Posted on by robynhoovenwilson

Cat Rescue Fraud – The Clues and How to Avoid Being Scammed

Just a picture I plucked off the internet when I Googled “litter of kittens”.

NO…I do NOT have kittens! lol

This is just a picture I pulled off the internet when I Googled “litter of kittens” and clicked on images.

“Why is Robyn pulling cat pictures off the internet when she has plenty of her own,” you ask?

Because I want to show you how EASY it is to create a fake “animal rescue” fundraiser through Go Fund Me or You Caring or any other fundraising link.

All you need is a picture of cats, an email address, and viola!

The Back Story

I’ve gone back and forth in my head about posting this for DAYS. Because it’s not my job to discredit people or accuse anybody of anything without having the correct authorities investigating first.

So I won’t name names. It would be wrong of me to ruin someone’s efforts and reputation based on my suspicions.

However, one of our Facebook followers directed me to a “cat sanctuary”. I checked it out because it’s always good to have local friends in rescue, especially if they rescue feral cats!

After checking out their Facebook “like” page and the director’s personal page, I have some SERIOUS doubts that this “rescue” is real.

There are Tell “Tail” Signs

She claims on her fundraiser that feral cats in her town are rounded up by local Animal Control and taken to the County shelter to be euthanized. Yet she lives in a TNR-friendly town in a TNR-friendly County. Her town is contracted with a County shelter that is officially a “no kill” shelter with a 92% live release rate, including feral cats, thanks to a very successful barn cat program.

The shelter’s Cat Director specifically told me that they no longer euthanize feral cats just for being “feral” and haven’t in the past couple of years.

Now, if she was involved in rescue local to her area, wouldn’t she know this?

More Red Flags…

I found several fundraiser campaigns (You Caring, Go Fund Me, etc) on her personal page over the past two years and they are all closed now. She is spamming Facebook group after Facebook group (and other websites) with her fundraiser.

I see ONE CAT her personal page. On the “like” page there is a stock picture of kittens (no pictures of them growing up or as adults) and a video of one other cat being pet by a hand. Whose hand is anybody’s guess. Anybody can save videos off of social media and pass it off as their own. All they need is a smart phone.

There are no updates, intakes, or adoptions. I didn’t see any pictures of feral cats being TNR’ed…and no ear-tipped cats. As far as I can tell, this woman has two cats. That’s not a rescue!

MORE Red Flags…

Furthermore, someone asked her on her “like” page if she could rescue a feral cat and her answer was very evasive. As was her answer on how to tame feral cats after she supposedly tamed one.

She claims to be recently approved for 501c3 exemption, but I have not found her organization listed on the IRS “Exempt” database.

However, I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt that the IRS database is not up to date just yet. But, please, when in doubt and before you donate, ALWAYS verify that they are listed on the database if they are claiming to be a registered non-profit.

It’s Not Just About the Money – It’s About Right and Wrong

It really ticks me off when I see so many fraudulent “rescues” out there taking advantage of your good hearts to help pets in need when so many LEGITIMATE rescues need your help! For every fraudulent rescue collecting money, pets at REAL rescues are doing without much-needed food, medical care, and shelter. Rescues can’t intake more pets if they lack the funds to properly vet and care for them.

