Post by Christine on Sept 7, 2008 3:55:18 GMT -5
Feline lifeline
It takes a village - Bay Village - to rescue a cat
By Ric Kahn, Globe Staff | September 7, 2008
The cat was scrawny and scared and belonged to nobody. She lived on the street. She was a wee thing, a black-and-white short-haired three-month-old kitty who carried only about two pounds on her bony 6-inch frame.
She sought shelter in the neighborhood's trees and alleyways and under just-parked cars, drawn to the warmth of an engine that was still hot.
Those who saw her worried that she would not survive for long out there, that she might be overcome by a virus or infection or feline leukemia. If she didn't get run over first.
And so the call went out to save the life of this baby, and of a bigger black cat she ran with, the one presumed to be her mother.
"Let's get these kitties off the street and into a better life," China Altman, guiding spirit of the Bay Village Cat Rescue Service, exhorted more than a dozen of the nascent group's members in an e-mail this spring.
Now, some neighborhoods fight crime. Others stand against overdevelopment. Bay Village - only six square blocks in the Back Bay but about 700 residents strong - does all that, too, but also finds itself rewriting a venerable saying, into: It takes a village to save a cat.
"We're people united in our love of kitty cats," says Altman, a soul of the '60s who gave up eating meat when she was only 8. "They can't ring a doorbell and say, 'Hey, I'm upset and lonely and I don't have any food.' "
In animal-rights circles, what sets the Bay Village group apart is that it is not just a few stray people putting out cat food on their roof decks or rescuing felines ad hoc, as they'd done in the neighborhood and still do elsewhere. With more than 20 members, it is now a synchronized cat-saving cooperative.
The kitty corps faithfully reports sightings of strays, distributes photos of the cats, undertakes tricky rescue operations using a gentle trap funded by a neighborhood donation drive, bestows a name upon each animal, nurses the cats back to health with home-loving and trips to the vet, contributes food and other cat-raising materials, has them spayed or neutered to halt further overpopulation, and then finds a suitable home for those who'd been lost or abandoned or born into the wild.
According to the Animal Rescue League of Boston, these warm-weather months are boom time for cat births, and a crunch period for shelters. And with that comes more strays, as typically more cats than dogs are left behind by those moving out of apartments or are otherwise forsaken, according to the Animal Rescue League, which has advised the Bay Village group.
Marianne Gasbarro, who manages the league's Boston Animal Care and Adoption Center, says that's because society places more value on dogs, especially those seen as primped purebreds purchased with much money. By contrast, she says, cats are wrongly viewed as outdoor vagabonds wandering house to house.
"They seem a bit more disposable," Gasbarro laments.
Such was the fate of a young feline spotted on the streets of Bay Village into last summer. It's not that this compact community generates more deserted cats than others, says Gasbarro. It is a place, though, that she says has become attractive to city strays because it is off the beaten path, with peaceful nooks.
This Bay Village cat had matted fur and a troubled face: mucus streaming out of his nose, discharge running from his eyes. His left eye was closed entirely. He'd also been clipped by a car, and was full of fear. The neighborhood called him BK - short for Black Kitty - and sprung into action to save him.
"The streets are no place for any cat," Altman wrote to her neighbors late last August. "Every hour they are in more danger. In the future I hope a system will be in place so some of us can act immediately and effectively as soon as an abandoned cat is seen."
Thus was born the idea for the cheekily named Bay Village Cat Rescue Service.
Altman put out water and food for BK, supplementing it with omega-3 fish oil and brewer's yeast to help fight his infections. No more eating street garbage. His shut eye began to reopen. By early September, Altman was able to entice him into a trap. She took him to the vet, paying from her own pocket. She had him neutered, with money in the kitty from neighborhood fund-raising.
Altman then took him in, and over nearly five months brought him back to life. It was several months before he was able to shake off the trauma of the streets, and rub against her leg. A few days after that, she petted him on his back. After about three more weeks, Altman felt it was OK to pick him up. "He stayed in my arms and started purring," she says. "From that time, it was love city."
She wanted to keep BK, but her own rescued cat would have none of it. Through a friend, she found a prospective home for him. She brought BK and his potential owner together to be sure they would bond. As a farewell, she prepared a package that included a blankie and two scratching blocks.
After the cat left, she wept. Still, she was joyful he had someone special to care for him.
