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.

Imagine strolling around our beautiful 12-acre sanctuary trailed by curious cats, while enjoying music, shopping, and some of the best food around! It’s almost here: The Cat House on the Kings 2019 Autumn/Holiday Open House Fundraiser is on Saturday, November 2 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at The Cat House on the Kings Sanctuary on Kings River Road (at the end of Adams Avenue) in Parlier. If you’d like to help volunteer for this wonderful event (don’t worry, you’ll still have plenty of time to enjoy yourself) just send an email to Tammy@Cathouseonthekings[dot]com. If you can’t make the Open House but would still like to purchase Cat Quilt Raffle Tickets by phone (just $1 each), you can call our office at (559) 638-0030, Monday-Friday, as well as the Saturday of the Open House. The drawing should be held around 1 p.m. that day. If you would like to support us but you can’t attend this Fall Fundraiser, you can always shop our Amazon Wishlist: www.cathouseonthekings.com/wishlist or make a donation online at www.cathouseonthekings.com/donate.

Kitten season never seems to end for the staff and volunteers of The Cat House on the Kings. One recent kitten we’ve rescued is a sweetheart who we’ve named Wobbles because she wobbles when she walks. Feline cerebellar hypoplasia (CH for short) is a neurological disorder that occurs when a cat’s brain does not develop properly in the womb; an affected cat tends to have mobility and balance issues throughout life. Kittens with cerebellar hypoplasia have a lack of physical coordination and, in severe cases, cannot function well on their own. The good news is that most cats with mild to moderate cerebellar hypoplasia, like Wobbles, can lead relatively normal lives with a little extra help from their caring owners. Wobbles is currently in foster care with one of our housekeeping staff, Maria, who brings her to work and leaves her in Lynea’s Riverside Room with the other kittens. Wobbles is in Kitty Day Care! Despite her limitations, this little kitten is a fighter and we’ve got high hopes for her!

Punky is another very special kitten rescued by The Cat House on the Kings after being dumped at a local dog rescue. In addition to having Feline cerebellar hypoplasia, she also has entropion in both eyes and may lose her sight completely without surgery. Entropion in cats is a condition which causes the eyelids to turn inward, rather than lying flush and round with the eyeball, which means that her eyelids and eyelashes are scraping her eyes. Punky (who really should be named Spunky) is in foster care with one of our most experienced fosters for special needs kittens, Theresa Rutherford. “I love the way she tries so hard to keep up with my other fosters and how she loves to snuggle up by my neck until she falls asleep.” We need to raise at least $500 for her surgery (we’re still waiting for an exact estimate) and we’re hoping to get that money raised as quickly as possible. Checks can be sent to The Cat House on the Kings, 7120 S. Kings River Road, Parlier, CA 93648 (“Punky” in the memo section), or you can donate online at www.cathouseonthekings.com/donate.

With hundreds of cats in our care, The Cat House on the Kings realized that we needed to expand our cat Intensive Care Unit (ICU) to allow more space to provide proper care and treatment for more cats. According to Cat House’s Registered Vet Tech Chrystine Cordova, the recent ICU expansion consists of a newly-acquired single-wide building attached to the existing ICU with a deck to allow easy access to both areas. This allows us to separate our critical cat patients from other cats being treated. The new space includes a quarantine area as well as a procedure room with an oxygen tent. Plus we have IDEXX in-house diagnostic equipment to run bloodwork and urine tests, under the careful supervision of the Cat House on the Kings veterinarian, as well as Chrystine. We could house 24 cats in the old ICU, and we now have space for 26 more cats! “This is why donations are so very critical,” explained Cat House on the Kings Assistant Shelter Director Tammy Barker. “We want to be able to provide the best care possible for the cats that have been entrusted to our rescue; but this takes money, it takes donations, and it takes people who care enough about cats to really make a difference.”

Storm is a tiny tabby who was found limping along the side of the road in the Fresno County Foothills by some passing motorists. She was brought to The Cat House on the Kings and we discovered that a broken paw was the reason for her limp. She’s now had surgery to correct it, and she’s on the road to recovery. The staff at San Joaquin Veterinary Hospital fell in love with her and named her Storm. Sweet little Storm will need to go back for additional x-rays and to have her pin surgically removed before she’ll be ready to be adopted into a new home. Since she’s such a great little girl, we’re sure that she won’t have any trouble finding a family that’s perfect for her!

WE DID IT! Thanks to a $70,000 Petco Foundation Lifesaving Grant and countless hours by Cat House on the Kings staff advertising, educating, promoting, coordinating, and making administrative arrangements, The Cat House on the Kings was able to spay/neuter 1,536 community cats, 237 feral cats, and 24 dogs in Fresno County, for a grand total of 1,797 spays and neuters! The grant lasts from May through September and we used the services of seven local vets. None of these cats and kittens were our rescued cats; they were all community, stray, and feral cats that would otherwise be adding to the central Valley’s cat overpopulation problem. Over the past 28 years, The Cat House on the Kings has helped spay/neuter tens of thousands of community and feral cats to help solve the overpopulation problem in the Fresno County area. Your continued support will allow us to continue to offer low cost spay and neuter opportunities in our area.

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.