Paws South Florida Rescue, Inc.: A Shot at Life Vaccination Grant Report
How did this grant help your organization and the pets in your care?
Your donation of 100 FVRCP Vaccinations is currently being used mostly for those cats that we trap and return to their colonies. The vaccinations are brought to our clinic of choice with the trapped cats for their sterilizations. The clinic is extremely helpful as they take your donated vaccinations and use it that day on our cats.
It has now been two months since receiving the donation. Since the vaccinations are being used as we trap the cats, we have gone through 37 shots, with 33 of them being used on cats that were returned to the field. The other 4 were given to kittens that we have placed into our foster care system for eventual adoption.
How many pets did this grant help?
37
Please provide a story of one or more specific pets this grant helped.
To give you an idea of some of the strange circumstances that lead to holding cats for adoption, we would like to share this story with you as it has provided us with a rather unusual experience this past year. It just shows all of us working in animal rescue that you can never judge people or their intentions solely by their stations in life. Recently, it is been our pleasure to work with a homeless man who has set up his tent in a public park right down the street from one of the trailer parks that we are currently working. Back in the beginning of the year, one of the residents in a park told us about this gentleman who had incredible success working with feral cats in the park. They were helping him feed the cats, but obviously nobody was taking the time to get the cats sterilized. We met with this man, who we have come to call Roo because he claims to be from Australia. However, we really think he’s from New Jersey. We have now been working with him and for the most part, the adult cats have come to like him and become friendly with him to the point where he can actually pick them up. This makes it very easy for us to take them in to get them sterilized. He also works with their litters and has become a very valuable socializer for the kittens. As the kittens are ready to be adopted we take them into our care and they have proven to be some of the most gorgeous, adoptable kittens we have ever had. Sometimes, Roo can be a little too insistent when he wants us to come take the kittens as he really doesn’t quite appreciate our space limitations within our homes. But other than this one small obstacle which is very easy to step around, Roo has become one of the most unusual and productive volunteers our organization has ever had. We wish there was more we could do for rue personally, but the man is really very happy living as he does. And now he has his own little family of cats who at least will not be giving him more babies.
