Working Together

I failed to mention in my last blog about one of the MOST exciting things that happened this holiday season:

On Dec. 12th the Animal Assistance Foundation put together an all day meeting in Greeley for any animal welfare groups in Northern Colorado that wanted to start looking at how they could work together to help even more animals. This is a very exciting thing because although all of the rescues and shelters have the same goal in mind, many of us have different ideas about how to reach that goal, and this can cause conflict between groups. The meeting was a huge success. A lot of the day was just getting to know each other, sharing successes, talking about obstacles, and figuring out how to work together.

The groups that attended the meeting included:
Fort Collins Cat Rescue
Northern Colorado Friends of Ferals
Animal Rescue Connection
Larimer Humane Society
Humane Society of Weld County
Dalmation Rescue
Every Creature Counts
Denkai Sanctuary
K9 Bed & Biscuit
Animal House Rescue
Colorado Unwanted Horse Alliance
Four Paws Pet Center
Fort Morgan County Humane Society
Union Rescue
*Duncan's Place (located in Loveland) had wanted to attend but was unable due to sickness.*

The name of this coalition is Northern Colorado Animal Welfare Coalition.

As the groups figure out ways to work together to save more animals I will share that on the blog.

Since then, Duncan's Place received a HUGE donation from Merricks (a pet food company). They donated 9 pallets of canned food. Because founder, Cathy Campbell, knew she wouldn't be able to use that much food herself, she called the other rescues and shelters in the area and told them she wanted to share.
Anna & I drove the shelter van to Cathy's home on Dec. 23rd where we found a group of people organizing and helping to distribute the canned food. Cathy & volunteers literally FILLED the shelter van with canned food. This food will not only be used for our shelter kitties, but will also be given to caretakers of feral cat colonies and cat owners that are on hard times and need help feeding their cat(s).
Cathy's generosity is one of the first of what we hope will be many gestures of different rescues and shelters working together. Thank you Cathy!

So Much Great News!

Many people are dying to know if we met our $3000 goal for the matching donation. The answer is YES! Not only did we match it, but went quite a ways over it. Hooray!! Thank you everyone for your generosity. FCCR is going to have a great start to 2010 thanks to our wonderful community that cares about these animals and FCCR's mission.

In addition, 2 of our wonderful supporters bought us a new washer and dryer. Both of our previous machines pooped out right before Christmas, and it is awfully hard to run an animal shelter without a functional washer and dryer. Thank you Len & Carol Mahoney for doing all of the research on new machines and donating them to us! Also a big thank you to staff member Mary Wolf for doing all of the laundry at her house for the week that we didn't have a functional washer and dryer! Now that is dedication!!

Last but not least, we received a BEAUTIFUL afghan from a group that calls themselves Afghans for Animals to use as a fundraiser. The afghan is 6 feet x 4 feet and has kitties on it. It was made by Lisa Craft who is the founder and coordinator for Afghans for Animals. We will be doing a drawing for the afghan. You can receive tickets to the drawing for a suggested $2 donation each. The drawing will take place on Jan. 31st. Pictures are below. :)

I LOVE this time of year!

Kaitlyn the Kitty enjoying the new
cardboard scratcher that was donated today!

This is the best time of year to be the director of a non-profit because people are so generous. We just had 2 of the nicest women (Darcy & Tracy) come in and donate 1 or more of EVERYTHING on our wish list! Tracy had asked Darcy to make a donation to FCCR as her Christmas present, so the 2 of them went shopping for the kitties together.

They brought the donations in and then got to go into the adoption room to give the kitties their new cardboard scratchers and treats. It really made the kitties' day!

Thank you Darcy & Tracy for your kind hearts, and thank you to everyone else that is donating to FCCR for the holidays.

Great Opportunity for Making Your Year-End Donation Go REALLY Far!

I just received word that one of our supporters has a challenge for the rest of our supporters: Donate at least $3000 by the end of the year, and her and her husband will top it off with a $1500 donation!!!!! Things have been extremely tight at the shelter lately with the economy, and this could really help out the kitties.
If you have been thinking of sending in a donation, now is a really good time to do it!!!!!

De-Clawing has been banned in San Fran!!!

