August 31, 2008Comments are closed.cats
From yesterdays post – TNR in WA
Engaging vets is vital to any TNR program; not only to allow you to secure their support, but also to reduce resistance to the program.
Understanding that vets are businesses helps us empathise with their situation and work to engage them in a positive way. While vets are doing us a favour if they help, it can have great benefits for them also.
Some common concerns vets will have about TNR programs include;
Many vets don’t really understand the advantages of TNR and since it’s a given that it’s not ideal to send cats back out into the street, they may have apprehensions about the fate of the animals once released.
The short estimated lifespan of feral cats (3-4 yrs) compared to their domestic counterparts (10-15yrs) leads them to feel the cats may not receive appropriate care if they become injured or sick.
Take the time to explain your capabilities for caring for the cats once in the colony and your proposed procedures for health care. Assure them that this is based on a considered community movement, not the whims of ‘cat nuts’.
Vets may also have concerns about the quality of care you are providing during desexing surgeries in high volume, low cost clinics. Take the time to allay these fears and assure them you’re not ‘cutting corners’.
Vets who work with you from their surgeries will have concerns about infections from stray cats such as flu or ringworm. They have a duty to protect the pets of their paying clients from disease.
Work with them to address issues of quarantine and how you can best manage any potential risks.
There is much confusion about the legalities of releasing cats. TNR programs need to work within DEC regulations, address environmental concerns and ensure that the large roaming range of the cats don’t put them into protected or environmentally sensitive land.
Vets will also be concerned about becoming a ‘one trick pony’. They spend 5-6 years training to become a vet and don’t want to compromise their professional reputation by being seen as ‘only’ doing desexings.
The Cat Haven has veterinary students visit as part of their training to do desexing and cat killing (30 or 40 kittens a day) in an effort to convert them to the importance of early age desexing and helping cat programs. Four and five month old cats having kittens also helps dispels the myth that cats shouldn’t be desexed until six months old.
Vets can very much fear competition from low cost clinics. Having fixed overheads (staff, premises, supplies) they don’t want to lose business to cheaper alternatives. Assure your vet that you will be doing desexings only and will refer any ill or adopted pets to them.
It’s strongly shown that the vets that people deal with after their adoption are the ones they later return to – being seen to work with rescue is an incredibly proactive way for vets to meet new, long term clients.
Explain that all existing and future kittens will be removed and rehomed.
One of the biggest benefits to vets is that there will be less kittens. Given they are animal lovers with the animals’ welfare at heart, yet are the ones doing the killing, they will likely be very interested in being involved in programs that can reduce cat euthanasia.
The symposium spokesperson from the AVA, Gary Edgar…
TNR seems like a sensible approach, it’s a nice approach because cats aren’t being put to sleep, but it does have welfare issues. One of the biggest problems with it, is that once a cat has been returned to a cat feeder they’re wholly reliant on that feeder. If something was to happen to that feeder, then you’ll have issues. The main issue is that having been trapped once, these cats are trap-shy so they’re very difficult to retrap should they become ill or they become injured. Or worse, if the cat feeder were to die or have to go into a nursing home, then these cats are just a nightmare to try and retrap.
Without a full understanding of the issue, it’s easy to generalise that the ‘crazy cat feeder’ is the same as a managed colony. It becomes our responsibility to persistently explain in a positive and professional manner that everything that has been tried to date hasn’t worked and that it’s time to try something that has had good results overseas.
It’s recognised that TNR by itself is not a whole solution to overpopulation. Preventing cats becoming abandoned in the first place, education on the importance of desexing, microchipping and continuing rehoming efforts also playing an important part. However, we need to implement a holistic cat welfare initiative which includes TNR to start making genuine reductions in the huge number of cats killed every year.
