Feline Friends Network

For some time FFN has been interested in the idea of having a "Animal Welfare Advisory Committee" attached to our City Council. We borrowed the idea from London which has had such a committee in place since 2006. Such a committee would bring together interested parties from animal organizations such as the OSPCA , Feline Friends and the Off-leash Dog Park as well as representatives from animal related businesses, from veterinarians to pet store owners and interested members of the general public. This committee would be responsible for considering ways of improving animal welfare for domestic and urban wildlife in the City and would be a forum for animal proponents to get together, share wisdom, and research best practices in everything from pet licensing to learning to live with wildlife.

To this end FFN member and OSPCA volunteer Larry Baswick made a proposal to Stratford City Council on Monday, April 24th. As Larry said during that presentation,

"Its existence would place Stratford in the vanguard of jurisdictions which are seen to place value on their animal population and enhance our city’s reputation for the forward thinking and social conscience which it has earned in other arenas," said Baswick, who told council he had contacted a number of organizations that might be interested participants and had received no negative feedback.

Those organizations include the OSPCA Perth County Branch, Feline Friends Network, the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority ( UTRCA) and Stratford Field Naturalists.

– Beacon Herald, CITY COUNCIL: To address issues of wild, domestic animals

Little "Hope" is now 12 weeks old, and about to go to her "forever home" with her "saviour", Kristen de Groot.

Kristin brought Hope in to our local OSPCA on December 11th, a then 5 week old with 2 broken back legs. Unbelievably, this little ball of fur whose mother had been killed by a car, made her way up a steep hill to Kristen's front porch, where she and her mother had been fed for a week. (Because of their friendliness it was obvious to Kristen that they had been recently dumped by an uncaring owner somewhere nearby.) Seeing the kitten in distress as well as the body of the mother cat on the road, Kristen knew what she had to do. Because the kitten was injured Kristen took her to the OSPCA. Neither Kristen nor the shelter had the extra money to spend on an expensive surgery. So Feline Friends Network was asked if we could help.

FFN has a "Cinderella Fund" for situations such as these, and we quickly came on board, even though we too were afraid the cost of the extensive surgery might be beyond us. However, thanks to help from some wonderful donors, and the generosity of a truly saintly veterinarian and his staff, we were able to manage it with money left over to add to our Fund to help the next shelter cat in need !

As you can see, Hope is now a healthy happy bundle of joy now and is going home to join Kristen's two other rescue cats, her husband and her two young children Dylan and Owen.

(If you would like to donate to FFN's Cinderella Fund, you can designate this through your Canada Helps donation, or by sending a cheque made out to "Feline Friends Network" with those instructions directly to us at 47 Britannia St. Stratford ON. N5A 5Y8.)

In celebration of International Feral Cat Day, Frankie the Feral and some stalwart FFN members braved the cold and wet on the streets of Stratford on Oct. 15th and 16th to give away almost 400 cookies to passersby along with information on trap/neuter/return and the plight of feral cats.

Winner of the 50 bottles of wine

Jim Gaylor, from Stratford

Winner of the PSP3 Player and game/movie collection

Linda Young from Waterloo

Winner of the CRP Muskoka chairs and table

Nancy Davidson of Stratford

So many thanks to all involved in making this fundraiser such a success -- the organizers, Stephanie Theodoropoulos and Sue Pasquale, the prize donors, and all who sold tickets. Because of the money raised FFN can continue its work toward ending cat homelessness in Perth County.

At the October 11^th Council meeting the Feline Friends initiative for using Trap/Neuter/Return as official policy for feral cats in Stratford was approved -- finally ! It reads,

The City of Stratford hereby endorses, in principle, the implementation of a long-term, community-wide, Trap/Neuter/Return (hereinafter referred to as TNR) model that has been proven to be a fiscally responsible and effective means of managing feral and homeless cats. The existing by-laws and Animal-Control contract will be reviewed with the OSPCA with a goal of affording protection to feral or homeless cats managed by TNR as set forth in the Feline Friends Network Initiative.

