The Community Cats Podcast

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.

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

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

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)

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.

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.

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!

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.

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

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 quaran

Interview! Tina Traster, Award-winning Filmmaker, Writer, and Documentarian of “Catnip Nation” “There are people taking care of community cats, but it begs the question: who is taking care of those people?”  Tina Traster is an award-winning journalist and filmmaker. Her written pieces have been featured in a multitude of publications, including a regular segment for the New York Post, and her films have won awards at film festivals across the globe. She has noticed a theme of rescue, caretaking, and advocacy in her last three projects—“This House Matters,” a 30 minute documentary on historic preservation in the Hudson River Valley; her award-winning memoir Rescuing Julia Twice: A Mother’s Tale of Russian Adoption and Overcoming Reactive Attachment Disorder; and her current project, “Catnip Nation,” a series of vignettes about feral colony caretakers. Tina hopes that the film will spark a movement towards better, more consistent legislation surrounding community cats.   Tina is currently trying to raise $6,000

Interview! Rosemarie Crawford, Director of Educational Programs, National Kitten Coalition After her first experience fostering bottle babies with acute health issues, Rosemarie’s colleagues realized she was a natural and nudged her towards a career in animal welfare. She worked as a vet tech in Illinois, and subsequetly became a foster coordinator. This eventually led to her current position as the Director of Educational Programs or the National Kitten Coalition, where she facilitates outreach workshops based on specific shelter needs. In this episode, Rosemarie discusses the obstacles facing kitten care and adoption in shelters, as well as the ever-present subject of avoiding burnout for both foster coordinators and volunteers.   For more information, visit kittencoalition.org or the Coalition’s Facebook page. To download their Kitten Nursery Manual, click here.

Interview! Tracie Hotchner, Author, The Cat Bible and Radio Pet Lady “The point is to reach people and influence their hearts and minds in ways that are really meaningful.” Tracie is a premiere podcast presence, supporting the education and wellness of cats. She is the author of The Cat Bible: Everything Your Cat Expects You to Know as well as producer and host of NPR’s show “Dog Talk (and Kitties Too!)”. Tracie is currently organizing the New York Cat Film Festival, which offers short films and documentaries about cats and the people who love them. The festival will travel to select cities with a philanthropic mission to raise education and funding for local rescues and shelters. As Stacy refers to her, Tracie is ‘an outreach queen’ who greatly values the importance of story-telling to improve the landscape of animal welfare. To explore further, visit radiopetlady.com and catfilmfestival.com.

Interview! Mike Fry, Founder and Senior Consultant at No Kill Learning “The killing that takes place is harmful and costly and damaging.” Mike was raised in a family of animal welfare activists who opened the first no-kill shelter in Minnesota in 1977. After working for Fortune 500 companies in the technology field, he decided to dedicate his shelter experience to end unnecessary euthanasia in local shelters. Mike hosts Just One Day every June 11th, which provides nationwide shelters and animal control organizations the educational opportunity to practice a no-kill philosophy for one trial day. Participants are invited to change their strategies by taking the no-kill pledge. Mike also discusses the negative repercussions of killing in shelters, from high volunteer turnover to questionable shelter ethics.   For more information, visit nokilllearning.net and justoneday.ws.

Interview! Susan Linker, Co-founder of Our Companions Animal Rescue “We’ve come a long way with spay and neuter in our area.” Susan is the co-founder of Our Companions Animal Rescue, a forty-three acre sanctuary in Ashford, CT. A non-profit organization with 400 volunteers, 2,500 donors and plans to double in size, Our Companions Animal Rescue prioritizes creating a low-stress environment for cats and dogs to optimize better health and behavior, hence better adoption outcomes. Susan discusses ways to do this, including using cottages as ‘real life’ spaces for cats rather than stress-inducing cages. She and Stacy also discuss similarities and differences between ‘sanctuaries’ and ‘adoption centers,’ and the belief that both are only pieces in the animal welfare puzzle that also includes TNR, education and public policy. To explore further, visit ourcompanions.org and their Facebook page, or call 860-242-9999.

