The Cat House Diaries

This blog is by, for, and about people who rescue cats, of course. (What were you thinking?) My sister, Deb, and I are the co-founders of KittyCorner of CNY, Inc. Our mission is to help people with cat problems--or cats with people problems, depending on your point of view. Because the overwhelming problem is too many cats and not enough homes, we began by taking in cats that nobody wanted, doing all the veterinary care, and re-homing them in permanent, responsible homes. We knew, even at the beginning in 1992, that we couldn't have much of an impact. We just did it for the individual cats, like the boy in the Starfish story.

Working Together to Ensure a Home for Every Pet

Our focus widened as we began attending conferences and seeing some of the real differences that were being made in other parts of the country and the world. Trap-Neuter-Return for feral cats, low-cost spay/neuter programs; we knew that we could have a real impact by bringing these services to the forefront in Onondaga County and in the rest of Central New York State. We weren't the first, of course, but that meant that there was lots of networking to be done with other organizations and lots of people out there with the interest and the experience. We managed to bring some of these people together in the Syracuse-Onondaga Cat Council, and after a couple of years of hard work, we opened the Spay and Neuter Syracuse Clinic (SANS).

As I write this, in November of 2007, we at SANS have just celebrated our second anniversary. We've accomplished a lot in just two years. More than 2000 dogs and cats have been sterilized, preventing the birth of who-knows-how many unwanted animals. But we will never be able to keep up with the population growth until we can educate the public about pet overpopulation, convince them to spay and neuter their pets, and provide the resources so that everyone can comply. We also need to do more to keep pets in their homes by providing help for behavior problems--both animal and human. That's what this blog is about. In the meantime, we need more people who are willing to step up to the plate and take on a problem that they didn't create by rescuing and re-homing a cat or two. We'll try to pass along the "how-tos" in this blog as well, and we hope others will help with their comments and suggestions.