Across different years and venues, long before the Bay Village undertaking had even been launched, she'd rescued more than two dozen cats, Altman figures. A former journalist also known for helping the city nurture the roses in the Public Garden, Altman sums up her feline philanthropy this way: "If it should ever happen that humans could change in an elemental way their attitudes toward animals, all animals, the entire world would be different and better in ways we now cannot imagine. And the main reward of that would be to humans."
And now, this spring, it was time for the Bay Village Cat Rescue Service to pounce again, taking aim at its second official project: The black-and-white kitty and her mother, who were darting in and out of danger, sometimes together, sometimes not. Neighbors put out food, and e-mailed one another the cats' whereabouts, along with photographs of the two, so they could coordinate a capture.
A stylish 30-year-old Bay Villager named Amy Pollutro had seen the two cats behind her house, drawn there by food she'd put out and the warm air from her laundry dryer vent, their golden eyes glowing in the dark. Pollutro has two rescued cats at home, including one she'd saved from the streets of Indianapolis during a monthlong business trip there for the pharmaceutical company she'd worked for.
She volunteered to catch the cats. Word went out to others leaving food for the cats to call off the dogs: stop the feedings so they'd flock only to Pollutro's.
The first time Pollutro put out the trap, the kitten climbed inside. Hello kitty! Pollutro was excited at the deliverance, but dismayed that someone had discarded her. Pollutro rocked the kitty in her arms, paid for a vet's visit, named her Violet. She prepared the cat for a new home by arranging play dates with adults, a dog and a child to make sure it was well adjusted.
"I'm helping an animal," says Pollutro, cocoordinator of the rescue squad with Altman, "but I'm also touching the life of the person adopting the animal."
Pollutro sifted through about a dozen responses to an online ad for Violet before settling on a sweet Harvard grad student. The woman renamed the cat Sashi and wrote Pollutro: "Thank you so very much for rescuing her and giving me a chance to give her a loving home."
Pollutro reset the trap to try and snag the kitten's mother. But within days, bad news arrived: The cat had been struck by a car and killed.
Bay Village was crushed. But life went on: Sashi had a litter of kittens. BK now lounges about the Kenmore Square digs of his owner, Steve Painter, a 55-year-old IT professional and musician. There, he listens to Painter's guitar and other music, including the female artist known as Cat Power.
Meanwhile, with an orange street cat in its sights, another Bay Village rescue effort is already underway.
Ric Kahn can be reached at rkahn@globe.com.
It takes a village - Bay Village - to rescue a cat
By Ric Kahn, Globe Staff | September 7, 2008
The cat was scrawny and scared and belonged to nobody. She lived on the street. She was a wee thing, a black-and-white short-haired three-month-old kitty who carried only about two pounds on her bony 6-inch frame.
She sought shelter in the neighborhood's trees and alleyways and under just-parked cars, drawn to the warmth of an engine that was still hot.
Those who saw her worried that she would not survive for long out there, that she might be overcome by a virus or infection or feline leukemia. If she didn't get run over first.
And so the call went out to save the life of this baby, and of a bigger black cat she ran with, the one presumed to be her mother.
"Let's get these kitties off the street and into a better life," China Altman, guiding spirit of the Bay Village Cat Rescue Service, exhorted more than a dozen of the nascent group's members in an e-mail this spring.
Now, some neighborhoods fight crime. Others stand against overdevelopment. Bay Village - only six square blocks in the Back Bay but about 700 residents strong - does all that, too, but also finds itself rewriting a venerable saying, into: It takes a village to save a cat.
"We're people united in our love of kitty cats," says Altman, a soul of the '60s who gave up eating meat when she was only 8. "They can't ring a doorbell and say, 'Hey, I'm upset and lonely and I don't have any food.' "
In animal-rights circles, what sets the Bay Village group apart is that it is not just a few stray people putting out cat food on their roof decks or rescuing felines ad hoc, as they'd done in the neighborhood and still do elsewhere. With more than 20 members, it is now a synchronized cat-saving cooperative.
The kitty corps faithfully reports sightings of strays, distributes photos of the cats, undertakes tricky rescue operations using a gentle trap funded by a neighborhood donation drive, bestows a name upon each animal, nurses the cats back to health with home-loving and trips to the vet, contributes food and other cat-raising materials, has them spayed or neutered to halt further overpopulation, and then finds a suitable home for those who'd been lost or abandoned or born into the wild.
According to the Animal Rescue League of Boston, these warm-weather months are boom time for cat births, and a crunch period for shelters. And with that comes more strays, as typically more cats than dogs are left behind by those moving out of apartments or are otherwise forsaken, according to the Animal Rescue League, which has advised the Bay Village group.
