Clinic Offers Portable Health Care For Cats

02:50 PM CDT on Friday, June 25, 2004

By ALINE McKENZIE / The Dallas Morning News

From rows of covered cages comes a chorus of meows, yowls and hisses. Every now and then, a paw peeks out, sometimes armed with extended claws.

These are not happy cats.

But it's for their own good. For feral cats, a short, stressful period pays off with a stable, healthier life.

And KittiCo, a nonprofit group, has come up with a new way to handle cat overpopulation: a 28-foot-long RV that's been fitted out as a mobile spay/neuter clinic.

"It was an enormous commitment for us," says executive director Angie Thomas. The group bought the clinic and a van for $52,370, using grants and donations.

The group wanted to get its own clinic, because other clinics couldn't handle the sheer numbers of cats they bring in, Ms. Thomas says. The 7-year-old organization has been responsible for neutering more than 14,000 cats in the last five years.

The clinic made its debut recently when the group's volunteers did a massive trapping and surgery operation.

KittiCo gets its cats two ways. People borrow traps and bring the cats in, or volunteers work an area.

One apartment complex in northeast Dallas provides primo cat turf. There's underbrush near a creek, plus dens under concrete walkways and open utility closets, providing ample water and shelter for dozens of cats.

Residents help take care of the cats by providing food, says resident Dianne Aday, 56. "There's a lot of people who chip in and help, even the children," she says. "I've gotten homes for quite a few of them."

As wily as a wild cat is, it doesn't take much to catch one. They're suckers for a little smelly food in a trap, and they walk willingly into the cage. Draping a towel or sheet over the box generally calms them, although there's still some rustling and loud meowing.

"The ones that talk are generally less feral," Ms. Thomas says. "That's the way they communicate with humans, and most ferals aren't interested in communicating with humans."

The cages nearly fill the van's shelves, which can hold 36 crates, and then it's off to the clinic.

Currently, the RV is on private property in southeast Dallas County that the owner is letting KittiCo use.

KittiCo has days when people can drop off cats at selected sites, and volunteers will take the animals to the clinic. To get drop-off times and sites, call 214-826-6903.

The RV is split into two rooms – one filled with shelves to hold the cages of pre-and post-operative kitties, plus a table to prep them for surgery, and a tiny operating room that barely holds two people.

This day, vet Cindy Skidmore and techs Lanell Atkinson and Stacy Soileau are on the job.

The techs give the cats a sedative – an apparently painful shot that makes them hiss and scratch. "Sorry, pumpkin," Ms. Atkinson tells a black cat.

For the males, the sedative is all that's needed for the neutering, which lasts only a few seconds.

The females require an inhaled anesthetic and a surgery that lasts a few minutes, through an incision about the length of a fingernail.

Cat after cat crosses the table, their tummies shaved by the techs, ready for surgery.

"I dream of doing surgery in my sleep," Dr. Skidmore says. "I wake up tired."

The cats also get vaccinated, de-wormed and in some cases, checked for the feline leukemia virus. The stitches will dissolve, so no follow-up is necessary.

In addition, the ferals that will be released have the tip of an ear cut off, so it'll be easy to tell whether they're neutered if they're re-trapped. Other cats go to foster homes for eventual adoption.

Ms. Atkinson finishes up each surgery with a kiss, as she puts the limp cats back in their cages. They'll stay in the van overnight, with someone to check on them, before being returned the next day.

In the first week, doing surgery on two days, Dr. Skidmore performed more than 100 operations, with about 75 of them for females. In three weeks, they did more than 400, with one death of a cat that was in poor health.

Trap-neuter-release programs are better for an area than trapping and euthanizing, many groups argue. If wild cats are killed, then other cats just move in and fill the ecological niche.

Neutered cats stay in the territory, preventing intact cats from moving in, and not producing kittens. And because they're vaccinated, they act as a buffer to help keep rabies away from humans.

Despite its wheels, the clinic will stay parked where it is, with the group bringing the cats to it.

But the group does travel to other cities to help groups set up trap-neuter-release programs, and will take the clinic on the road for those events.

"It's not just about the numbers," Ms. Thomas says. "We are trying to stop the overpopulation, but these cats deserve the same care my cat at home gets."

E-mail: amckenzie@dallasnews.com

RESOURCES

For more information on KittiCo's feral cat program, go to www.kittico.org, e-mail feral_cat@kittico.org, or call 214-826-6903, ext.2.