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.

Last month, we mentioned that we’d rescued a sassy senior Savannah Cat (Serval cross) named Lindy. Since then, Lindy has continued to settle in at The Cat House on the Kings and has moved from Lynea’s house to her very own larger living space, where she can enjoy the fresh air, sunshine, wandering peacocks, and other cats. Both Lynea Lattanzio and The Cat House on the Kings RVT, Chrystyne Cordova, have been taking Lindy on walks around the grounds using a harness. (She slipped out of her harness on her first adventure out, but she came right back!) We just wanted to let everyone know that Lindy is loving life at The Cat House!

Lindy

This has been a year of milestones for The Cat House on the Kings! First, Lynea Lattanzio celebrated her 70th birthday in February. Now, on May 1, we will celebrate the 27th Anniversary of the official founding of The Cat House on the Kings as a nonprofit 501c(c)(3) corporation way back in 1992! That’s more than a quarter of a century saving and rescuing tens of thousands of cats, 27 years helping the local community with low cost spays and neuters, and 27 years of finding fantastic families to adopt our cats, kittens, puppies, and dogs! Of course, this has happened because animal-loving people like you have faithfully donated to our efforts over the past 27 years and we appreciate that so very much. Here’s to the NEXT 27 years!

Lynea with the cats

This time of year, we’re desperate for foster homes so we can rescue more kittens. One of our current fosters, Becca Ploharz, has fostered nine kittens so far for us, and says that she loves the hands-on experience of give giving cuddles and care to kittens, working to get them healthy and, most of all, seeing them go to their forever homes. Becca admits that there is work involved (feeding them every 2-4 hours if they are young) and cleaning up after them. For Becca, “taking them back to the rescue breaks your heart. But knowing they already have an adoption pending, makes it very easy for me. I just want them to go to good homes!” We can ALWAYS use more foster homes if you are local to us, please apply online!

Cat House on the Kings foster mom Theresa Rutherford is used to having her husband, Lionel, bring home kittens that he’s found at the pump company where he works. Recently, he saw a mom cat coming and going into a 10-foot-long pipe that was going to be torn apart and used for well pumping. He called Theresa who came out and he used a truck, a long arm, and a cable and—with Theresa serving as “catcher”—managed to gently lift up one end of the pipe so that the tiny kittens slid down and into Theresa’s waiting arms! Not all rescues he’s done have been this much work; he also recently found kittens (covered with grease and oil) in a box in one of the work trucks. Theresa is currently fostering NINE bottle babies for The Cat House on the Kings that all came from her husband’s job, plus she is fostering three other kittens the Cat House look from Fresno Humane Animal Services. “It’s a bit like an Easter Egg hunt,” she joked. “Every time he goes to work, he finds more kittens every where he looks!”

Pipe kitten

On a recent Saturday morning, there was a duplex fire in Fresno. Fresno Fire Department personnel found some kittens who’d been in the fire who needed rescue. The Cat House on the King volunteer Cindy Unruh searched the fire scene and with the help of neighbors ended up with three small kittens in a box. She was soon headed 40 minutes away to the Cat House. A few hours later, there was another call that a fourth kitten had been located in the burned duplex. Cindy went back to the fire scene to rescue the kitten and then back to The Cat House with the last little one. Cindy is now working with caring neighbors to locate and trap the mom cat so she can be reunited with her kittens. The kittens are bottle babies and arrived scared, hissy, wet, and smelling like smoke from the fire. Cat House vet tech Jacky Dominguez is fostering them until they are bigger.

Fire kittens

The Cat House on the Kings Spring Open House is coming up soon on Saturday, May 4, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at our 12-acre Parlier sanctuary located on the Kings River off Adams Avenue. This is a family-friendly event that includes guided tours, food trucks, music, shopping, a raffle, and the world’s best silent auction. It’s not too late to buy raffle tickets by phone at (559) 638-0030. We still need volunteers for this event; please email tammy@cathouseonthekings[dot]com if you can help. We hope that you can join us!

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. We probably won’t be sending anything out until May, but wanted to start getting subscribers-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.