Speaker 1: This is pet Life Radio. Let's Talk Pets.
Speaker 2: Hello, feline friends, Welcome to Catitude. I'm your show host
Michelle Byrne, and today we have a guest that's going
to talk about the topic near and dear to my
heart and you longtime listeners know what that is. Saving
our cats are kitties, volunteering, fostering, what you can do,
why you should do it, and also how she helps
start this amazing organization. So stay tuned, we'll be right back.
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Speaker 2: Welcome back everyone. I'd like to welcome Debra Feline Begaldi.
She is a volunteer with Helen Sanders cat Pause based
in southern California. You also helped start this organization. Welcome Debra.
Speaker 4: Oh, thank you so very much for having me.
Speaker 2: I'm very excited to have you know, you know, we
chatted a bit before the show, and I'm you know,
lived in LA for many years. Now I'm in an
even warmer climate and it has according to one late
night host that I adore the esteemed I guess, uh
terminology of the crazy state. So I live in South Florida. Well,
right right, I guess because there's always something crazy going
on here. I don't know, it's not all political. There's
just a lot of crazy. You never, like today, we
have a fire in the Everglades. It poured like crazy
last week, but the fire is still uncontained. I don't
know how that happens during rainy season, but here we go.
Speaker 4: I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, why do we bring that up? Because warm climates
tend to have a lot of stray kitties, not own
and stray cats not only during certain seasonality but all
year long, because you know, it's easier for them to procreate.
You know, they're in the outdoors and all of that.
Let's talk before we get started about kitten seasons and everything.
Can you share with us tell us about the Helen
Sanders Cat Pause Organization of course.
Speaker 4: Thank you. It was started officially as a nonprofit you know,
organized in Bible one c. Three and all that in
early twenty ten by the roots of the organization go
deeper than that to a lady named predictably Ellen Sanders,
who was active in TNR, which is you know, trapped
New to Return starting back in like the seventies eighties,
before people even knew what Tea and all her meant
or dropped New to Return. She was trapping the stray
feral as they would call at the time, cats hit
the jetty in the rocks that jut out into the ocean. Here,
it was just inundated with just straying, free rowing cats,
and she would trap them. You mainly trap them, get
them altered, get them vaccinated, and put them back into
their rocks habitat and feed them every night. She would
take food to them and manage that colony. She taught
other people how to do that. When she passed away
in two thousand and five, some friends put together a
few underbox just to the cats that were still alive
at the time for passing. And then eventually a few
years later we decided to make it official and organize
and start a rescue in her name, honor and legacy.
Speaker 2: One thing that the Helen Sanders Cat Pause Organization. Does
that's a little different than some other places. They have
a DIY kitten care program. Can you share that with us?
Speaker 4: Yeah, So about ten years ago we were working with
We actually concentrate, we focus mostly on public shelters and
try to take out the cats and kittens that are
most at risk of you know, not making it out alive.
So at the time, one of the shelters that we
were working with, they were unfortunately just a about one
thousand kittens year. We're not making it up, and typically
kittens under four or five weeks old that weren't yet
eating on their own because they require so much care,
you know, twenty four hours a day, you know, every
few hours they have to be fed, right, Shelters are
not typically staffed twenty four hours, so they were not
making it out. So what we put together was this
DIY kitten care kits so that when people came in,
you know, just thinking oh it's a shelter, I'll bring
kittens there, and the shelter would say, you know, we
have no one to take care of these kittens. They're
not going to make it. They would be offered a
kit of supplies to take the kitten and the supplies
and say, here, you take the kitten, here's some supplies,
and take care of the kitten. Will you take the kitten?
Take care of the kitten or kittens for you know,
a couple of weeks least until they're eating on their own.
Then you can bring them back even and then the
shelter can handle them better. So it was a way
to keep the kittens out of the shelter and engage
the community, just members of the public, to just be rescuers,
you know, and give them the tools, the information, the formula,
the bottles, the heating have whatever they needed to give
those kittens a chance to live that they would not
have if they entered the shelter system.
Speaker 2: I love that. Now we're going to talk a little
bit further about kittens because we talked about well right now,
we're recording the show in June, almost July, so kitten
season typically runs April through October, and people here kitten season,
kitten season. So my longtime listeners are probably like, yeah,
I know what that means, but a lot of people
do not. So can you explain to our listening audience
what exactly is kitten season? Why it's important and what
to look out for.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, thank you. Yeah, kitten season is just way not
nearly as cute as it sounds. Right, It's that time
of year, and you mentioned the April to October time frame,
which is probably the heaviest seasons. And what that means
is all these kittens and unwanted litters being born that
overwhelmed shelters, overwhelmed rescues. The kittens are often born frankly sick.
