Feral Cat Rescue benefits from Natasha Paterson Car Show

Written By BRIAN LOCKHART

The Feral Cat Rescue will have a new heating system thanks in part to a donation from the Natasha Paterson Memorial Car Show that was held in Shelburne last month.

The Car Show donates proceeds from the event to several local organizations.

Since opening over a year go at their 3rd Line, Melancthon location, the Rescue has slowly been putting it's new home together, but not without a lot of struggles.

Since relocating to the new property the Rescue has brought in two school portables they have joined together to make the main shelter as well as an outdoor pen to allow the cats the freedom to enjoy the outdoors when they feel like it.

The shelter takes in feral cats from around the region, takes care of them, and hopefully adopts them out.

Many of the cats avoid human contact and shy away from visitors while others are quite friendly. It all depends on their past life experience.

“Cats are brought into the in-take room,” explained Feral Cat Rescue manager Sharon Morden. “They have to get de-wormed, de-flead, and vaccinated. Donations are very important to us. This donation is going toward heat pumps. We need two. The furnaces we have here are 40 years old. It will be a total of $10,000 for pumps and installation.”

The cats arrive from at the shelter from around the region.

“A lot of municipalities have no feline control and they don't know what to do with a feral cat,” Ms. Morden explained. “These are cats that people find in their band, or are injured, or dumped. We really don't know but they're all in a bad way.”

A lot of shelters won't take feral cats because they are not friendly and you can't interact with them.

“The difference here is we are set up to take care of feral cats,” Ms. Morden said. “Quite often, in time they come to trust us.”

Ideally most cats will eventually be adopted out. In some cases a feral cat will never get used to human interaction. In that case some of the cats will go to live in a barn. Volunteers will inspect a barn to make sure the cat will be comfortable around the other animals, ensure a water supply, and make sure the cat gets fed.

The Feral Cat Rescue still has many things they need before the shelter is complete, but they continue to plug away as more cats are brought in for help.