MSNBC.com
California cities scratch out declawing of cats
‘It's a form of animal cruelty’ says San Francisco supervisor Ross Mirkarimi
PeoplePets.com
updated 10:34 a.m. MT, Fri., Nov . 20, 2009
Don’t have your cat declawed in San Francisco, or West Hollywood, or you could face fines up to $1,000 and six months in jail. This month, the city by the bay became the first major metro area in California to outlaw the veterinary procedure, and was soon joined by Santa Monica, Berkeley and Beverly Hills. Los Angeles is expected to enact the ban next week.
"It’s a form of animal cruelty," San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, a major supporter of the ban, tells PEOPLEPets.com. "It would be unconscionable to ignore that fact."
The San Francisco board of supervisors voted 9-2 to enact the ban, which would prohibit anyone in the city from declawing cats and penalize consenting pet owners. "It’s a form of amputation and would render the cat defenseless if it were attacked," says Mirkarimi, who has owned rescue animals in the past.
Instead, anti-declawing advocates encourage owners to provide scratching posts as an alternative to declawing their cats to protect their furniture or have a professional groomer dull the claws. West Hollywood has had a declawing ban on its books since 2003. The practice is banned in a slew of other countries, including the U.K. and Australia.
The recent flurry of local ordinances have been opposed by the California Veterinary Medical Association, which argues that pet owners and their vets should determine declawing.
"Veterinarians must be allowed to make qualified medical decisions in consultation with their clients and upon a proper exam and understanding of the pet’s home environment," the association said in a statement. "This is the only way to provide the best course of treatment and assist the owner in making the best decision for their family pet. That may include removing a cat’s claws in a humane manner with proper pain management to prevent that animal from being abandoned at a shelter, tossed out on the street or euthanized."
One of the dissenting Bay Area supervisors, Michela Alto-Pier, told the San Francisco Examiner that the board was overreaching its charge and should stray from such medical decisions.
But Mirkarimi says the law does have a medical necessity clause to protect the cat, adding that the California state legislature forced municipalities to act after the state passed a new statute to restrict cities from regulating veterinary medicine and medical procedures after Jan. 1, 2010. "They hijacked our authority and forced our hand," he says.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34063281/ns/today-today_pets_and_animals/

Discgivings Success

The Discgivings Fundraiser that occurred on Saturday, Nov. 7th was a HUGE success.

Disc Golfers came out for a day of fun that ended up generating almost $4000 in donations for Fort Collins Cat Rescue & Animal House! It was absolutely incredible!

A huge thank you to Sue Lande for working her tail off, and all of the sponsors of the event!

FCCR got new kitten cages thanks to the Linnea Memorial Fund!!

On Saturday, June 6th of 2009, a Pet Walk and Adopt-a-Thon occurred at Spring Canyon Community Park. It was put on by the Linnea Memorial Fund and was very successful. An incredible amount of money was raised for community shelters and rescues, and Fort Collins Cat rescue was one of the beneficiaries.

The money raised for us was used to purchase a nice bank of cages to display adoptable kittens in our reception area of the shelter. Before we were using wire cages that were hard to clean, difficult to maneuver, and looked ugly. Thanks to Linnea Dick we have saved time, money, and have more comfortable housing for our adoptable kittens. Here is some information from the Linnea Memorial website:

"In May of 2008 Linnea’s life was tragically and unexpectedly taken, but her spirit and passion for animals lives on through the Linnea Memorial Fund that cares for animals in need through donations to local animal charities. Although Linnea lost her life, she will still make her mark on this world. She is helping change the world through the Linnea Memorial Fund by making it a more positive place for animals and people. Linnea will not only be missed by family and friends, but by all of the animals in her short but very significant life. "

FCCR encourages you to visit the Linnea Memorial website to learn more about Linnea and how her memory continues to help animals in distress: http://www.linneamemorial.org/

2 Big THANK YOU'S!!

First to Deb Valdez who works at the Distribution Center for Sam's Club and helped us to receive a $1,000 grant to go towards the replacement of the equipment destroyed in the fire.

Thank you Deb!!!!!!

Second to the Poudre River Public Library District for the $3000 donation!!! We were the group chosen this year for Readers to the Rescue, where kids read a certain number of hours to raise money for the shelter. The kids did an amazing job and were so dedicated. Hearing about their excitement towards helping homeless kitties gives us all the "warm fuzzies"!

Are you ready for.....Meow-loween?!?!?!?!

