The Community Cats Podcast

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Ep196 - Monica Frenden Jun 15, 2017

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Interview! Part Two, Monica Frenden, Cat Program Manager, Austin Pets Alive!

"This is the safest large city in the country to be a cat."

In part two of this two-part episode, Stacy interviews Monica Frenden about the various cat programs available at Austin Pets Alive! She describes the "Fel-V fever" that spreads once people in the community start adopting feline-leukemia positive cats, as well as the wildly successful ringworm and barn cat programs. In order to design the most relevant programs, Monica and her team study the patterns of "at-risk cats" in city shelters and created specialized programs for those cats—mostly, cats with FIV, feline leukemia, and ringworm. Because of its efforts, Austin Pets Alive! has an astonishing 98% release rate, which is much further above other programs in the state with less resources. To learn more about Austin Pets Alive!, please visit their website at austinpetsalive.org. You can also keep up with APA! on Twitter and Instagram at @austinpetsalive.

Ep195 - Monica Frenden Jun 13, 2017

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Interview! Part One, Monica Frenden, Cat Program Manager, Austin Pets Alive!

"We let the public decide what they want rather than assuming what they want."

When Monica Frenden lived in rural Illinois, she didn't expect to start a TNR program. What started as a commitment to getting her own cats spayed and neutered exploded into a community-wide support and demand for feline spay-neuter services. Monica began taking her own barn cats to be spayed and neutered in Chicago, the closest resource at a distance of just over 100 miles. Eventually word got around, and neighbors began to approach her about the possibility of taking their own cats to Chicago. Monica was astounded by the overwhelming need for this service—pretty soon she was taking about 50 cats a week! In part one of this two-part episode, Monica delves into her origin story in animal welfare services, and talks about the wildly successful barn cat program she started all of those years ago in rural Illinois. Monica basically had to teach herself how to run a TNR program—attending conferences and trainings on her own time in order to ensure the best possible care for the community felines. Stay tuned for part two, in which Stacy and Monica discuss in more detail Monica's current work at Austin Pets Alive!

Ep194 - Elizabeth Feldhausen Jun 10, 2017

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Interview! Elizabeth Feldhausen, Founder of Safe Haven Pet Sanctuary, Green Bay, WI

"You would think that there would be nose prints all over the windows, but it's actually people face prints! Everybody that walks by presses their face up against the glass, and the cats love it."

Elizabeth Feldhausen is the founder of Safe Haven Pet Sanctuary in Green Bay, WI, a cage-free no-kill pet rescue that saves special-needs cats from euthanasia lists in the Midwest. She was inspired to start Safe Haven by an experience in her childhood with a beloved cat who had a stroke and who she nursed for five years afterwards until he died naturally. Safe Haven is only a year old, but it has seen great success since its beginnings. Located in a storefront on one of the main drags of Green Bay, Safe Haven enjoys a lot of foot traffic from the outside as people walking by press their faces against the glass. It also follows the cat cafe model, offering drinks and comfortable seating for patrons, who can choose to go into the cat rooms and interact with the cats. There are plenty of cat caves and hammocks going up and down the walls so that the cats, too, can decide when they would like to interact with people and when they would like to be left alone. Safe Haven's design truly puts the cats' autonomy first! To learn more about Safe Haven, please visit their website at www.safehavenpet.org. You can also connect with Safe Haven on Facebook at facebook.com/safehavengb, and on Instagram at @cat_cafe_wisconsin.

Ep193 - Jennifer Smith Jun 08, 2017

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Interview! Jennifer Smith, EasyPetFence.com

"With an Easy Pet Fence, cats are able to walk around the backyard safely without worrying about attacks from birds and wildlife."

Jennifer Smith is a representative for Easy Pet Fence, an e-commerce store dedicated to the outdoor safety and wellness of animals. Easy Pet Fence has different fencing kits designed for dogs, cats, and even chickens, and their innovative design keeps cats from digging under, climbing up, or getting over the fence. Self-assembly instructions can be found on YouTube or on easypetfence.com, so you can have your kitty out and playing safely in no time! You can find customer testimonials on Easy Pet Fence's Facebook page, or follow them on Instagram (@easypetfence)

Ep192 - Book Review Jun 06, 2017

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Book Review! Stacy LeBaron, Host, The Community Cats Podcast

"Get ready for the tissues..."

Stacy is back with her book review show. In today's episode she reviews, Redemption, by Nathan Winograd; Call of the Cats, by Andrew Bloomfield; Cat Daddy, by Jackson Galaxy; and Homer, The Ninth Life of a Blind Wonder Cat by Gwen Cooper. Redemption is a book that provides us with some creative solutions to our pet overpopulation issues in the country and the other books are full of emotion and passion.

Ep191 - Deanna Sanvi Jun 03, 2017

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Interview! Deanna Sanvi, Spay-Neuter Coordinator, Gateway Pet Guardians Community Outreach Program

"We help people keep their pets in their homes."