There's a lot of inbreeding, there's you know, birth defects,
there's a lot of heartbreak involved in it. In a
temperate climate like we're in in southern California, it's almost
really year round. It can have a little bit during
like you know some of the rainy months and chili
rainy months that passed, or winter, you know, between November
and February, but it never really stops. I mean we've
seen pregnant cats coming in in January, late January and February.
So these kittens are born, they're born outside. People find them,
they don't know what to do. They take them to
the shelter. As I mentioned a moment ago, the shelter
is often ill equipped to be able to handle, especially
if there's no mom or if in kittens that need
to be fed every few hours, and it's just a
lot of tragedy and tragic outcomes and a lot of
them don't make it. Unfortunately.
Speaker 2: It's very sad. I mean my cats, so Charlotte and
Molly are sisters from different misters and different litters. And
Molly was actually born on my doorstep in September almost
ten years ago, and it was during which in South
Florida June through November we have hurricane season. So not
only do you have to watch out for the kittens
and see where kat mama has her babies, but you
also have to be careful where she might hide them.
In one case, because it was raining so bad, she
actually hid them up and my spouse's car up near
the engine. So we always talk about it. You know,
in cooler months to knock on the car, but you
have to make sure to be just as tenacious about
doing so. In the warmer months, they hide under the car,
They might go inside the car if it's raining trential
rains or something. So you have to check all over
the place for these for the kittens, and yeah, it does.
It sounds pretty ooh, kitten season. But what cats know
is that means where are we putting all the kittens?
And then you have the problem too of people adopting
and not realizing that cute little kittens become cats, which
are also very cute, but they become cats and they've
become bigger. So something to think about. One thing I
want to talk to you about, because we haven't talked
too much about this on Catitude, Let's talk about fostering,
because I think a lot of people misunderstand fostering as
an option and also a lot of people think, well,
I'm going to become attached. How could I ever give
that cat up?
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: And while we're talking about it to all my listeners,
remember we're all a little part in our roles to
help cats. Sometimes it's talking about things, sometimes it's fostering,
sometimes it's just communicating on social media. Whatever your little
part is, it's all important in saving them and the
goal to drastically cut down on euthanizing and unfortunate deaths
because there's accidents too with you know, cars and so forth.
So tell us about fostering, Deborah.
Speaker 4: Okay, happy to that that fostering is that is the
backbone of our little organization. We are foster based, and
what that means is we don't have a shelter, you know,
facility per se or we you know, stick cat. We
have foster care providers who are caring for cats in
their their own homes. So what fostering provides to a cat,
and again we focus on taking them out of shelters,
but other organizations, you know, take in ones from the street,
you know, as it were. But fostering provides to a
cat the gift of time, you know, time that they
might not get in a shelter, of care, of love,
of medical intervention, which is often necessary. A typical scenario
for us, for example, would be that we get a
an urgent call. This happens like all day, you know,
throughout all day every day from shelters. You know, we
just got in a litter of two week old kittens.
You know, at the end of the day, if they're
not taken out, we're going to use an atom, right,
So we take what we can. If we take those kittens,
we get them into foster care. So fostering directly saves
lives by giving cats a chance, giving them that time
that they might not otherwise get.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you about fostering kittens. You have a DIY,
so you get calls from shelters. Then you have like
groups of people that volunteer and do some of them
just know how to care for kittens? Do you give
them a little do they have a class? How do
they know.
Speaker 4: Well a couple of day. I mean if we get
a call about like the one week old, two week old,
even up to three week old, I mean that that's
a really vulnerable age and there's not much room for error.
So we fortunately do have some experienced fosters who will
immediately take those in and then we also try to
groom some of our other foster care providers that maybe
are familiar with taking kittens that are a little bit older,
you know, in less time intensive ones that draps are
eating on their own, but we try to mentor them
into showing them how to bottle feed, what to look for,
how to keep those very you know, small, fragile, frail
kittens and that vulnerable age alive. So and I also
have been involved in in doing classes even for a
local shelter for their their own staff and their foster
care providers. Because you know, one thing I say in
those classes is no human was born knowing how to
take care of a newborn kid, right, We all had
to learn somewhere and somehow. The good news is there's
a lot more resources online now than there were something
years ago. Oh yeah, well I first started fostering. I
mean you can literally just do an interest in that
search how do I care for an orphan kitten? I
found a kitten? What do I do? You can put
that into your into your browser and you will get
pages and videos about everything you know from how you
know how to feed, what to feed, when to feed.
