Hairballs and Heroes: True Tales of OAR Cats and the People Who Love Them

By Ohio Alleycat Resource

Every cat that comes through the doors of Ohio Alleycat Resource and Spay/Neuter Clinic (OAR) has a story. So do the people who trap, rescue, manage colonies, foster, and adopt them. Sharing these stories has long been a dream of OAR volunteers and staff, as we've witnessed the organization grow into an incredible life-saving resource for cats i

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ohio Alleycat Resource
• Release date: Dec 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781087931678

Book preview

Hairballs & heroes

Hairballs & heroes

True tales of OAR Cats and the People Who Love them

Hairballs & Heroes. Copyright © 2020 by Ohio Alleycat Resource. Manufactured in the United States of America. All rights reserved. No other part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Published by Ohio Alleycat Resource, 5619 Orlando Place, Cincinnati, OH 45227. [phone]. First edition.

For more resources, visit www.ohioalleycat.org.

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ISBN-13: 978-1-0879-3164-7

Cover Designed by Clare Finney

Front cover photographs by Jessica Ruebusch, Alexis Robinson, Nora DeCastro, Emily Rotella

Back cover photographs by Erin Marsh, Jeff Smith, Alexis Robinson, Helen Riggi Brumfield, Caitlin Ayers

Illustrations by Meredith Smith

Dedication

To Judy, Louie, and Valentine, and all the other cats who helped inspire this book.

About OAR

Our Mission

Ohio Alleycat Resource & Spay/Neuter Clinic is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization. Our mission is to enrich the lives of cats and communities in Greater Cincinnati by providing low-cost, high-quality spay/neuter services for ferals, strays, and pets; offering TNR (trap-neuter-return) and other outreach programs; and running a no-kill adoption center dedicated to finding loving homes.

Our History

OAR was founded in 1998 in O’Bryonville, a neighborhood on the eastside of Cincinnati, to provide help for the stray and feral cat population in that area. Named O’Bryonville Animal Rescue, the organization gained volunteers who were interested in helping cats in other parts of Greater Cincinnati. OAR embraced Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) as a humane means of cat population control and also established a small rescue to promote the adoption of tame cats and kittens from the cat colonies. In 2006, OAR purchased a building at 5619 Orlando Place in Madisonville and began renovations. In 2008, OAR moved operations to our current location. Our low-cost, high-volume clinic for cats, based on the Humane Alliance model, also began operations in 2008 on a limited basis; in late 2009, the clinic started full-time operations. In 2009, we also officially changed our name to Ohio Alleycat Resource & Spay/Neuter Clinic to reflect our expanded mission and new location.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

PART ONE: Helping Cats and Communities

1. TNR at OAR by Liz Johnson 5

2. The Van Gogh Colony by Nora DeCastro 12

3. Brought together by Catsby Eileen Connelly, OSU 19

4. Piper Leaves the Pipeby Tania Carreón 22

5. The Great Feral Rescue by Marlene Mittendorf 25

6. Life-Saving Partnerships by Stacey Hall Burge 28

PART TWO: Working Cats

7. Judy by Andria Bach 31

8. Toby’s Turkey by Erin Marsh 33

9. Barn cats by Tara Swift 36

PART THREE:

Fostering

10. When Fostering Changes Everything by Emily Rotella 40

11. Love and Catnip Kickers by Eileen Connelly, OSU 45

12. Lessons in Life and LOve by Eileen Connelly, OSU 48

PART FOUR:

Transformations

13. The Other Side of Marnie by Caitlin Ayers 51

14. The Tail of Guinevere by Peyton Fransen 55

15. Noky’s Courage by Jennifer Mahuet 59

16. Kundalini and the healing Power by Pamela Mancini 64

17. No-Name, No Problem by Jeff Smith 69

PART FIVE:

Extra Special Cats

18. The Positively Adorable, Adoptable BOys of OAR by Eileen Connelly, OSU 83

19. Maverick’s Wingman by Floreline Mateo 87

20. Record Time by Allison Whitmyer 89

PART SIX:

Happy Endings

21. Charles Discovers he’s Royalty by Cecile Behymer 94

22. Love at First Sight by Melissa McNally 97

23. An Interview with Smokey Briggs by Laurie Briggs 99

24. The Love of a LIttle Redhead by Helen Riggi Brumfield 106

25. The Balance of Binx by Megan Craig 108

26. Toothless and Luna by Ella Diane 110

27. Lucy Gets a Passport by Grace Dobush 113

28. Natalie’s Story by Alexis Robinson 119

29. Why You Should Adopt Two Kittens instead of one by Emily Rotella 121

30. A Tale of Two Kitties by Meredith Smith 125

31. The Road Less Traveled by Tara Swift 129

32. Moon Man by Becky Anderson 135

INtroduction

The Cat Chroniclers

Dear Readers,

We are very grateful that you saw fit to purchase our little book of true stories about cats we’ve known, loved, and protected. It’s a modest and loving effort to celebrate and support a wonderful organization, Ohio Alleycat Resource (OAR), dedicated to the betterment of the lives of cats in the tristate area encompassing its location in Cincinnati, Ohio.

