Welcome Spring!
Being a retirement kitty isn't all bad. Oliver, Coswell & Sebastian enjoy a sunny afternoon on their enclosed deck overlooking 24 acres of woods and farmland in Lodi Township. They are three of the fifteen cats presently in our Older Cat Retirement and Adoption Program. Although many were formerly "only pets", they adjust quickly to group living and enjoy eating, sleeping and playing together. We have one resident and three part-time employees that work with 40 volunteer "aunts and uncles" to ensure their home stays neat and clean and that the cats get as much attention as they want.

We work exclusively with older, slow-to-adopt cats, so our primary goal is to provide them with a comfortable home. We cage them only long enough to settle in and to evaluate their health -- losing a home is very stressful so it's not uncommon for a new cat to catch a cold or be anorexic. Although in overall good health, many of our cats have chronic medical problems associated with old age -- typically a kidney or thyroid disease. We provide them with the same veterinary care a loving guardian would give a pet cat, and euthanize only if they are terminally ill with unmanageable pain. Our cat memorial chapel (the building to the right) provides a place to remember our former friends and is open to others as well for personal cat remembrances.

Maintaining this high level of individual care greatly limits the number of cats we can house but makes a world of difference to those we do. Many, we suspect, don't even know they're being sheltered!

Since the program began in 2000, we ve admitted 64 cats -- 43 are now placed in loving homes. Only three of our current residents have been with us for more than one year, and eight less than four months. If you'd like to volunteer with them, just give us a call for details. Spending two hours a week with our wonderful kitties can be the most rewarding volunteer time you'll ever know!

Stray Cats In Your Yard?
We'll Help You Care For Them.
If you're feeding stray cats, think through the problem before scooping them up and giving them to an already overburdened shelter system. Unless they are very friendly or declawed, it may be more humane to leave them in their outdoor habitat, sterilize them, and continue their care. Only 1 in 3 cats that go to shelters find a home -- the rest are euthanized or institutionalized.

Although it may look like someone dropped the cats in your yard, it's more likely that they are feral (fearful of humans) and have been living outside for some time without your knowledge. You may have removed other cats from your yard, creating room for the new cats to move in. By leaving them where they are and sterilizing them, they'll keep future roaming cats away. You'll not only improve the health of your colony, but you'll also help reduce the overall cat population by becoming a "kitten-free" zone. This is the only real way to eliminate surplus cats in our community and radically reduce the numbers of unowned outdoor cats.

We've established a program to fund the sterilization of outdoor cats -- so far we've sterilized about 1,200 in 225 locations -- and haven't even scratched the surface! If you live in Washtenaw County you may qualify for our help. Call for details or visit our website at TLConline.org. We also keep a limited supply of donated food available for feral cat caregivers.

Feral Finery
Our show and tell feral cat colony made it through their first winter with flying colors. Despite the frigid temperatures -- the coldest winter in 20 years -- the kitties fared quite nicely in their unheated barn nesting in marsh grass and drinking water from heated bowls. Emmy (above) is a great example of feral cat adaptation. The left photo was taken last summer. The right photo was taken a few months later after the weather turned cold. Just like other wildlife, outdoor cats grow warm winter coats to protect them. Now that spring is here, Emmy will shed her thick coat so she'll be more comfortable during the hot summer months. Quite a transformation!