Fort Collins Cat Rescue is having a FABULOUS Meow-loween party on Friday, Oct. 30th, and you are invited!!!! The party is taking place in the Agave Room at Rio Grande Mexican Restaurant located on Mountain St. in Fort Collins. The party is from 7pm - 11pm.

There will be LIVE MUSIC from Chatoic Serenity (an awesome band - http://www.myspace.com/chaoticserenitygirls), Costume Contests, dancing, a cash bar, door prizes, and more.

Tickets to the event are $20 in advance or $25 at the door. Food is included.

You can purchase your tickets online by going to www.blacktie-colorado.com/rsvp and entering event code: FCCR10/30.

This is your chance to party and have a great time while supporting

the Fort Collins Cat Rescue at the same time.

Meow-loween is being sponsored by our friends: Aspen Grove Veterinary Care!

Thank You for the T-Shirts!

We just got a great surprise this morning. Go West T-Shirt Company dropped off some FCCR

t-shirts that they printed for us for FREE!!!!! There are a limited supply, so come and get yours today. They are available for an $8 donation. Above you can see Dr.Gloria modeling the new shirts. Just think, you could look as stylish as her if you come and get an FCCR shirt!

Want to find out more about Go West T-Shirt Company? You can visit their website at: http://www.justgowest.com/

The Calendar is in!!!!

Our wonderful volunteer, Jan T., just dropped off the 2010 FCCR calendars,

and they turned out absolutely BEAUTIFUL!

The cost to own one of these beauties is only $20 -

ALL of which goes towards the homeless kitties in our community.

A HUGE thank you goes out to Nicole Habel of The Image Gallery: imagegalleryinc.com. Nicole is a professional photographer that does beautiful work, and graciously offered to put together the FCCR calendar for the second year in a row.

It took hours of her hard work to create such an impressive product!

We also owe a thanks to Friendship Hospital for Animals who helped to choose

the 12 winners for this year.

An extremely hard task when you have over 70 adorable pictures to choose from!

I also want to mention that earlier this month I lost my 3-year old kitty, Squishy, in a tragic and heart-breaking accident. Quite a while before the accident I had submitted a photo of him for the calendar. His picture was not chosen to represent one of the months, but a picture of Jan's kitty was. When Jan found out about my tragedy, she selflessly had the photo of her kitty, Margo, replaced with the picture of my Squish. I had no idea, and when the calendars arrived today and I turned to September, I burst into tears.

Thanks to my friend, Jan, I get to share Squishy's memory with anyone

that purchases one of our calendars.

I am deeply grateful.

There are only 100 calendars available for purchase, so get yours while they last!!

Frisbee Golf Anyone??

Just recently got great news from Sue Lande (a proclaimed animal lover and awesome woman) that FCCR has been chosen as one of the recipients for this years discgivings! Our good friends , Animal House Rescue, are the other recipients.

Want to find out more?? Visit: www.discgivings.org

Regardless of what you like to do there is always an opportunity to do it while helping the kitties!!! Thanks Sue!

Meet Tiger!

Everyone meet Tiger our latest addition to our shelter. Tiger is a male 6 month old domestic medium hair, male, grey tabby that was relinquished to us. He is extremely sweet and loves to snuggle with everyone. See the video of him loving on Judy....... this could be YOUR ear lobe!! Come meet Tiger today!!

Shred-a-Thon Success!

Last Saturday we had a first Shred-a-Thon fundraiser which was organized by our fabulous volunteer, Claudia Arbaugh. The fundraiser was a huge success and raised an incredibl $1100 in just 4 hours!

Thank you to Apex Shredding (http://www.apexshreddinginc.com/events/) for providing this fundraising opportunity!

Also, thank you to King Soopers for allowing us to have this fundraiser in their parking lot.

And of course thank you to the volunteers that helped run the fundraiser, and to all of the individuals and businesses that came to shred some paper!

The kitties will benefit due to all of your generosity!!!!

Good News!!!

We have been so busy these last few weeks that it has been hard to write any updates, but we have lots of good news!

We finally had a van donated to us thanks to the generosity of Jim Madl!!!! Brian K. is working on some FCCR decals for the van to spruce it up!

Cats in the Garden at Bath Garden Center and Nursery was a huge success! We just received a check for over $700!!