As the OAR mission statement tells us, this non-profit 501(c)(3) organization exists to enrich the lives of cats and communities, and it has done so in myriad ways since its founding in 1998 in O’Bryonville. At first, providing low-cost, high-quality spay/neuter services for feral, stray, and pet cats on the East side of Cincinnati, the original volunteers, fondly referred to as The Basement People, gradually branched out into advocacy for Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) as a humane means of population control versus the wholesale euthanasia practiced in animal shelters. The basement also housed a small rescue to promote adoption of the tame animals from the feral colonies.

But onward and upward! In 2008, OAR moved to its current location in Madisonville and opened its own spay/neuter clinic, continuing to provide such services at low cost, thanks to the generosity of many grants and donations. As the reputation of OAR grew and outreach expanded in the Greater Cincinnati area, it gave rise to a wonderful transportation system to help people and their cats farther away. The Neuterville Express, so the painted panel truck proclaims, ferries cats and kittens to and from their locales, destined to not produce more unwanted kittens. After an amazing growth spurt, the Express led the way to a weekly Wellness Clinic. All the while still offering a trap loan service to the public to continue the mission of TNR and the well-being of Community Cat Colonies.

Then, in 2013, there was another great addition to the Madisonville complex: the Joanie Bernard Home for Cats, a shelter in a separate building, perhaps in the full circle spirit of O’Bryonville rescue. It houses adoptable cats, the great majority of which have been pulled from the former SPCA Cincinnati, now Cincinnati Animal CARE, just one of OAR’s official partners to save cats which might have otherwise been euthanized. OAR is also prepared, when possible, to support other shelters and rescues in the region by taking in cats with medical issues, from hoarding situations, and other challenging scenarios. A wonderful disputation of the old saying that, You can’t herd cats!

Today, the organization, now with a small paid staff paired with incredible, continued volunteer support, is embracing cats with special needs, but capable of having loving owners. Under the auspices of a new Executive Director, it solidified a program to place cats with Feline Leukemia in loving homes, practiced outreach to hurricane victims in South Carolina and Texas, and now is competently weathering the terrible restraints placed on the world by the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020.

No wonder we wanted to document its accomplishments, and to make more people aware of OAR. In the pages of this book you’ll find stories of unnamed heroes caring for feral colonies of cats that can’t be touched by offering love in their own way. You’ll find stories of adopters taking home cats that others had written off only to see them blossom. You’ll find stories of cats rescuing their adopters from personal hardship. And you’ll find stories of cats doing cute cat things. In short, you’ll read about what has become a truly worldwide community of cats and the people who love them.

We hope that you enjoy each of these highly personal tributes to the Ohio Alleycat Resource.

–The Cat Chroniclers

Andria Bach

Eileen Connelly, OSU

Nina Johns

Amy Jones

Tara Swift

chapter 1

TNR at OAR

Liz Johnson

I don’t remember when I trapped my first cat. I’m sure it was in my early days of volunteering at OAR almost twenty years ago. I undoubtedly tagged along with someone who knew what they were doing and learned by watching them. Over the years, I’ve probably trapped hundreds of cats, but I still learn something almost every time I go out. Most of the time, I learn that cats are smarter than I am.

Trapping was (and is) a labor-intensive endeavor. We used box traps in those days to catch our quarry. We’d buy mackerel, a very odorous food that left everything smelling like fish. We’d collect our traps and some sheets for trap covers, line our hatchbacks or vans with plastic and then newspaper, and set out to the trap site. Despite telling the colony caretaker to withhold food that day, 50 percent of the time we’d find that they couldn’t stand to see the cats go hungry even for a few hours and so had already fed them. Still, we’d set our traps and hope for good luck anyway. While sitting in our cars or in some hidden nook, we learned to listen for the distinct click of a trap closing, the best sound in the world when you’re trapping.

When we heard that sound, we’d run to the trap, where the cat was thrashing, throw a sheet over to calm them down, and move the occupied trap to a remote location in hopes that the other cats didn’t catch on. Sometimes they did but they usually came back eventually due to hunger and then another click, another run, another sheet toss and one more cat was on the road to a better life.

In those early days, there weren’t any low-cost spay/neuter clinics in Cincinnati, so we relied on the generosity of various private veterinarians who were willing to offer discounts for surgery on feral cats. We could only get a few surgeries at a time, though occasionally someone would organize a larger spay/neuter event. We’d all spend the days leading up to the event trapping as many cats as we could. One of the earliest of these events took place in 2003 at the Animal Hospital on Mount Lookout Square (AHOMLS) where several groups, including OAR and UCAN, organized volunteer vets and techs from AHOMLS as well as Town Square Animal Clinic. These wonderful people spent a Saturday morning doing surgery on eighty cats. There was a lot of excitement in the air as we all worked together to gather cats, send them through surgery and return them to their outdoor homes after recovery. We all saw the power of numbers and began to really dream about opening our own high-volume clinic to fix cats.

The first big trapping project I was involved with was at Xavier University, where I still work. A group of employees was trying to TNR a large colony near one of the few private houses on campus. The owner of that house was a retired judge who loved cats and fed about forty every day. The population was out of control and many of the cats were not looking well because of the constant reproduction.

We used the Neuter Scooter, a mobile spay/neuter vet who worked in the region, for that first big trapping at Xavier. We were successful at getting about twenty the first day because the cats had never seen traps before and were going into the traps