Out of 40 placements:
5 disappeared
4 do not catch mice
31 seem to be doing very well
#1-7 are the Gardner Animal Control cats - safe and sound after 9 months;
#8-13 came from Second Chance Fund working with Worcester Animal Rescue League;
#14-17 are the siblings our friend Lori rescued from the Malden Diner basement;
#18-19 were two unrelated feral strays from Billerica Cat Care Coalition and MRFRS that we added to a barn we had previously worked with in Upton;
#20-28 were ‘unadoptable’ cats from MRFRS in Salisbury;
#29-31 were cats that were returned to MSPCA Methuen because of litter box problems;
#32-34 were kittens that our president Sara Carlisle rescued and paid to neuter;
#35 was a feral kitten that Morene took home from her vet;
#36 was a stray cat who ended up at the MSPCA in Methuen after Shelter Me paid to neuter him;
#37-38 were two kittens that Kitty Kats rescued from the streets of Brighton, MA;
#39-40 were two kittens that Kitty Kats rescued from a dumpster in Rosalindale, MA.
______________________40 Shelter Me Barn Cats____________________
Here are one-by-one updates by name and locale:
1. Mushy - Very happy at a barn in Littleton. When we went to pick up our cage, the barn owner was at a horse show; we saw a cat that looked an awful lot like Mushy looking out a window in the house.
2. Tiger aka Tigress - Living the good life at a barn in W Newbury. She drove an vole family out of the barn; she has the run of the loft and the tack room. They don’t let her out because they are afraid the coyotes will get her. You can see her video in our Cat Rescue section.
3, 4. Sketter & Mittens - Very settled at a barn in Ipswich. Their owners are a small animal veterinarian and her husband. The cats are not skittish anymore; they are pet-able.
5. Max - Happy at a barn in Boxford, although he was missing for two weeks recently and in the interim, we brought the barn owner 2 kittens that KittyKats had rescued from a dumpster. The day after the kittens turned up, Max returned. We are glad to report he is a good mouser. More on the kittens later.
6, 7. Tiny & Felix - Settled at a barn in Upton. They rarely leave the loft. We are pretty sure they catch mice.
8. Mino aka Milo - Very happy at a farm in Mason, NH. His new owners installed a screen door in their tack room so Milo could see into the stable. They changed his name to Milo because they thought Mino sounded like a fish.
9, 10, 11, Samantha & Elle & Gretchen - Elle & Gretchen are doing great at a farm in Fairhaven. Samantha appears to have run off. Although there is a feral colony in the neighborhood, we cannot be sure that she has taken refuge there. We have to count Samantha as a loss.
12, 13. Juliet & Romeo - Living happily in Orleans. When they first moved in, Juliet was the friendly one and Romeo was very timid. But after they were released from their acclimation cage, Juliet started running around the farm and Romeo became the friendly one.
14, 15. Guinivere & Rosalyn. We settled these girls at a barn in Mendon. They were not friendly during the acclimation period, which was not surprising because they didn’t have a relationship with humans when they were living in the basement of a diner in Malden. We received this message from the barn owner about a month after we dropped them off…
They do seem to be getting a little better. They don’t “run and hide” when I feed them or clean the litter box now. They kind of look at me with complete disdain. Not great but better. A woman who volunteers for Purrrfect Cat Shelter in Medway told me she’s had 2 ferals in her house with her for 9 mths and still can’t touch them so I figure I’m making some progress. Hopefully the barn will be finished by next week and I can start letting them out. I know you probably need the cage but I don’t want to rush it and spoil everything.
After the barn owner opened the cage, one of the cats moved into the new barn and the other stayed in the old one. We thought that was a little odd. Not too long after, the cat in the new barn started leaving dead mice around for the owner to see. The barn owner thinks that this is a demonstration of the cat’s affection for her.