So that's the good news. There's just a lot more
information out there than they used to be.
Speaker 2: Which is a good thing for so many reasons. We're
going to take up short break. We'll be right back, Molly.
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Speaker 3: Let's talk past it.
Speaker 1: Let's radio headline Radio.
Speaker 6: Petlight radio dot com.
Speaker 2: Welcome back everyone. We're talking to Debra. She is a
volunteer at Helen Sanders Cat Pause. So we're talking about fosters. So, Deborah,
what do you think are some misconceptions people have when
they think about fostering. And you foster kittens, but you
also foster cats.
Speaker 4: Correct, Yeah, we actually have foster needs for everything from
newborn kittens to cats that have terminal medical diagnoses. To
be honest, we've taken in you know, what we call
hospice and phosphus hospice fostering, so it kind of runs
the gamut. But I think one of the objections or
concerns I hear most often from people is that all
I couldn't foster I couldn't give them up, yes, which
is I get it, and I hear that, but it also,
you know, makes me want to just bang my head
into the world because like that scenario I just outlined
a few minutes ago, I can't give them up versus
they're going to die in a shelter. To me that
you know, there's no choice there.
Speaker 2: I understand. I almost think of it as you know what,
think of it as a guest in your home for
a short while, that's all. And if you can't give
the cat up and the cats able to be adopted,
then you just you know, open your hearts, even the
arms even wider.
Speaker 4: And that happens. And we do have posters. I mean,
you know, I've kept you know, I plus died a
lot of cats, so twenty two years or whatever, and
I wound up keeping a couple and in mostly situations
where they had some medical issue and they weren't readily
adaptable anyway, and it's like whatever, they're just they're never leaving, right,
And I get that, and I'm not unsympathetic to that
position about getting attached, But like I said, you know,
when the choice is if that cat doesn't have a foster,
that cat might not have a life. Then I think
that requires a reframing in the way we think of
our role as fosters, and I think of it as
you know, like maybe a healthcare worker that's working in
like you know, a rehabilitation facility for someone you know,
who's been injured or whatnot. You take care of that person.
You might come really attached, you become really close. You're
helping that person, but they're not going to live there.
You're you're just part of the journey on the way
to a life. You know. You're just kind of a
way station on the way. You're the bridge between that
cat hat not having a life at all, of that
cat's life being ended, and that cat going on to
find their eventual home, you know, forever all. And so
I like to think then again, it's a it's a
little bit of a psychological shift that I think is
important for foster care providers to attain to think of
themselves in that way. They're they're you know, it's hard
not to get attached, especially when you're up night after
night with sick kittens and you know, you almost lose them,
and you're medicating them around the clock and you're feeding them.
Of course you're going to get attached. My goodness, there
is you know, there's a huge emotional investment. But the
goal of all of that is so that they have
a life and they get to go on and live.
Speaker 2: It right, and you'll get past it, I know, most
of us. I mean, if you're an adult, unfortunately, you've
probably lost a life that's you know, somebody close to
you or or fur babe at some point. And it's hard.
It is really hard. We you know, you have your
memories and you grow from that and then keep getting
That's what I think. But easier said than done. Okay,
what about expenses now, cat pods, did they cover any
of the expenses for fostering and how does that work?
Speaker 4: Yeah? You sit them slowly and that actually that's one
of the really nice things about fostering with us anyway,
and a lot of organizations too. But well, yeah, we
cover everything. We cover food, We cover any you know,
meta with veterinary here that the cat maybe any medications.
I mean most people have like some supplies like the
litter box and whatnot. But if they don't, we provide
that too. You know, we provide these pop up Canada's
playpens for the very small kids to keep them in
a more confined area and make it easier for people
to claim, especially when they're very very little, so that they,
you know, don't get into things. We provide, you know,
whatever tools, supplies and resources people may need, including support
of our more experienced foster team.
Speaker 2: Okay, and let's talk about what if you want a foster,
but you already have cats or dogs in your home.