After the original endorsement of TNR in principle by Stratford City Council in early 2011 was challenged by two area naturalists it was sent back to City staff for study. Staff recently recommended that the endorsement stand & it has again been approved at the Subcommittee and Standing Committee level ("Protection to People and Property Committee") The issue now moves forward to be presented and hopefully ratified at the Oct. 11th council meeting. Anyone interested in attending that meeting is more than welcome.

After a very successful day we would like to send out a huge Thank You! to all the volunteers, businesses and the Perth County OSPCA for all their help and support in making this event possible. We are proud to announce our best results yet as 24 cats were adopted into new loving homes! We hope everyone that came out had a great time and we look forward to seeing you all again next year.

This past Monday January 24th FFN President Cheryl Simpson went before Stratford City Council to present the Trap/Neuter/Return Program as an alternative to the Trap and Kill practices that are presently in use. We are very happy to announce that the city council accepted the TNR program and is set to implement it at the time of the next Animal Control contract review.

The official city resolution reads as follows:

The City of Stratford hereby endorses, in principle, the implementation of a long-term, community-wide, Trap/Neuter/Return (hereinafter referred to as TNR) model that has been proven to be a fiscally responsible and effective means of managing feral and homeless cats. The existing by-laws and Animal-Control contract will be reviewed with the OSPCA with a goal of affording protection to feral or homeless cats managed by TNR as set forth in the Feline Friends Network initiative.

The passing of this resolution represent a big step towards achieving our goals and marks a great moment in FFN's and the city of Stratford's history.

The Stratford Beacon Herald picked up the story and you can read the article here.

Recently FFN President, Cheryl Simpson, went before the city's Protection to Persons and Property Sub-Committee to present our Trap Neuter and Return program as an alternative to the city's existing trap and kill practice.

The story was picked up by reporter Mike Beitz of the Stratford Beacon Herald who wrote a detailed article on the issues surrounding the current situation and the proposed TNR program.

You can read the article here.

Our first ever general metting will be held on Sunday, January 23rd @ 1:30 pm at the Optimist Hall (upstairs), 72 Water St., Stratford (Water st. entrance).

We invite everyone to come join us for a fun and informative afternoon, this event is open not only to members but also to anyone interested in what we do. There will be a brief election for the FNN Board, a raffle, lots of goodies for your sweet tooth, and a chance for everyone to find out more about what we do here at FFN.

This is also a great time to renew your membership or to become a member for the first time and help make a difference in the lives of cats in our region. You will also be able to sign up for committees whereby you can put your individual talent and passion to good use to help cats and to further our cause.

We invite everyone to come visit us on Jan 23rd, bring a friend, a few dollars for the raffle, your sweet tooth and your desire to change some feline lives.

From everyone here at FFN we would like to wish you and yours a safe and Happy New Year! May this year bring you all happiness, health, good fortune and fuzzy kittens of course. We hope your new years celebrations are a blast but we ask that you please drink responsibly and we'll see you all in 2011!

From everyone here at FFN we wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas! With the warmest wishes we hope you all have a wonderful and safe Christmas filled with family, joy, presents and fuzzy kittens.

Hello!

Welcome to our newly created news section, here you will be able to find news on any new development, events and website updates, as well as messages from the administration here at FFN.

To get things started, as some of you may have notice we have been working diligently to update and improve the website. Aside from the addition of the news section we have made many tweaks and improvements to the website and we will continue to add new features in the coming weeks.

Some new features to expect:

• A community forum where we hope to grow the FFN community
• An easy way to become a FFN member online
• An overhaul of the Events section
• and many more!

You also have the opportunity to leave feedback in the form of comments below each news post, we welcome your comments and if you have any ideas for new content you would like to see on FFN please don't hesitate to let us know.

We have created and are proud to present an in-depth guide to aid people in finding a lost cat. We know how difficult of a time this can be and truly hope this guide will help people find their lost pet, as well as give some hope and direction in their search.

We will add to this guide as we find new information of interest in the hopes of making it one of the must thorough and in-depth guides available.

You can view the guide here.