Dear Friends of Animals,

 

I am pleased to announce that the cat is out of the bag; For National Feral Cat Day we have announced the launch of an aggressive new program to help tackle the District’s feral cat overpopulation problem and to help improve the lives of the thousands of feral cats in the city. Through CATNiPP, the Cat Neighborhood Partnership Program, we will significantly expand our efforts to trap feral cats around the city, spay or neuter them to prevent unwanted breeding, and return the healthy and safely tagged cats back to their outdoor homes.

 

The launch of our new CATNiPP program represents a major milestone for our Good Home Guarantee to find a loving home for every healthy and temperamentally sound animal that enters our shelters within the next five years. I am certain this innovative program will improve the lives of cats in DC by targeting the neighborhoods most in need and by working hand-in-hand with members of the community.

 

The CATNiPP program will employ a management method called Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR).  TNR works because it addresses the root of the problem – the breeding.  In TNR the cats are humanely trapped, taken to a hospital where they are neutered, vaccinated and generally examined. After treatment the cats are tagged, then returned to their outdoor home to live out their days in a managed colony. 

 

Thanks to your support we offer the only low-cost spay/neuter clinic in the District of Columbia —serving animals that are adopted, returned to owners and those belonging to members of the community. The drastic pet overpopulation problem is the root cause of most animal abandonment, neglect and suffering, with your help we are making every effort to ensure that as many dogs and cats are spayed and neutered as possible. Those feral cats that are not sterilized produce litters of untamable kittens. Unless the breeding cycle is addressed now, it will continue unchecked with an exponential increase in the numbers of outdoor cats throughout the District’s neighborhoods.

 

If you want to learn more about our Good Home Guarantee and the CATNiPP program you can read about it here. And if you want to lend your support to this rewarding work, you can do so by visiting our donations page online or sending a gift to The Washington Humane Society, 7319 Georgia Avenue, NW , Washington , DC 20012 .

 

Sincerely,

 

Howard Nelson

Executive Director

The Washington Humane Society