue and feed feral colonies

• http://www.littleshelter.com/spay_neuter.htm

alot of information about spaying etc.