Marianne Gasbarro, who manages the league's Boston Animal Care and Adoption Center, says that's because society places more value on dogs, especially those seen as primped purebreds purchased with much money. By contrast, she says, cats are wrongly viewed as outdoor vagabonds wandering house to house.
"They seem a bit more disposable," Gasbarro laments.
Such was the fate of a young feline spotted on the streets of Bay Village into last summer. It's not that this compact community generates more deserted cats than others, says Gasbarro. It is a place, though, that she says has become attractive to city strays because it is off the beaten path, with peaceful nooks.
This Bay Village cat had matted fur and a troubled face: mucus streaming out of his nose, discharge running from his eyes. His left eye was closed entirely. He'd also been clipped by a car, and was full of fear. The neighborhood called him BK - short for Black Kitty - and sprung into action to save him.
"The streets are no place for any cat," Altman wrote to her neighbors late last August. "Every hour they are in more danger. In the future I hope a system will be in place so some of us can act immediately and effectively as soon as an abandoned cat is seen."
Thus was born the idea for the cheekily named Bay Village Cat Rescue Service.
Altman put out water and food for BK, supplementing it with omega-3 fish oil and brewer's yeast to help fight his infections. No more eating street garbage. His shut eye began to reopen. By early September, Altman was able to entice him into a trap. She took him to the vet, paying from her own pocket. She had him neutered, with money in the kitty from neighborhood fund-raising.
Altman then took him in, and over nearly five months brought him back to life. It was several months before he was able to shake off the trauma of the streets, and rub against her leg. A few days after that, she petted him on his back. After about three more weeks, Altman felt it was OK to pick him up. "He stayed in my arms and started purring," she says. "From that time, it was love city."
She wanted to keep BK, but her own rescued cat would have none of it. Through a friend, she found a prospective home for him. She brought BK and his potential owner together to be sure they would bond. As a farewell, she prepared a package that included a blankie and two scratching blocks.
After the cat left, she wept. Still, she was joyful he had someone special to care for him.
Across different years and venues, long before the Bay Village undertaking had even been launched, she'd rescued more than two dozen cats, Altman figures. A former journalist also known for helping the city nurture the roses in the Public Garden, Altman sums up her feline philanthropy this way: "If it should ever happen that humans could change in an elemental way their attitudes toward animals, all animals, the entire world would be different and better in ways we now cannot imagine. And the main reward of that would be to humans."
And now, this spring, it was time for the Bay Village Cat Rescue Service to pounce again, taking aim at its second official project: The black-and-white kitty and her mother, who were darting in and out of danger, sometimes together, sometimes not. Neighbors put out food, and e-mailed one another the cats' whereabouts, along with photographs of the two, so they could coordinate a capture.
A stylish 30-year-old Bay Villager named Amy Pollutro had seen the two cats behind her house, drawn there by food she'd put out and the warm air from her laundry dryer vent, their golden eyes glowing in the dark. Pollutro has two rescued cats at home, including one she'd saved from the streets of Indianapolis during a monthlong business trip there for the pharmaceutical company she'd worked for.
She volunteered to catch the cats. Word went out to others leaving food for the cats to call off the dogs: stop the feedings so they'd flock only to Pollutro's.
The first time Pollutro put out the trap, the kitten climbed inside. Hello kitty! Pollutro was excited at the deliverance, but dismayed that someone had discarded her. Pollutro rocked the kitty in her arms, paid for a vet's visit, named her Violet. She prepared the cat for a new home by arranging play dates with adults, a dog and a child to make sure it was well adjusted.
"I'm helping an animal," says Pollutro, cocoordinator of the rescue squad with Altman, "but I'm also touching the life of the person adopting the animal."
Pollutro sifted through about a dozen responses to an online ad for Violet before settling on a sweet Harvard grad student. The woman renamed the cat Sashi and wrote Pollutro: "Thank you so very much for rescuing her and giving me a chance to give her a loving home."
Pollutro reset the trap to try and snag the kitten's mother. But within days, bad news arrived: The cat had been struck by a car and killed.
Bay Village was crushed. But life went on: Sashi had a litter of kittens. BK now lounges about the Kenmore Square digs of his owner, Steve Painter, a 55-year-old IT professional and musician. There, he listens to Painter's guitar and other music, including the female artist known as Cat Power.
Meanwhile, with an orange street cat in its sights, another Bay Village rescue effort is already underway.
Ric Kahn can be reached at rkahn@globe.com.