You might find this story hard to believe. You might read it and wonder how it can possibly be true that this kind of hero exists, and wonder how the whole world doesn’t know about her yet. We hope to change that just a little by sharing her greatness with our small enclave, and hopefully by inspiring others to become heroes, too.
Meet Meow. No, that’s not her real name but that’s what she goes by. Also meet her daughter, who’s nickname is Kitty. About twenty years ago, Kitty told her mom, a single mother, that she had a special friend. Meow soon learned that this friend was a sweet street cat, a feline whom she loved instantly because the cat made her daughter so happy. Meow watched as Kitty would run home from school to play with her buddy cat, and how he kept her from being lonely. Soon Meow realized that there were more cats in the area than just her daughter’s friend.
It was a learning process through that first male cat. As he grew, he became more aggressive; Meow took him to get neutered to curb this tendency. Then she and her daughter started feeding the outside cats, and as she witnessed more fights and more kittens, she knew they had to do something about it. She began the process of trapping, fixing, and feeding her first colony.
Cut to today. Every day Meow feeds and cleans over 250 cats. Each year she spays/neuters 300 cats or more. This is a full time job, on top of her other full time job. She spends roughly two hours on her way to work and roughly two hours on her way home from work taking care of ferals in the over 30 stations she has set up (not including the time she spends preparing and washing her cat supplies.) Gradually, the populations in the colonies themselves have decreased, thanks to her TNR efforts. But the number of colonies she takes care of has increased as more and more people come to her for help. Meow has learned to use specifics foods, those that have more flavors and pungent smells in order to attract cats. She has learned how to position cages for optimum trapping (at first there were misses – she started with 1 trap from the shelter.) Over time, more stray kitties have shown up hungry and her traps have gotten better, less noisy, and less scary. Meow now has 12 traps and her car is basically a moving closet/garage for homeless cats! Other than the driver’s seat, it’s filled with food, water, collars, bowls, and boxes for their housing.
At the stations, there are the true ferals who won’t let her pet them, but will wait to greet her upon arrival. They know the sound of her car. Many of the other cats will let her pick them up, and some even allow her to put them in the car to take home. From there, Meow either keeps these kitties, especially if they’re seniors or have issues which make them unadoptable, or she finds a good home for them. When it’s cold or raining, Meow worries, even though she works hard to waterproof all the boxes she sets up by taking apart the cat food bags and wrapping the cardboard boxes with them. And even in the rain or in freezing temperatures, she does her rounds to take care of these needy animals.
During her twenty plus years now doing TNR, Meow has been bitten by a raccoon and robbed twice. Her answer wasn’t to give up, but instead to make friends with police officers who have come to know her and look out for her. If she’s feeding in the middle of the night, they follow and keep an eye on her. She’s also been in several highway accidents, the last one being a drunk driver who rammed into her. Between the payout from insurance and her savings, all Meow wanted was to buy a bigger car so that it would be possible to transport more carriers!
Meow says that cats saved her life. She believes she has survived mishaps and hardships and that she is alive to help them. She credits strays for keeping her going and for giving her purpose. She considers herself the lucky one, instead of the other way around even though she brings love, sustenance, and tremendous joy to hundreds of cats a day. Meow believes this is her path, and doesn’t mind at all that a large portion of her income goes to them. She also doesn’t mind her erratic sleep schedule, which consists of four to five hours of sleep, then waking up to clean cat bowls and prepare cages before getting ready for work. Heading to her job, she leaves early to accomplish the first two hours of feeding. Before she goes into her job, she sleeps in car for 20 – 30 minutes as a recharging “cat nap.” (Pun intended!) Then it’s two more hours of feeding on her way home, and more cleaning, before it’s off to sleep and repeat the next day. This has been her schedule for about 12 years. Her daughter Kitty helps out as much as she can, doing mostly behind the scenes work. Kitty regularly handles the cats in their home neighborhood so her mother doesn’t have to add that to her already full plate. And if Meow is truly sick, her two closest friends and Kitty will cover for her and visit the stations on her behalf.
Prior to finding FixNation, Meow was using local vets and clinics for spay and neuter, paying all out of pocket expenses. Now she refers to FixNation as, “One big family with a common purpose.” She says she feels supported there, and is all too happy to be given the tools of the trade as well as spay and neuter assistance. Having FixNation be so supportive of her over the years has made such a difference in her ability to help for even more cats. She takes no days off from feeding; on the days she doesn’t work, she picks up new cat food bags, cleans again, and spends extra time at the stations improving boxes and TNR’ing. She has FixNation appointments almost every week.
Thankfully, Meow is generous with her knowledge so that others who want to follow in her footsteps can provide this much needed care to homeless cats. Her first tip is to set up station and gain the colony’s trust. Next, she believes in high quality of food. What her own cats eat, she feeds to the strays too, rationalizing that if they’re only going to eat once a day it should be the good stuff and nothing artificial. Although it requires her to save money carefully, she believes the food is very important to trapping. Another tip is that most cats have the same schedule in terms of feeding and sleeping. Her best trapping time is from five to eleven in the evening, as cats don’t come out when there is much foot traffic. Some areas are quiet and safe to go to in the early morning hours. Furthermore, Meow stresses the need to take away a colony’s food for about 10 hours before trapping so that the fragrant food will lure hungry cats in. If it’s a new colony people tell her about, she must find out if they’re being fed first. Once she can ensure that they are hungry and not eating for half a day, she sets up traps with high-grade meals inside. In her experience, the first strike is the hottest ticket. The more you trap in an area, the wiser cats get to it. Finally, she’s also a huge proponent of clean water to keep sickness at bay. She changes the cats’ water every day because its freshness is key to a successful colony.
One more thing that Meow encourages is patience. She is very patient when it comes to cats, and will sit in a car for four hours to trap a single pregnant female, not reading a book or on her phone as she hovers, but staring and waiting for the cat. She does have to be careful and look around her surroundings to make sure no one is coming to approach her or steal traps or steal cats. And she gets lucky often, too. Sometimes she’ll follow a scrawny cat on the street, set up a trap, and immediately the cat will go in. Other times, a mom and her two kitties will go into one trap all together. Perhaps they sense the safety and goodness she emanates.
Meow is truly a feline superhero. She should wear a cape and have comic books drawn about her. But she doesn’t need any of that, she’ll settle for being a master of her trade, and for living from her very big, open heart. She says, “These cats are my life.” And because of her, these cats have a life.
