by Harvie Schreiber

Harvie has been with the Cat House for eight years. She coordinates Facebook and Fundraising for The Cat House on the Kings, fosters kittens, and serves as an Adoption Coordinator and on our Board of Directors.

July has been a month of rescues for The Cat House on the Kings with cats and kittens coming in from near and far, through water and fire, to be rescued and safe at our 12-acre sanctuary along the Kings River.

A home in Orange Cove, California caught fire and burned to the ground earlier this month, and The Cat House on the Kings stepped in to rescue a bewildered and very frightened torbie mom cat and her litter of six adorable 2-week-old kittens (two reds, two tables tabbies, a black, and another torbie!). Mom and kittens are doing well and settling down nicely at The Cat House, where Kitten Quarters supervisor Karla Cortez said, “mom is a gentle girl who seems relieved that she and her kittens are finally safe.”

Imagine walking your dog along the banks of an agricultural canal near your home and then hearing the faint but distinctive sound of meowing kittens. A local Good Samaritan, was alerted to this by her dog (good dog!), so she crawled down the embankment of the canal and discovered five very, very tiny kittens. She ran back home, grabbed a box, plopped the tiny kittens inside, and then made her way to The Cat House on the Kings with her precious cargo. At intake, these tiny guys were about 3-4 weeks old, with the smallest weight 11.8 ounces and the largest weighing in at just 13.3 ounces. Since these kittens obviously still need a mom, they were taken home by a Cat House on the Kings staff person during the bottle-feeding stage. (Please note: It is usually best for kittens to stay with their mom until she has weaned them. So unless the kittens you find are in imminent danger it is best to wait a few hours to see if mom comes back to them. She will move them if she feels they are in danger. If the location is unsafe, get the kittens first and then the mom.)

Sometimes, mom cats just don’t make the wisest choices about where to have their kittens. We were alerted that a young orange mom cat was on a local roof with her three orange kittens and they most definitely needed a safer place to be! Thankfully, the person who spotted them was willing to climb up and safely get them down–and they are now safe and sound in a local foster home. It’s so disheartening to see young mom cats like this, still kittens themselves, really, forced to have kittens without a home or safety. If you are seeing or feeding cats in your neighborhood, please, please, please get them spayed or neutered so we can stop the cycle of pet overpopulation.

In April, The Cat House on the Kings founder/director Lynea Lattanzio was contacted by a UK-based charity called TACN that’s been involved with rescuing cats from slaughterhouses and Beijing, China’s meat trade. The Cat House on the Kings agreed to accept up to seven cats if TACN could get them from Beijing to our 12-acre sanctuary in Parlier, California. On July 15, 2019, after being flown into San Francisco International Airport, Blue and Mabel were brought to The Cat House on the Kings. Both cats are semi-feral and very timid–a longhaired calico beauty and a longhaired white girl. Both will be assessed and quarantined before being released on our grounds to enjoy life, freedom, and safety at The Cat House on the Kings.

We need your support–rescuing cats from canal banks, house fires, rooftops (and even slaughterhouses) can only continue if we have the funds and donations to cover these costs. Your financial support is greatly needed and much appreciated! cathouseonthekings.com/donate

Author/Photographer Paul Koudounaris has visited and photographed the cats at The Cat House on several occasions. During one such visit, Paul fell in love with Walter in our Senior House. When the band Redd Kross commissioned Paul to create their album cover, Paul asked to have his payment donated to The Cat House in Walter’s honor. Walter now has a fan following thanks to Paul and we are grateful for their bond that brings help for not only Walter but his senior cat housemates, as well. You can check out all of the great photos of our resident cats on Paul’s Instagram page: hexencult. We have many senior (and non-senior) cats who could use $15 per month sponsors: cathouseonthekings.com/contributewww.cathouseonthekings.com/donate

In order to earn their Silver Award, the members of Kingsburg Girl Scout Troop 2402 were tasked to do something to give back to their community. The girls were looking for a sustainable service project lasting three years, so they decided to focus their efforts on helping the cats at The Cat House on the Kings. These young women have been sewing and constructing hanging cat beds as well as cactus-shaped cat scratching posts for the enrichment of our hundreds of sanctuary cats. As soon as the finished products were brought out to the Cat House, they were immediately used and loved by our sanctuary cats!

At The Cat House on the Kings, foster homes are always needed. We recently celebrated national “Foster a Pet Month” with the Petco Foundation and Skechers’ charity footwear collection by recognizing our volunteer foster coordinator Kathy Scheer as well as first-time foster Rebecca Ploharz. Both received cute shoes from Skechers! Kathy retired in 2002 and has been volunteering since then to improve the lives of homeless cats and kittens! Kathy quipped that herding cats and kittens isn’t quite as challenging as herding cat and kitten foster homes! “With more foster homes, we have the ability to save more lives,” explained The Cat House on the Kings Assistant Shelter Director Tammy Barker. If you’re interested in fostering for us, apply online: cathouseonthekings.com/foster

Check out more animal rescue & pet related articles, including more Cat House columns, in our Pet Perspective section and remember that if you buy an ad in KRL you can designate 10% of the ad price to go to the Cat House. Join our Pets Facebook group to keep up with all of our pet articles.

We have also just set up a new email mailing list for KRL’s new pets newsletter. It is still a work in progress-click this link to subscribe. It will only go out once a month and will keep you up to date on all of our pet articles, including the Cat House column, and hopefully some extra content each month.