Questions to Ask Before Donating Money

Here are some of the questions I ask myself before I donate to an animal rescue…

1. Are they a legit 501c3 non-profit? If not, I personally will only donate directly to their VETERINARIAN or purchase through their Amazon Smile or from their Amazon Wish List (Amazon will ship their Wish List items directly to them)… UNLESS I know them in person and know that they, in fact, rescue animals and that the animals will be the recipients of my donation.
2. Do they show pictures of the rescue animals at intake? Are they posting progress reports with pictures and/or medical bills?
3. Do you see them posting successful adoptions? A legitimate rescue typically posts their rescue pets with their adopters to share the good news!
4. Do they talk about spaying and neutering their pets, post pics of their rescue pets when they are recovering, etc? If not, you may be donating to a hoarder and I’ve seen that happen!
5. Here’s a good one…if they are sharing about feral cats, do the feral cats have tipped ears? That’s a universal sign that a feral cat has been neutered and vaccinated for rabies.
6. Another good clue…do you see the kittens growing up? For example, they took an 8-week-old kitten in and you’ve been following them for two months. Does that 8-week-old kitten now look like a 16-week-old kitten?
7. Do they ever post videos or go Live on Facebook or Instagram (assuming you found them on social media) showing the cats? Do you ever see their volunteers or directors in pics and videos?
8. Do you see the same background in the pictures? For example, the cat room at a shelter, an adoption room at Pet Smart or Petco, etc.

9, Are they listed on Petfinder?

Diabetic cat BooBoo for adoption
BooBoo-A diabetic cat waiting for a home at HART of Maine
What Legitimate and Reputable Animal Rescues Look Like

Jersey State Animal Rescue (a 501c3) often posts pics of their adoptables at Pet Smart and you always see the cat room or the store in the background. You see the cats doing different things like playing or interacting with the volunteers and they are always posting videos! The young kittens are growing up as the pictures progress. Every time someone adopts one of their cats, they post pictures of their cats going home with their new parents.

There are many people locally who know their director in person and have adopted great cats from them, including me (that’s where Penny and Weeny came from). In turn, when you talk to local people in rescue, you often hear that they’ve taken in pets in need.

Weeny on her favorite chair 2013
Weeny (RIP) on her favorite chair-2013

Taming Gracie – Feral Cat Care (not a 501c3 yet but LEGIT) posts pictures of her intakes, progress pictures/videos and stories, trail cam pictures of her ferals, and the only ones who aren’t ear tipped are the cats she is planning on TNR’ing. She shows pictures and updates of the sickies recovering after getting vet care.

She is well-known in our area and any rescue worth anything in this area knows the director personally, including me (although I’m not a rescue). Local shelters sometimes send feral cats to her when they cannot find a solution for them.

The Scammers are Taking Away from the Pets who TRULY Need Our Help!

Have I beaten this point into the ground yet?

So many of these fake rescues make it that much harder for the REAL rescues to get donations they so desperately need! I felt it my duty to share what I know and what I’ve found to help stop the frauds where it COUNTS…by stopping the money from coming in.

Please, if you found this useful, SHARE! And if there is anything I missed, comment below so I can update this post! Together, we can STOP the scammers!

Rescues I Know and Stand Behind

Among the many phenomenal animal rescues besides the two I already mentioned, there are a few more that I try to help whenever I can and regularly feature on Facebook.

Diabetic Cats in Need (DCIN)

DCIN is a 501c3 that works tirelessly to help diabetic cats all over the US and Canada in various ways. They help the parents of diabetic cats with care costs related to Feline Diabetes when the cat owners want to keep their cats but can’t afford the care.

DCIN profiles diabetic cats from shelters across the country to assist in finding them homes. They pull death-row diabetics and arrange transport to get them to safety.

DCIN  also has a network of volunteers who will transport diabetic cats across the country to approved adopters. Their work is tireless and I know their directors and some of their Case Managers well.

HART of Maine

HART often takes diabetic (and other special needs kitties!) whose lives are in danger and works tirelessly to find them forever homes. They work closely with DCIN.

Taming Gracie – Feral Cat Care

Denise at Taming Gracie stepped in to help a few times. The first case was Lucy the Basement Feral (blog post to come). She was feral but living in her caretakers basement because they didn’t know how to socialize her. Most recently, Denise helped me with two feral cats found on the property where their caretaker passed away. She is socializing them and then will place them up for adoption. She works tirelessly to help special needs and cats who wouldn’t otherwise have a chance!