Deanna Sanvi is the spay-neuter coordinator for Gateway Pet Guardians Community Outreach Program, a 501(c)3 organization serving about 65,000 people in East St. Louis, IL. Many of these people live below the poverty line, which means that Gateway offers a variety of services besides just spay and neuter, such as pet food banks, adequate outside shelter for animals, and microchipping. Deanna says the main goal of the Guardians program is to keep pets in their homes and animal surrender numbers down—when people know they have options, they can better take care of their pets. To learn more, please visit gatewaypets.com, or search for "Gateway Pet Guardians" on Facebook.

Ep190 - Ask Stacy! Jun 01, 2017

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Ask Stacy! Stacy LeBaron, Host, The Community Cats Podcast

"Oftentimes, these folks are not upset about the cats in general, but the fact that they're not being cared for."

In this, the seventh (!) Ask Stacy episode, Lisa and Stacy leave the world of cat lovers behind for a moment to take a look at "cat opponents"—whether those be the neighbors who resent your feeding station or the touch anti-community cat legislation currently enforced in your town. Backed by years of experience, Stacy provides some insight into the many reasons that people might actually be upset about the presence of community cats—and the answers may surprise you. She shares some of her success stories in mediating tense neighborhood situations and negotiating with lawmakers, to provide some encouragement for those of us who may be discouraged by the roadblocks to a safe and equitable world for cats. Don't forget that the Community Cats Podcast is hosting a webinar on June 17 at 11 am with none other than Hannah Shaw, the Kitten Lady! Her webinar will focus on all things kittens and bottle babies, and how to create the best possible foster home for these little kitties. Sign up now before space runs out! Also, MRFRS' annual Strut for Strays will be held this year on June 4 at 11:30 am, at the Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm in Newbury, MA. If you're in the area and want to show your support for community cats and local shelters, please consider going to this lively and worthwhile event!

Ep189 - Bianca Leos May 30, 2017

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Interview! Bianca Leos, Student at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University

"Animals lives are going to depend on me one day, so I need to know all this information."

Bianca Leos is a student at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University. She intends to become a shelter veterinarian working in a high quality, high volume spay-neuter program. When Bianca first started at the Cummings School, she had intended to specialize in large animal medicine. After interning at a horse rescue, however, she changed her course towards rescue and sheltering. She highlights the many differences between the stray animal populations of the Northeast and her native Texas—working in the Cummings shelter has opened her eyes to community cats as a significant population, not just as individual strays. To learn more about the Cummings School, please visit vet.tufts.edu.

Ep188 - Susan Rosenberg May 27, 2017

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Interview! Susan Rosenberg, Director of International Animal Programs at GreaterGood.org

"I am working to save everything from ants to elephants."

One could say that Susan Rosenberg has been managing animal shelters since she was 8 years old—at that age, she was covertly caring for abandoned animals in her backyard and using her allowance to do so! She has received two "calls of a lifetime," as she calls them—first from Paul Jolly to work for the Petco Foundation, after her tremendous success in setting up a community adoption program at her local Petco; and second from greatergood.org, who offered her the director position of International Animal Programs. Susan's work has touched the lives of animals and people quite literally from coast to coast—while working for the Petco Foundation, she orchestrated community adoption programs at stores across the country. It is now a company-wide mandatory program for every Petco location! It doesn't stop there. In Susan's work for greatergood.org, she finds herself in the happy position to help not just companion animals, but wild animals as well. The organization's highly successful funding efforts allow her to choose interesting and unique programs to assist, such as a bat sanctuary in desperate need of a well. Susan's work is truly changing the world and making it a better place!

Ep187 - Laura Mullen May 25, 2017

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Interview! Laura Mullen, SPORE Program Director at San Francisco SPCA

"Ringworm is nothing worth dying for."

Laura Mullen has worked in the shelter medicine department at the San Francisco SPCA for 15 years. Her current project is the SPORE Program, or Shelters Preventing Outbreaks of Ringworm through Eductation. Ringworm is a pesky fungal infection that lives on the keratin in animal hair and nails—one could call it "cathlete's foot!" Though it's not a life threatening condition, it can wreak havoc on animal shelters, especially those without proper resources for treating and preventing it. Backed by the Maddie's Fund, SPORE seeks to provide those resources through treatment and prevention education and research initiatives. SFSPCA takes in known ringworm animals from other municipal shelters and screens them using in-house cultures to determine the level of infection and, subsequently, the level of treatment required for eradicating the problem. SFSPCA then teaches those shelters best practices for quarantining and monitoring animals exposed to ringworm, as well as proper preventative measures against recurrent outbreaks. To learn more about SPORE or the 3-day SPORE apprenticeship offered later this summer, please email Laura Mullen at lmullen@sfspca.org.

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