Interview! Bonney Brown, Founder and Principle Consultant of the Humane Network “Engaging the public in our work is the key to making it sustainable.” Stacy has once again invited Bonney Brown from the Humane Network back on the show! Bonney fills Stacy in on what the Network’s been up to in the past year, such as helping rescue groups to better their strategic planning, improve their live release rate, and ensure their sustainability, among other things. Bonney and Stacy also chat about how the ways we interact with cats outdoors have changed, due to the advent of cat harnesses, pet strollers, and catios, as well as how free adoption of adult cats during peak kitten season can actually help your shelter.   In case you missed it, you can listen to Bonney’s first interview with Stacy here. And you can check out the Humane Network at humanenetwork.org, or email info@humanenetwork.org if you have any questions for Bonney herself.

Interview! Jonathan Rosenberg, Founder of Tabby’s Place “I wanted to do something for the cats nobody wanted.” Jonathan Rosenberg wasn’t very interested in animal welfare—or even considered himself a “cat person”—until he met Tabby. When a stray cat showed up on his porch one day, begging for food and a place to sleep, Jonathan and his wife took him in and gave him a very happy life for the next sixteen years. When Tabby was diagnosed with and subsequently passed from terminal cancer, however, Jonathan’s whole life focus changed. He quit his job and started Tabby’s Place, a sanctuary for special needs cats and cats in otherwise “helpless” situations. Tabby’s place helps about 120 domestic cats a year and countless more community cats.   Located in New Jersey, Tabby’s Place boasts a large, fence-in outdoor area for cats who are too sick or needy to leave the sanctuary, an in-house medical clinic, as well as a wide scope of different programs. Jonathan describes to Stacy his journey towards becoming an advocat

Interview! Harold Rhee, Host of This is Pawprint Podcast  “Your volunteers may have skills that you never knew about. You don’t really know unless you truly empower people to share their talents.”  Harold Rhee is the creator and host of This is Pawprint, another animal welfare podcast! With his wife Nancy, he interviews the “heroes of animal rescue,” such as Tamar Arslanian, author and photographer of Shop Cats, as well as our very own Stacy LeBaron! Stacy and Harold compare notes on creating their shows, and Harold offers encouragement to those listeners who want to start their own media endeavors to broadcast their shelters and rescues, whether it be a YouTube channel or a podcast of their own. Harold’s podcast has featured mainly dogs and cats, but he hopes to branch into other species as well.   You can listen to Harold’s podcast at thisispawprint.com, and keep up with it on Facebook or Instagram. (Psst—Harold interviewed Stacy a couple weeks ago. Listen to her episode here!)

Interview! Steve Lawrence, Co-Director of The Cat Rescuers, and Tara Green, TNR volunteer of Brooklyn Animal Action “I think it’s important for viewers to understand the kind of dedication and commitment that’s required to do this work.”  When Steve Lawrence moved to Brooklyn with his wife Helen, he didn’t know the first thing about community cats. However, after individuals of a backyard colony started showing up at his backdoor begging for food, he began to investigate and uncover the world of the estimated 1,000,000 community cats roaming the streets of New York City. With co-director Rob Fruchtman, Steve has followed the work of four TNR rescuers working in Brooklyn (including co-guest Tara Green of Brooklyn Animal Action) for the past three years, filming them in action for a documentary called The Cat Rescuers. He and Helen are now also certified in TNR and hope to bring the film to wider audiences at international film festivals to raise awareness of community cats and to spread TNR as a global practic

Interview! Robin Olson, Blogger at CoveredinCatHair.com and founder of Kitten Associates “I love telling these stories because every single cat that we bring into our rescue always has something we can learn from.” Robin Olson is the writer behind the award winning “Covered in Cathair” blog, which chronicles the stores of the 500 cats she’s rescued over the years. She also is the founder of Kitten Associates, which opened its doors in 2010. Located in Sandy Hook, CT, Kitten Associates started the Kitties for Kids program after the Newtown school shooting, which provided a space for any affected by the tragedy to come and spend time with the kittens in the shelter. Robin’s own involvement in cat and animal welfare started when she was going through a hard time in her life many years ago, so she is very familiar with the profound healing power that cats can have in our lives.   Check out Robin’s blog at coveredincathair.com. You can also follow Robin’s work on Facebook at facebook.com/CoveredinCatHair.