Speaker 4: Which is I think pretty much all of our fosters
already have their own animals, they're resident animals. So what
we require, especially for very small kittens, you know, the
very very young, they need to be quarantined somehow for
a couple of weeks because you don't know what they
might have. And also somebody's resident pet might be fine,
but might be like a carrier of something and not
even know it. But that would be devastating to an undeveloped,
one week old kidden immune system. Right, So we request
that people keep the cats in a separate room, at
least initially for a couple of weeks. A bathroom. Separate
bathroom is grady. And if they do not have an
extra room or bathroom, you know, some people just have
a you know, some of our trusters just have a
one bedroom apartment and in one bathroom that's where that
pop up canvas playpen comes in, which can be you know,
found online and there, you know, again, we provide them
and it's it's essentially folds. It's hard to describe, you know,
without pictures, but it's just a pop up playpen with
a zip top and mesh sides and a mesh top,
and it's easily cleanable. You can put a box, you
can put their food. I mean some of these are
quite gay. Some are like four feet across, and you
can keep the kittens confined in there and away from
the resident pets.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's all great ideas. So before we talk about
spain neutering, which is also offered by Cat Paws, let's
talk about a story. Do you have a story you
can share of a rescue or a foster or a
cat that fountain it's forever home.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, there's thousands, early I'm trying. One that we
continue to celebrate is of a cat named Benny that
we named them Benny. His foster named him Benny actually,
and some years back he was brought into the local,
the shelter that we deal with the most, and by
a family member, a grandma, and that was living in
the house. And he had been just terribly, terribly abused
by allegedly the boyfriend, you know, her multi generation house,
her daughter's word friend. And he had it's kind of grim,
but he had broken jaw, broken pelvis, he'd had old
injuries and he was only seven months old when he
when she brought him in because she knew that this
guy was eventually just going to kill him.
Speaker 2: Let me just say, there's a special place and how
for these people that abuse him was like that, that
is just well the abuse kids too and women, and
I mean we can go on.
Speaker 4: But old kitten, yeah, I mean entire kitten. It was
filled with with that kind of terror of being thrown
and kicked and in any event, So she, you know,
thankfully this with the elder metriarch of that family, just
finally just brought him in. They knew, I mean they did,
the you know, the DA knew, and but no one
in the household was willing to testify. I'm sure you know,
there was who knows what kind of threats and violence
with being visited upon the human members of that household.
So unfortunately, after months and months and months of holding
Benny's evidence and investigating the case, they they finally decided
they could really no longer successfully prosecute it. But in
any event, the shelter stabilized them. He couldn't walk when
he first came in. They they did some initial surgery
and medical intervention to stabilize him. He was held for
oh wow, I'm trying six eight months, I can't remember,
as evidence.
Speaker 2: At the shelter.
Speaker 4: At the shelter, and as soon as the evidence hold
was up and they determined they couldn't do anything more
about the prosecution, we took him out. We got him
into surgery to help with the public fractures. We took him.
We actually had to first take him to a cardiologist
because he had a heart murmur that the cardiologists attributed
to traumatic chronic stress. Oh my gosh, yeah, I mean
they literally broke his heart, right, yeah, So we had
to get that checked out before he could undergo surgery. So,
in any event, long story, his foster care provider, predictably right,
you know where this is going, she kept him. She
still has him. He's extraordinarily loved. She takes him out
in a stroller. He's well known in the neighborhood. He's
actually a very outgoing cat. He loves people and loves
to be pettant and loves to be the center of attention,
which you know, given his history, is I think remarkable.
And he's he's kind of our ambassador of resilience and
hope and the healing power of love.
Speaker 2: That is an incredible story, that's amazing.
Speaker 4: And we throw a party for him every year, and
it's a it's a birthday party, but it's also just
kind of a love your pet party. Is what we
know is to just remind people, you know, it's a
fun time. It's a fun afternoon you're at in the summer.
It will be coming up in a couple of months
lest than a couple of months. Actually, fun time near
the beach afternoon, you know, raffles, vendors, games, face painting,
you know, for kids, it's the whole thing. But there's
a serious message underneath it too, about how to treat
your how to treat your animals, and to celebrate overcoming
that kind of abuse and trauma.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a wonderful story. We have a few minutes
I have a couple more questions. Now, you have a
good spay and neuter program that you have, there's a
good pat Plots has a good SPAN neuter program, let's
talk about and it's low cost. So let's talk about
if people don't live in southern California, what do you
suggest to them as far as SPAN neuter. I know
that there's various places. There's also the main society does
offer some of the main societies does do offer low cost.
