Only a few weeks after Tails High was founded, we learned of a family that needed immediate assistance. A family of animal lovers with two cats and two dogs of their own, they offered shelter to a stray cat that quickly became a family pet, although they didn’t have the funds to get her spayed.
The cat ran away for a few days, and soon after she returned, it became apparent that they were going to have a litter of kittens on their hands. They began calling shelters and rescue foundations in Northern Virginia to see if they could get funding help for the spay/neuters, but no one was able to provide support. Meanwhile, the kittens grew and began mating, and while the family tried to adopt the cats out as fast as they could, they couldn’t keep up with the pace of the litters.
It happened that we had just incorporated and were looking through advertisements for cats in the area that needed to be rescued. We had no idea we would find all of the cats in one place or that we would be rescuing a family as much as we would be rescuing their cats.
On October 22, 2009, we drove out to their house to take a look at the situation at their house with their 26 cats. We had no idea what we would find but were delighted to find a house full of wonderfully affectionate and personable kitties, and all of them used to other cats, dogs, and kids. We knew immediately that they would each make wonderful pets, and so when the family said they wanted to keep three of the cats (after we arranged for them to be spayed/neutered), we were excited about finding homes for the rest.
The story has a happy ending in that we were able to clear out the family’s house by early December, enabling them to put up a Christmas tree without worrying that a dozen cats would climb it and knock it over.
We believe that spay/neutering is imperative to controlling the cat population. If you have a cat (or know of a cat) who you can’t afford to have fixed, please check out our Spay/Neuter Options page.