Monday, April 29, 2013

Flea season is upon us

Hi everyone! I want to remind you that flea season is upon us. Imagine if you were covered in bees. That's what it is like for animals to be covered in fleas. Fleas will bite your pet and keep it miserable.

I have been researching all the flea products available and which work the best. There are countless reviews out there. I noticed one pet medication in particular that received mostly horrible reviews. I'm not sure why even after reading over and over "It doesn't work!". In order for a flea medication to work, you must use it properly.

If you have indoor cats and you are having a flea problem, the best thing to do is put your cat in a pet carrier and place in a cool spot like on a porch or under a shady tree. The idea is to get your cat outside the house. Next, purchase roach/flea bombs. Wal-Mart carries a brand that comes with 3 bombs (some boxes have a 4th can free) and off the top of my head, I want to say it's "Hot Shot". You will need a bomb for each room in your house and maybe 2 bombs per room if they are big rooms. After setting them and then airing out your home, bring your cat back inside and immediately give it a bath using the blue Dawn dish washing soap. Be careful not to get it in your cats eyes, get water in it's nose or ears. I have experienced that once you get your cat good and soapy, turn the water off and massage your cat with the soap. They tend to be more stressed while water is running. Make sure the water is luke warm. No hotter than that. It's very easy to burn your pet with hot water. What feels warm to us will be too hot for your pet.

So now you have flea bombed your home and given your cat a bath. After waiting 48 hrs (this is very important as your pet needs to replenish the oil on it's fur), it's time to put on the flea medication. And here is where knowledge is key.

Not all flea medications are the same. It's all in the ingredients. Here is a link that will tell you what each ingredient is used for. The most well known flea treatments are Frontline and Advantage. There are new products on the market now, Advantix, Comfortis and Petarmor. Again, let me stress it's important to know the ingredients in your flea medication. Some ingredients kill adult fleas only. Some kill adult fleas and ticks. Some kill adult fleas, eggs, ticks and some do it all plus repel these pesky insects. People may want to spend the big bucks for the latter. But if you are on a budget (and who's not these days?), I am going to recommend Petarmor which is available at Wal-Mart. It has the same active ingredient as Frontline but it is much cheaper. Petarmor's main ingredient is Fipronil. It does not kill the eggs, however once hatched, it continues to kill the baby fleas. It also kills ticks.

Which ever product you decide to use, please keep your cat flea free.



Fosters need donations for medical certs & transportation

Hello everyone! We have a new batch of kittens ready for transport to their new home!

There will be at least 4 of the 6 kittens traveling this Friday May 3rd, 2013. Because the kittens were given to me when they were only about a week old and very sick, not all may be able to travel. We are keeping our fingers crossed though. Here is a video of the 6 kittens who are now 6 weeks old:



You can also watch a video of when I received them below.

We also have another mama kitty (#1295)with 4 babies (I previously posted she only had 3 kittens). She is doing super fantastic and so are her babies. Here is a video of them:



I want to thank everyone who has helped so far. Without you and your generosity, these kitties would not have made it out of Gaston animal control services. If you or anyone you know could possibly make another small donation, every little bit helps. Medical certificates run between $25 to $50 and a special transportation vehicle equipped just for mama's and babies runs $125 for each rider group ($125 for mama & babies, $125 for the kittens) for a total of $250. So we are looking at near $300 to get them safely to their destination.

If you could get each of your friends to donate $1, I'm positive we could raise the funds needed to make this happen. And that is the great thing about using PayPal's donation buttons instead of going through a different 3rd party fund raiser that charges a percentage of donations raised. And it is a great tool to use so not a handful of people need to make another charge on their credit cards. If everyone you know and everyone they know and so on and so forth would just donate $1, we could save a lot more cats and kittens from being put to sleep.


I want to make it clear that we work on getting cats and kittens out of Gaston animal control in Gastonia, NC. There is only 2 rescue groups for them and NO fosters in the area. We work closely with the employees to save as many as we can. But if the funds are not there to provide for the cost of food, litter, medical and transportation, then these cats and kittens would be put to sleep.

Please help us in saving as many lives as possible. Thank you so much!

And let's not forget to spay and neuter our pets!

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Squeezy the foster cat for the homeless man

Yes, this is Squeezy.  Her and her sister are fosters until the man who gave them up with a dog can find a place to live.  She's trying to be a good mom.  She's very protective of her kittens and she feeds them all the time.  She just doesn't know how to do anything else.  She doesn't seem to clean them up or clean up any mess they make.

Because she didn't know what to do, one baby died and the orange kitten was injured.  We are hoping he pulls through.  He seems like a fighter.  He will probably need surgery at one point.  But again, we are keeping our fingers crossed.

This mother cat was turned in to Gaston Animal Control.


Tuesday, April 2, 2013

6 orphaned kittens - help needed for baby formula

It's kitten season and it's coming on with a bang!

I am trying to care for 6 orphaned kittens. They are only about a week old at the most. If you can donate a dollar or two towards kitten formula, that would be great. Here is a video of the 6 kittens.



I also have the other foster cats which can be seen in the previous post. I found out the pregnant cats name is Squeezy. Are you raising an eyebrow the way I did?