Jersey State Animal Rescue

This is Penny and Weeny’s Alma Mater. I’ve been to their home facility as well as their cat room at Pet Smart. Both are always meticulously clean. Linda, their director, has come to my rescue more times than I can count. And although I get donations for her when she does rescue for me, her help is never contingent on bringing in X amount of dollars before she will rescue. She knows her stuff when it comes to cat care. She puts the cats in her care above all else. As it should be!

 

Please look these rescues up on Facebook and give them some love! If you do nothing else but interact with their posts by liking or commenting on them, that helps, because the more people interact with their posts, the more Facebook places those posts in the News Feed!

 

**This post contains affiliate links, which means we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only recommend products that we use and wholeheartedly believe in!**

 

Posted on by robynhoovenwilson

Fluffy’s Sudden and Unplanned Rescue from Feral Life

Fluffy…INSIDE! April 2018

Did you notice that Fluffy is listed as an “Innie” (indoor cat) rather than a “Yard Cat”?

She Was Stuck Outside in the Sleet

February 17, 2018, started out like any other day. I noticed a couple of days previously that Fluffy wasn’t hanging out on her Queenie Throne in the shed as often as usual. It was a nice morning, but by evening we were getting heavy sleet and snow. The first of four Nor’Easters were forecasted to hit NJ later that week.

I was still outside getting the Yard Cats situated for the night when the heavy sleet started. Fluffy couldn’t use her heated Queenie Throne because Domino was on it and wouldn’t stay off no matter how many times I moved him. He can be very passive aggressive and he had his mind set on using her heating pad that week.

Fluffy is a creature of habit and would not use the two unoccupied heating pads in the shed. She FINALLY went into the shed after a lot of coaxing and treats.

There was a loud bang in the shed while I was in Charlie’s Corner waiting for him to finish eating. I looked over to the shed area and Fluffy ran out of there and across the yard like a cat out of Hell.

I ran to the shed and saw Trouble and Domino standing there with their fur bristled as if they were about to fight or something spooked them. To this day, I have no clue what caused the bang. My guess is that Fluffy tried to jump up to her Queenie Throne and saw Domino there. The heated food bowl was flipped over and kibble was spilled on the shed floor. I’m thinking that when she jumped back down, she knocked it over.

I called and called her and finally found her under a large tree in the driving sleet. After a particularly dramatic week with the Yard Cats not getting along, this was the climax. I was fed UP.

Fluffy’s Rescue

I was NOT going to have Fluffy, who raised her Kits so amazingly and risked her life to protect them, out there in the driving sleet storm afraid to use her shelter.

I ran into the house, grabbed a cat carrier, ran back outside, and used food to coax her in.

Then I questioned my sanity. I planned on rescuing Fluffy at some point in the future since I worked intently the past year to tame her. However, she still routinely turned around to swat at me with her claws out when I attempted to pet her. Up until that point, I could only pet her while she was eating, and she often would position herself in front of the food bowl and pretend to eat so I could stroke her back. Only for a few seconds. Then she turned around and swatted.

I also have Mischief and Patchy still living separate lives inside the house since they don’t get along. Something I still have to blog about.

That first night, she hid inside the closet most of the evening. She woke me up at 2am sitting in her window, squeaking her little heart out. The next couple of days she would squeak whenever she saw Trouble or Oreo out front. I came VERY close to putting her back outside, especially since the weather got really nice that week.

Fluffy sitting on the windowsill
Fluffy-Sitting on the windowsill trying to figure out how to get outside the morning after her rescue.

But the weather was about to change with an impending Nor’Easter. I had an opportunity to save her. I couldn’t lose the thought that if I put her back outside and something happened to her in the future, I would never forgive myself.

Her Health is at Stake!

I took her to the vet that Monday (the night I rescued her was a Saturday night) and she did very well for a feral cat. She weighed in at 12lb, which confirmed my fears about her weight. She, at most, should weigh 10lbs since she’s such a tiny little thing. Siberian, Maine Coon and Norwegian Forest Cats have a higher risk of Feline Diabetes than other breeds, and Fluffy is a mix of one of those breeds, for sure.