So you have to look around. But what else do
you suggest? And why is SPAN neuter is so important?
Speaker 4: Well, span neuter and you've always promoted SPAN neuter reased
to do vouchers. We came out of the legacy of
trapped neuter return right and so we finally put in
place a few years ago our own modest clinic program
to help with that effort. But around the country it's
so important for that Looping back to the kitten season
we talked about now all those homeless letters, what to
do with all those kittens, all those kittens that don't survive.
Let's get ahead of that problem, and spain neuter is
foundational to trying to get ahead of in preventing that
kind of suffering and needless depth, and people might have
to do some digging, and it's very it's very location
specific what resources are out there, and they might have
to do a little bit and you know, digging on
the internet and just that low cost Spaine nooter on
your knee or put in their zip code, put in
their city, maybe called call their local shelter, and if
their local shelter doesn't offer anything, they may be able
to connect them with organizations, private nonprofit organizations that might
be able to help them with the cost.
Speaker 2: Yes, very true. I actually, for one cat, I couldn't
catch that cat. So I found out through some you know,
social media, a cat catcher who kind of like a
drop trap or widely kyote, you know, the coyote. And
so it's yeah, and I thought, no way she's going
to get this, get this mom and cat and to
have no more babies. No way she's going to get
this cat bigs And while oh it's like twenty minutes
and very reasonable, it would have been you know, tiny
savings if I had gone to Remaine Society. A lot
of the people that do this special catching if you
can't that you know, have special services, their fees are
only a tiny bit more than what it might cost
for regular spay and neuter at a clinic that has
low cost, and they have set appointments, so as you
might have to wait to get your you know, kitty
spe and neutered at a certain time, they have standing appointment.
So you know, since for my cat, I couldn't catch her,
not even at a specific time. You know, if I
had to be there Monday at two, I couldn't have
her my you know, say twelve or one o'clock. It
was never so it was a no brainer for me.
I could not catch her. I caught a raccoon twice,
baby daddy ones but no so, but they do wonders
and I strongly advise looking on social media. One more question,
how would people go about starting a foster group?
Speaker 4: Well, I think it's it helps to obviously be willing,
it helps to have some funding in place somewhere. It
does cost money. I mean, our decterinary expenses is probably
the biggest single wine item expense. But if someone doesn't
want to, you know, start their their own rescue, which
is significant undertaking, they can foster themselves for an organization
or shelter shelters and organizations always need fosters. So I
would suggest that someone first, if they're interested in the
old fostering experience, first talk to an established organization or
to their own local public shelter about fostering to find
and do it under the auspice of that organization, to
learn more about what exactly it is, what it entails,
and then if they want to go on to start
their own no foster based rescue, the level of that
idea of what that really means.
Speaker 2: Okay, thank you, Debra. And where can listeners find out
more about the Helen Sanders cat pause. You know, if
they're in southern California, they could volunteer, they could foster, adopt,
or even donate.
Speaker 4: That would be fabulous. It is helensanderscatpaus dot com. We
are in the Long Beach roll with Orange County, California area.
Speaker 2: Okay, perfect, Thank you so much for coming on Catitude.
Speaker 4: We've covered a lot. I just want to thank you
for having me on and talking about this important issue
and getting out there and saving some lots.
Speaker 2: I hope you enjoyed this episode of Catatude. Anytime we're
talking about rescue, TNR, adoption and fostering. TNR, TNR tn R.
It's just near and dear to my heart. All of
my cats found me at one time. You know, I
had five. Now I have Dennis, Molly and Charlotte. Dennis
was pretty sure he was abandoned because he knew the
sound of refrigerator and you're feral cats or communion cats
don't know the sound of refrigerator. Charlotte sat out in
front of my front door for about three months, and
she's a misunderstood pitty, but you know we have to
take care of her. Mollie's the diva that was born
right on my doorstep. So Sammy is in cat heaven.
That was her mama and her baby daddy Jethrow moved
on to other places. And so thank you for all
my cats. Thank you again to Deborah Feline mcgaudee for
coming on Catitude. Thank you listeners for listening to Catatude
all these years. I so appreciate it. And thank you,
of course to Mark Winter because this would not be
the same without the magic of Mark Winter. Thank you Mark,
and remember lose the attitude, have Catitude.
Speaker 3: Let's Talk pets every week on demand only on Petlifradio
dot com.