Notice: AAS currently has no funds for its CatSnip Program. 
Please check back. We are currently helping feral cat rescue groups.

Community partnership campaigns — action for animals

Animal Advocates Society is partnering with local cat rescue groups in BC to provide spaying and neutering, vaccinations and tattoos, free of charge.

AAS pays the vet and advertising bills and the groups administer the campaign. We are partnering with:

Surrey: Friends of the Animals with thanks to Newton Animal Hospital

Vernon: Vernon and District Animal Care Society with thanks to Dr Kristina Ringness of Crescent Falls Vet Hospital

Salt Spring Island: Friends for Cats with thanks to Drs. Malcolm and Harold Bond, Salt Spring Veterinary Services

Victoria: Big Heart Rescue with thanks to Belmont Langford Vet Hospital

North Shore: We are administering this ourselves. With thanks to Dr Alf Burt of Marine Drive Vet in North Vancouver.

We plan to help more cats rescuers - people who take in abandoned animals who won't kill them and won't take them where they may be killed, but can't afford the bills - if we get the community support we hope for in donations.

Unlike some spay/neuter offers that make cat owners prove that they are too poor to pay full price, we ask for a donation if that is possible, otherwise we put no impediments in the way of the goal - no more unwanted cats. We may have some people take advantage of us, but no cat is going to take advantage of us, and the cats are the reason for the campaign.

Community partnerships is where the future of animal rescue in BC is heading - and that is good news for the animals!

Kamloops

Thanks to Animal Advocates, we are currently working on a mass spay/neuter project for feral cats. What are feral cats? In most cases the cats are the offspring of domestic pet cats who have not been spayed/neutered and were born outdoors and not handled by people. Basically these are "wild" domestic, stray cats. We are spaying, neutering, vaccinating, tattooing, deworming and releasing feral cats in the Kamloops area. Because veterinary costs run high, we desperately need more donations to continue helping these cats. Because we don't yet have a charity status, we are unfortunately not able to issue tax receipts. If you would like to help out with the veterinary costs for this project, cheques can be made out to: Kamloops Veterinary Clinic, 1465 Cariboo Place, Kamloops, BC V2C 5Z3. Please include a note in the subject line of the cheque that it is for A Cat's FATE's Spay/Neuter account. Credit card payments onto the account can be called in to 250-374-1485. We thank you for helping us to help the out of control cat population in our city.

Michelle McGuire
A Cat's F.A.T.E. "Fair Alternative To Euthanasia"
www.acatsfate.petfinder.com
1-250-554-9926

Here are some pictures of the cats we have been helping, thanks to AAS! So far, we have neutered 4 boys, spayed 1 girl, and brought in a momma cat along with her 7 babies. The grey/black tabby is a neuter who was released, the orange tabby is a neuter who was placed into a co-worker's parent's home. The black kitty was a spay who was the sweetest cat we've ever trapped! We named her Cinder.She is young (about 3 months) and we placed her into a home with clients of the vet clinic, who had recently lost their cat to cancer. They re-named her Gracie and adore her. The brown tabby with orange tints is the momma cat we caught, and her 7 kittens we found in a run down old car, amongst broken glass and lots of spiders (eew!). We will spay her once she is done nursing her babies. There are so many more cats out there that we hope to trap/neuter/release or place if tame, so I am trying to come up with more donations.

North Vancouver

Meena, Illahi, and Simba are the first to benefit from AAS's CatSnip Campaign in North Vancouver. Meena is a single mother and a cancer survivor who got Simba for her daughter after Illahiwas diagnosed with diabetes.

You can see that Simba is well-loved and Meena wanted to do all that is best for him. Together they gave us a small donation which we tried to refuse it, but they wanted to contribute to their cat's care, and sharing really does feel good.

Simba will be healthier, won't spray, and won't fight. Meena and Illahi wanted to do the right thing for Simba and were able to, and AAS just made two new friends! Meena offered to volunteer for us!