And I knew. I looked at Fluffy the past two years and knew she was at high risk. That’s why she was on “the list” to begin with.

I knew to get the excess weight off of her, I had to remove the high carb kibble from her diet and feed her Young Again Zero (Carb), a food she flat out refused to eat while she was outside. Since there are other feeders on my block, I feed the Cat Chow out there so my Yard Cats won’t cross the street to get to the junk food. But once she’s inside and has no choice, she will eat it!

Fluffy playing with a feather
Fluffy loves play time every night before bed!
She Adjusted to Indoor Life Beautifully!

I will get more into that later, but the change in Fluffy this past six weeks has been remarkable. She is in SUCH better spirits and was so good when I brought Oreo, who was dying, into her room with her. Fluffy LOVES to play and I’m able to pet and handle her more and more each day. I’ve made more progress with taming her the past six weeks than in the entire previous year! I am now training her so I can pick her up and fully handle her. We have to go MUCH than Mischief and I did, but we will get there.

I honestly never believed that she would transition to indoor life as well as she has. We haven’t officially started introductions with her Kits yet, but so far the entire process has gone much more smoothly than I ever imagined it would with her!

I got a very strong feeling when Fluffy and I left the vet that day that Penny played a part in her rescue. It wasn’t something I planned or even wanted at this time, but I firmly believe that everything happens for a REASON.

She’s a completely different cat, and I get the sense that she’s enjoying the kitten-hood she never had a chance to enjoy. I’m pretty sure she was maybe just six months old when she got pregnant with The Kits.

Hence, after 3 1/2 years of being a Yard Cat, Fluffy graduated to an Inside Cat!

Welcome home, Fluffy!

Fluffy relaxing with me.
Fluffy shortly after her rescue. Relaxing after a play session.

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Any treatments, food and supplements I mention in this post are the result of my own research and experience. Please consult with your vet as necessary.
Posted on by robynhoovenwilson

Oreo Crossed the Rainbow Bridge-Surrounded By Love-With Me By His Side

Oreo and Trouble 11.1.17
Oreo and his protege, Trouble-November 2017
Too Soon After Penny Passed

I think I mentioned in Oreo’s Introduction about a thousand times that if Oreo were to become terminally ill and unable to care for himself out there, I hoped I would be able to take him in so he wouldn’t have to die alone under a bush somewhere.

That time came March 1, 2018. His official “Gotcha Day”. I noticed weight loss in February, which is much too early for the Yard Cats to start their “Spring Shed”, especially with harsh Winter we had here in New Jersey. He then started refusing food. I knew right away it was the beginning of the end, but the eternal optimist in me decided to try a few things to help him out. Especially since it was too soon after losing Penny.

I first tried Revolution for fleas and Drontal for any worms he may have had, especially since I saw that he had diarrhea. Oreo was chewed up by ticks in the Spring of 2017, and he had fur mats in the areas where I pulled the biggest ticks out of him.

Once he got Revolution, he was able to pull those fur mats off. He had one on his side that he got off, and I noticed he ripped off a small piece of skin. He developed an abscess that burst, so I started giving him 125mg amoxicillin once per day, which was a challenge since I couldn’t pill him outside without him running away from me. We managed to get six days worth of antibiotics into him and he appeared to be doing better on Days 5 and 6. He started to get back to his old self again…eating, running to greet me, hanging out in my neighbor’s yard during the day…but he wasn’t playing as much as he had been this past year.

Oreo’s Rescue

In hindsight, I realize that was his last rally before his final decline. He started refusing just about anything I tried to feed him. In an attempt to separate himself from the others, he moved out of the shed and started using the heated shelter I have under our back steps. That one isn’t as wind-proof or waterproof as the shed shelters.