Also, we received a check for over $2000 from Natural Balance due to the diligence of the Poudre Pet & Feed staff. They cut the UPC's off of all of the bags of Natural Balance that they sell, and send them in. Natural Balance then makes a donation for each UPC.

Thank you, thank you!!

Calendar Contest!!

Hey Everyone -



If you haven't heard yet, we are accepting pictures of your precious babies right now for Fort Collins Cat Rescue's 2010 calendar. It is $15/entry, and your kitty is guaranteed at least a thumbnail somewhere on the calendar. Of course all of the money goes to help the homeless kitties that come through out shelter (today we have already received a mom with 7 kittens, a single kitten with radial hyperplasia, and an adult cat from a homeless family).

Please get your pics in soon - the deadline is Aug. 15th. We are looking forward to seeing your little models! You cn find all of the information on our website at http://www.fortcollinscatrescue.org/

Sarah

This is the picture I submitted of one of my kitties (Squishy). Isn't he a doll?!?

Baseball Goes to the Cats!!

On June 28th the General Manager/Owner of the Fort Collins Foxes, Kurt Collichio, invited us to have a booth and bring some adoptable kitties to their baseball game. It was also the Throwback Jersey Game where the players where special baseball jerseys which are auctioned off. All of the money raised would go to help the kitties at FCCR.

We set up a booth with all of our information, and also brought along an adult cat and a kitten: Jake & Chase.

.

Our wonderful volunteer, Chandra, came with me to help man the booth. Jake had a lot of fun hanging out on our table and being the center of attention! At one point he even gave the kitten a bath. We also loved seeing the Foxes players checking out the adoptable kitties notebook, and petting Jake & Chase.

We had lots of FTC Foxes fans come over to meet the kitties and learn more about our organization. The kids especially loved meeting the kitties - and Jake hammed it up for them!

We also got some donations!

Kurt Colicchio is a cat lover, and has been a huge supporter of FCCR.

He is a great guy and we really appreciated the opportunity to represent FCCR at the game.

In addition, the jersey auction raised $150 for the homeless kitties in our community.

Hooray!

Rising From the Ashes

It has been just over 2 weeks since the tragic fire in our spay/neuter clinic ocurred on 7/11/2009. A malfunctioning autoclave had burned and combusted. The fire stayed contained in the autoclave, but the smoke ruined everything in its path. It is impossible to describe the damage that was done. A layer of soot coated every square inch of the clinic, and the smell of fire had seeped into everything. The worst loss of course was Strut, the clinic cat, because he is the one thing that cannot be replaced.

(Strut helping Carey work just days before the fire.)

The total losses come to over $25,000. We are waiting to hear what the insurance will cover, but at the absolute most we can expect $20,600.

Thanks to the community, we are slowly rising from the ashes. Wonderful volunteers spent a week cleaning and re-painting the entire clinic. (It is a miracle that we were able to re-open in a week!) We have had over $6,000 in donations at this point from people that support what we are doing. Businesses like VCA Fort Collins Animal Hospital, Petco, and Home to Heaven made generous donations to help out.

Thank you community!

The old Autoclave, Inside the Autoclave, The Soot that Covered Everything

Cat works hard Painting, Carey takes a break to smile, Thank you Bonnie!

Cleaning Machine Shelly, Cindy helps paint, Brittany also helps paint



The clinic with its new coat of paint. It looks so cheerful!

We Be Three!!!!

Happy Birthday to Us, Happy Birthday to Us, Happy Birthday FCCR...........

Happy Birthday to Us!!!!!

Sunday, May 31st we celebrated our 3rd birthdy, and it was a BLAST!

Thanks to our wonderful volunteer & board member Leslie's hard work (and the work of a lot of other volunteers), not only did everyone that attended have a great time but we also raised over $3,000 for the kitties.

The birthday party was family friendly and had great food prepared and donated by volunteers (Yum!), a 'Litterbox Prize Scoop' that the kids loved, fabulous party favors, the chance to win the most BEAUTIFUL quilt (made by our wonderful voluntter Barb Lloyd), pottery donated by the Potter's Guild (thank you Susan!!!!!!), a charity lemonade stand by Wyatt & Rylee, adoptable kittens & cats, and more!

All in all it left us with big smiles on our faces!

Thank you to everyone that helped make the birthday party such a success. I'm already looking forward to our 4th birthday party! :)