Salt Spring Island...Friends For Cats/AAS

The Gold family, and cats Joey, Rosalee, and Lilly, are some of the many recipients of the Friends For Cats/AAS CatSnip Campaign.

The Salt Spring SPCA "partners" with Friends For Cats and AAS

A family returned from their recent trip away from home to discover that the cat-sitter had let their intact cat loose. The good news was that cat was safe at the Salt Spring SPCA. The bad news is that the Salt Spring SPCA demanded $70 board even though the family's young son had previously been a volunteer cat-cuddler for months. Good news again! The SPCA offered to waive the boarding fee if this family would have the cat spayed courtesy of Friends For Cats and AAS. Community partnerships and sharing the load - this is what real animal welfare is all about.

Vernon & District...Animal Care Society/AAS

Even though the CatSnip ad appeared just once in the local paper [ February 26 ] the dust hasn't settled from the stampede it engendered in Vernon. Within less than an hour on the 26th, I'd approved 20 cats and, even today, the phone is still ringing. Luckily, we've been able to handle most of the other applicants through our own spay/neuter assistance program. As a result - since January 1 - 140 cats and 5 female dogs have been altered.

Thanks to CatSnip, some very desperate cats have been spayed, including one young pregnant female with a raging infection. The vet told me that, left unspayed, she would have died in agony. "Blister" - a seven-year-old female - will no longer be supplying the local pet stores with several litters of kittens a year. Her "guardian" complained that it was getting harder and harder to get rid of her kittens.

Two females who were the only survivors of a litter tossed in a dumpster had their change of life last week. Their guardian told me that she had phoned the SPCA last year when she found the kittens but the SPCA had told her they were unable to take them in. She took the two babies home but now they were grown girls and she could not possibly afford to spay them.

Thanks, Animal Advocates. Your program has been a wonderful lifesaver.

Mel and her 1 1/2 year old cat Sparkle have many happy years ahead of them thanks to the VDACA/Animal Advocates CatSnip program. About a year ago, a skinny, bedraggled black and white kitten walked in the door and flopped down on the family's kitchen floor. Sandra, Mel's mother, didn't have the heart to send Sparkle back out into the cold. Unfortunately, the family could never manage to save enough money to get Sparkle spayed so when Sandra saw the CatSnip ad in our local paper she phoned immediately.

Sparkle was one of the first CatSnip cats spayed by Dr. Kristina Ringness. When she examined the black & white cat she was sure she was pregnant but she soon found out that Sparkle was actually suffering from a raging uterine infection.

Today, Sparkle is back to her bouncy self. She doesn't know how close she came to dying but her family certainly does and they are very grateful to VDACS and Animal Advocates for saving Sparkle's life.

Surrey

This wonderful lady heard that someone was keeping this dog in a garage. She pleaded for the dog and convinced the owner to give the dog to her. It was love at first sight as Chantell and her two children welcomed Quincy into their home. A few weeks later, the landlord told her she would have to choose between the dog and her home, so she did - she chose the dog. With moving expenses, a damage deposit and a $400 pet deposit in the new home, money was tight. Chantell also had two female cats that she was saving up to get spayed but all money now had to go towards moving so that they could keep Quincy.

AAS is paying for the dog and the cats to get neutered and spayed. It's the least we could do to help this family who were willing to give up their home so that they could keep Quincy. Thanks Chantell, we think you are great. Your children have seen from your example that abandoning pets is not moral.

Victoria

Animal Advocates and Big Heart Rescue placed an ad in the Times Colonist advertising a CatSnip Campaign. This resulted in 15 immediate phone calls representing 10 cat spays and 5 cat neuters.

All have been completed and all the cats left Belmont-Langford Vet Hospital fixed, healthy, vaccinated, and tattooed.

The owners of the cats that were spayed/neutered were very grateful and while most of the cats were camera shy this darling enjoyed posing for the camera!

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