Feral Friday

National Feral Cat Day is actually October 16, but I thought I’d make today Feral Friday on my blog because our untamed brothers and sisters need all the days — and help — they can get. They are scared of humans (often for good reason) and have to fend for themselves, grabbing food from trash bins or catching what they can, suffering through summer heat and winter freezes without a home, and they’re constantly at the mercy of predators — any creature from dogs to coyotes to cruel humans who harm them for sport. Often communities shun them and they get captured and sent to the city shelters, where they are guaranteed to be euthanized, since they are wild and not adoptable. It’s tough out there for them, and without intervention from kind humans, these cats live short, tragic lives that last only long enough to breed more litters of ferals in an endless cycle of suffering.

As you might have noticed from my Wordless Wednesday, I am a big supporter of Alley Cat Allies, and you should be too. Here’s why:

• The whole purpose of this organization is to end the needless killing of feral cats through advocacy, education and support for feral caretakers.
• They teach people and groups how to set up effective TNR (Trap, Neuter and Release) programs. Spaying and neutering feral cats has proven to be the best way of controlling their numbers.
• They promote and launch programs that support feral cats, and educate the public about how to coexist with their feral communities.
• They fight public policy that promotes killing feral cats and they support anti-cruelty laws.
• They have the Feral Friends Network, which links people and organizations that help feral cats.
• Plus loads more — visit their website too see all that they do!

You can celebrate Feral Cat Day in a lot of different ways: plan a TNR effort, host a workshop to teach others how to help feral cats, or tell your friends and coworkers about ways they can help ferals. Alley Cat Allies has a whole page of suggestions for you. And you can also show your support by taking the Photo Pledge like I did — in fact, please do and let me know that you did by commenting on this post! It’s fun.

Feral cats never get to sleep on comfy beds, play with cat toys, eat premium cat food in the privacy of their own kitchens, and they never get to have humans to order around. Except for the occasional kitten who is rounded up and tamed before she learns the ways of the street. We think that is probably what happened with my roommate Binga, who my human found at the shelter 9 years ago this month. She was maybe 8 weeks old and we really don’t know where she came from, but from what I hear, she definitely didn’t have a whole lot of manners! In fact, she still doesn’t. Older ferals never make it into someone’s home — they either die on the streets or in a shelter. Help them by supporting Alley Cat Allies.