More and more often we are being told how "hard" we are to work with. I have been thinking about this a lot. I have been consider our basic rules for the program.
1. Commit to fixing every cat.
2. Be willing to talk to neighbors to find other feeders and assure those who
may not like cats you are handling the issue.
3. Have permission from the property owner, which simply means follow existing laws.
4. Do not let vouchers expire. This is to make sure the cats are fixed quickly enough to avoid kittens. It also keeps recipients from "tying up" funds others may need.
5. Send photos and videos. If you are going to rely on us to raise the funds we need these to do so.
That's it. Those are the basic rules other than best practices for trapping
.
What we have found is that in almost every case we are contacted about the feeder will NOT do those 5 things. We are then blamed for not helping despite having offered free vetting, free training and free equipment rental.
The more I thought the more I saw a pattern. The people who DO TNR correctly cause no drama! There is nothing exciting to post about or report. They pick up traps, talk to neighbors, follow instructions and with in 2 weeks the cats are all fixed ! We have them trap train, make appointments for them or give them vouchers for the walk in clinic and they get the work done quickly and efficiently which is what is best for the cats.
While this makes for boring fundraising campaigns those are the success stories! No one got caught trespassing, no one stole a neighbors cat, no animals were poisoned as they neighbor had finally become fed up with nothing being done, no cops were called, no cats languished suffering with injuries for weeks.
The BEST TNR is boring TNR! We love the fast paced projects. Yes it is more work as we take lots of calls from the caretaker to instruct them and offer advise but at the end of the day we are left with a fixed colony of cats and newly trained caretaker who knows how to stop it from growing again.
We NEVER mind working as fast as the caretaker and being there every step of the way. Remember the goal of a real caretaker and us is to ultimately have NO MORE CATS OUTSIDE!
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