Tori Sutton
Staff Reporter
The Stratford Rotary Complex was no place for dog lovers on Sunday.
It was all about cats at the second annual Feline Fair, held at the Community Hall and hosted by the Feline Friends Network.
The event featured special guest speakers and over a dozen vendors who offered up items ranging from the kitschy to the practical. But accessories, supplies and Halloween costumes aside, the message was clear – it is important to spay or neuter your fuzzy friends.
“The big thing is to educate people that overpopulation is huge,” said Cheryl Simpson, of the Feline Friends Network. “Spay/neuter is absolutely necessary before the first heat and certainly by five months of age.”
Though attendance was down at this year’s fair, Simpson said those who did come out had a good time. The event was a fundraiser, with proceeds going to support Feline Friends’ programs, including the trap-neuter-return program.
The TNR program helps control feral cat colonies by fixing the animals. Usually Feline Friends receives a phone call from someone who is feeding a colony, or has a mother cat who has given birth in their yard.
If everyone in the area agrees, which is not always the case, the cats are trapped, taken to a vet for vaccines and surgery and eventually released back to their outdoor home after a few days of rest.
On the other hand, if people in the area do not agree to welcome the feral cats back, they are trapped and euthanized because it is difficult to relocate them and they cannot be adopted into homes.
Cats who have been spayed or neutered as part of the program can be identified by the small nick off the tip of their left ears.
Programs like this have been gaining steam in other centres. Simpson said there is a feral cat conference coming up in Toronto and other cities, such as London, have groups lobbying for municipal support for TNR programs.
But Feline Friends needs help to keep the program going. A shop class in Ingersoll is building outdoor shelters for feral colonies, but volunteers are needed to supervise the cats after their surgeries. The cats are always caged and caregivers do not handle them.
Overall, Simpson said people view cats differently than dogs, whose owners seem to understand the need for population control, perhaps because they were domesticated before cats.
“The general feeling is that cats are independent, they can take care of themselves and they’re disposable,” she said. “There’s so many of them, they reproduce so well and it’s easy to get a free cat.”
She warns free cats aren’t free at all and will cost a pet owner more than adopting a cat from the local branch of the OSPCA. At the shelter, a cat or kitten who has been spayed or neutered and has received its shots can be adopted for $115.
“If you get a ‘free’ kitten it’s going to cost you about $400 to get all of that done,” she warns. “Just think, be responsible, realize the overpopulation issue is huge and that it’s all been caused by us.”
For more information about the Feline Friends Network, or to volunteer for the trap-neuter-release or any other program, please call Simpson at 519-273-8067 or visit www.felinefriends.ca.
PHOTO: From left, India MacCormick,8, gets up close and personal with Remus, who is the pet of Matthew McDonnell, 14, at the Feline Fair at the Stratford Rotary Complex on Sunday. (Tori Sutton)