They were forecasting the second of four Nor’Easters (in less than a month) to hit NJ. They were calling for 10″ of heavy, wet snow, 60mph winds, and widespread downed trees/power outages. I was REALLY worried that he would run off into the woods and die during those conditions . And if he didn’t, it still would have been rough out there for him since he was so sick. so I brought him in.

I got him the evening the storm was starting to hit. He was TERRIFIED. He would not calm down even with his carrier covered with a sheet. My vet came to see him right after he came inside and we found he was in full blown late stage liver disease. I didn’t want to put him through extensive testing and treatments and break the trust I worked SO hard to earn. Especially since I knew it the back of my mind that there was a good chance it wouldn’t help.

After the vet left, I put him in the room with is pal, Fluffy, who I rescued just two weeks prior. He was sound asleep in his carrier and even when I opened the door, he stayed asleep for the first 15 minutes. This, after all of the excitement and fear. That’s when it really hit home how sick he was.

I REALLY Wanted to do More!

He didn’t want to be inside. I knew that. I didn’t really have a choice. After that bad storm, during which we lost power and heat for 30 hours, we had two more Nor’Easters in the following two weeks. I wasn’t even able to entertain the thought of trying to put him back outside. My heart broke every time he sat in the window and cried when he saw his pal Trouble.

I resisted the urge to break his trust completely by giving him supplements, sub q fluids, B12 injections, appetite stimulants, etc. For his sake and the sake of our relationship, I had to go with the minimal treatment of antibiotics only.

He did allow me to cuddle him and even played with a peacock feather from time to time. My poor boy held his pee for the first two days until I got the idea to go outside where he usually went to the bathroom and get a leaf from that area to put inside his litter box. Once I did that, he used the litter box maybe an hour later and used it faithfully throughout his time inside. I must say…he was remarkably easy to pill for a feral cat!

It Was Time…

Unfortunately, it didn’t help. He was at least 13-14 years old, FIV +, with extensive dental disease. After two weeks on antibiotics and one week of him flat out refusing ANY food, I had to make the gut-wrenching decision to let him go.

It was one of the hardest decisions I ever had to make. I really hoped that I could get him healthy and return him back outside. Or at least give him a good year or two inside with the cats he protected and played a big part in saving.

Trouble, Oreo and Rascal
(Outside) L-R: Trouble and Oreo
(Inside) Rascal. this is where Oreo took his last breaths.

When the vet came, I was clinging to the false hope that maybe we could try something else. I know Dr Matt very well. If he truly thought there was anything else we could try that would help, he would tell me. He felt that there was nothing more we could do.

And I knew it, too. I was just living in Denial Aisle to get me through the heartbreak.

His Final Moments

They administered a sedative so that I could take him out on the back step where he used to nap in the sun. I wanted his last moments to be where he considered “home”. Dr Matt and his assistant stayed inside while I sat with Oreo on the step. I called Trouble over to us to say “goodbye” to him. That was important to me and I’m sure important to Oreo. They had a very weird and special friendship. Oreo didn’t react to Trouble because of the sedative, but I have to believe that he knew Trouble was there.

Once Trouble left us, Dr Matt came outside. We sent him to the Bridge, with me by his side, petting him, and telling him how loved he was.

Just like I hoped, he passed surrounded by love, not alone under a bush.

For the past two years since he moved here, I always told him that this was his forever home.

And it is. We buried him in our backyard with his flag overlooking his colony.

RIP Papa Oreo. Thank you for making a profound impact on our lives, Fluffy and The Kits’ lives, and the Yard Cats’ lives.

You will always be here protecting us. We love you!

Oreo's Final Resting Place
Oreo’s Final Resting Place overlooking his colony.

**This post contains affiliate links, which means we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only recommend products that we use and wholeheartedly believe in!**

Any treatments, food and supplements I mention in this post are the result of my own research and experience. Please consult with your vet as necessary.