In 1997 I was at the Jefferson Parish Animal Shelter when a woman walked in with a shoebox. In the box was a week-old kitten. The shelter attendant told the woman that the kitten would be put to sleep immediately if she left it because they didn’t have the resources to bottle feed. Well, of course I took the kitten, bottle fed it, and he grew into a 17-pound long-haired character named Dexter (so called because of the Dexter shoe box he was in). [Dexter died Thanksgiving 2004 of Fibrosarcoma (vaccine-induced cancer with no cure).]

The shelter policy haunted me. So, in 2002, when I finally was in a position to help, I contacted Bert Smith at the JPAS offering to foster some of these orphans. He referred me to Friends of the Jefferson Animal Shelter, a new organization started to address this very issue of orphaned kittens under six weeks old and pregnant cats who come to the shelter. Through this model program, fosterers provide this formerly lost segment of the animal population vet care, good food, spay/neuter and adoption. I immediately began fostering full time (120+ kittens and counting).

I then learned about Spaymart when I rescued a litter of kittens not eligible for the Friends program. I was told by someone that Spaymart rescued and fostered kittens. When I contacted them, I learned that they did often try to help people who call, but did not have the resources or official programs in place.

So I ended up fostering the kittens myself and volunteered to help Spaymart. I liked the balance between the two organizations – one was committed to prevention through spay/neuter, the other to save those born anyway. I knew I couldn’t help them all, but this seemed to cover a significant part of the spectrum.

I soon discovered from Spaymart’s hotline that the public, like me, was uninformed or misinformed about where to go for the appropriate help. Spaymart’s hotline is inundated daily with calls for rescues, sick cats, orphaned kittens, and other emergencies they are simply unable to handle.

Typical Spaymart Hotline calls:
“I found a stray that had 3 kittens. I’m just wondering what I could do to help them get good homes.”
“I would like assistance with pet food. I’m a low-income person, unemployed since July of last year. I have 4 cats that I’ve taken care of for 10 years. I could use some pet food for them. Thank you.”
“I found a very small kitten yesterday. It looks like it’s starving. I don’t know how old it is. I tried giving it milk. I’m trying to find out if you have room for it.”
“I was calling about some adoption assistance. I have a dog that needs help and a home. We found him on the street, covered with fleas and ticks. He’s blind. He needs several hundred dollars worth of surgery and needs to have one eye removed. I need help with that. I also have lots of animals and problems.”

There are hundreds of pleas for help like these, and they put an untold strain on organizations and individuals who often spend time and effort trying to help in ways that range from simply giving advice to actually trying to assist in an area for which they don’t have the resources or which is outside their mission statement.

Let’s be real – when someone calls with a plea for helping orphaned 2-day old kittens, it’s hard to say no. But we also must be realistic - you can’t fix every problem thrown your way.

So instead of saying “no” and feeling guilty about turning someone in need away because you don’t have the resources, or “yes” and trying to help, and thereby diverting resources earmarked for spay/neuter or another mission, what if you could say…