Kildare Rescue Tails: Cats surrendered to shelter due to housing issues
Onyx is one cat that has come into the KWWSPCA shelter
THE last 12 months were a very busy but successful year for the cat section of our operations which saw 366 cats/kittens rescued and finding their forever homes.
More than 460 others received TNR treatment, which means that these were feral cats that were trapped by our volunteers, brought to vets for treatment and speying/neutering and then released back to where they were originally found.
These colonies of cats are too feral for homing so this system at least prevents future unwanted litters and gives these cats a better quality of life.
We are very grateful to our volunteers who spend long hours, often in bad weather, trapping the cats.
We’ve helped injured and sick cats with veterinary treatment where possible. Most of these cases were successful but unfortunately some were beyond help.
Despite our best efforts and high standards of hygiene enforced, our shelter did not completely avoid the dreaded parvo virus and unfortunately some cats and kittens succumbed and were lost to us.
Apart from cats arriving into our care as a result of being found not microchipped with no owner claiming them, quite a few were surrendered to us owing to homelessness or landlords not allowing pets into rentals.
Although not part of our normal remit, quite a few dead cats were collected by us but of course we are then tasked with disposing of the bodies through veterinary clinics and incurring the cost.
If possible, we try to recover these bodies from the road rather than leave them in a sorry state which is upsetting to the public.
There is also always the possibility of us being able to alert the owner if the cat had been microchipped.
Our volunteers put in a huge amount of work looking after the cats at the shelter, doing a huge amount of visits to the vets, collecting supplies, moving cats to foster homes and forever homes and of course all the cat trapping and releasing.
On top of that, they are always fundraising as the charity is run entirely by volunteers with no paid employees.
We are very appreciative of all the support we receive from the community and vets.
Staff who try their best to accommodate us with the high quantity of admissions and in keeping our costs as low as possible.
2025 has already begun with 56 cats and kittens in our care with more on a waiting list to come in when we have some room.
It’s going to be another busy one!
