Serving Barnwell County and it's neighbors since 1852
My journey with feral cats started back in 2014 shortly after our beloved dogs passed away.
Our first stray showed up two to three months after the passing of our last dog. The cat was hiding under my car in the garage. He looked so scared and was moaning in distress. My husband and I decided to give him some food because we were trying to lure it out from under my car. It felt so harmless to feed the cat, but I realized several months later that was a big mistake. The cat continued to come back and beg for food. Since he was a male cat, I thought it was safe to assume there wouldn’t be any concern for them to multiply. We thought, what would it hurt to have one male cat to feed?
Our hearts were heavy after losing our loving dogs. I am severely allergic to cats and knew I wouldn’t be able to keep him in our house, so we planned to keep him as our yard cat. We even named him Lil’ Buddy.
A few months later two more cats showed up under our garage. We tried to chase them away because we thought they were the neighbor’s cats. They didn’t look like strays; they looked healthy. Every morning before I left for work, I would leave Lil’ Buddy food and water. Unfortunately, we were unable to prevent other strays from eating the food. Several months later we found ourselves with four kittens and they continued to multiply. As time passed, we realized we were unable to solve this issue ourselves. No matter how many solutions we tried, nothing worked. We didn’t want to allow the cats to starve or drop them off at an over-crowed veterinary center for them to possibly be put down. We didn’t have to funds to spay and neuter approximately 25-plus cats either. We felt trapped.
Years later, the TNR program comes to Barnwell County. This was an absolute blessing for me. The gratitude I have for this program is overwhelming! My struggle with feral cats is finally coming to an end with the help of the TNR’s trap and release program. They loan me a cage to safely trap the cats, then they will spay or neuter them and release them back onto my property. All for free. This is the most efficient and humane way to halt the abundance of stray cats in our county.
Thank you, TNR. You have been an answered prayer. I hope this inspires others to do the same with their feral cats or at least encourage you to make a contribution to such an amazing program. They have their clients & the cats’ best interest at heart.
Sincerely,
Tammy Hutson,
Blackville