16, 17. Jake & Jim. These are siblings of Guinivere and Rosalyn.We settled them in a large barn in North Easton with an enormous hayhoft. They were so standoffish during the acclimation period that the barn owner kept them in the acclimation cage for 6 weeks. When she let them out, they disappeared for four days. Then they came back, began eating their food regularly and are frequently seen running around the barn. There are no longer mice in the feed room. We posted a video about the these little guys on our youtube channel called, Rescuing Cats from a diner in Malden.
18, 19. Rhonda & Carla. We placed these two feral, unrelated cats in the barn with Felix and Tiny. These cats were not adoptable; they had no place to go and we thought that we would be able to create a small colony. It didn’t work. Both of them ran off not long after they were released. Since most of the cats we have placed successfully were ‘bonded pairs’ (e.g., siblings or at least well-acquainted because they lived together in the same shelter) we tend to think that we made a mistake trying to settle unrelated cats. Many other rescue groups say that shouldn’t matter. But we cannot help but think that resettling unrelated adult cats in a barn is difficult to do successfully.
20, 21 Jewel & Clementine. We shot quite a bit of video of these girls. You can see them in Barn Cat Journeys.
They live in a beautiful barn in Groton. Jewel never, ever came out of a black carrying case that we placed in her acclimation cage. When her new owner opened the door, Jewel promptly moved out of the barn and into a pasture next door. She did not have a very positive influence on Clementine, either, who became increasingly skittish after she was released from the acclimation cage. In fact, neither Jewel nor Clem caught any mice at all in their barn; they much preferred to chase chipmunks in the fields. So, they were healthy and happy but initially ignored the job they were hired to do.
22. Samoya. He is a beautiful, huge orange cat - part Maine Coone - who did not get along with any other cats at his shelter. At the cage-free MRFRS shelter in Salisbury where he resided, he shared an office with Stacy Lebaron, the president of the organization. While he got along fine with Stacy, he had to be separated from the rest of the population to ensure their safety. We settled him into a barn in Northfield, Conn. His new owners renamed him, Chester. He is much loved and oddly, is no longer a threat to other cats. We received this email from his owners…(We still need to find out if he has ever caught any mice.)
Sandy
He is really funny, no mice, but you will never believe this… He has a friend, I have no idea where this cat came from but I have seen a tiger cat that “hangs out” with him. As soon as the cat sees me it bolts, but Chester does not chase him, and it seems as though they sit near each other. He is like a little dog, always right there with me, no matter where I am, he finds me. He really is a great cat.
23, 24. Daisy & Inky. Inky is Jewel’s daughter and they are a lot alike. Inky takes off the moment anybody spots her. But she is healthy and hanging around the barn. Daisy has become friendly enough for the barn owners to pet.She seems really happy. They appear in their own video in the Cat Rescue section of our site and make a special appearance in Barn Cat Journeys (at the very end). We love their barn; it has the coolest guinea hens we have ever seen. Three of them move together as if they were connected. It’s a riot and very noisy.
25, 26. Taz & Salem. This guy and gal came from MRFRS in Salisbury. Taz was one of those cats that never, ever came out of the house we placed in his acclimation cage. Salem was a lot friendlier and even got to the stage where the barn owner could pet her. After the cats were released, they did their job, caught mice, and the barn owners sometimes saw them playing in the fields. Then Salem went missing and everybody was heartbroken. Salem has been gone more than a month and we have to call her a loss. But the barn owner was worried about Taz. She didn’t want him to be alone and when we posted a notice about two feral kittens that needed a home, she took them in to keep Taz company. More on them below.
27, 28. Gypsy & Birdie. These two came from MRFRS; they were just terrified of people. We took them to a fabulous barn with a heated tack room in New Hampshire. A calico was already in residence as were a couple dogs. They get along fine with the other animals. The last we heard the cats were still too freaked out to leave the tack room when anyone was looking.
29 Pumpkin aka Mr. Peabells. Pumpkin was a day away from being euthanized when we took him. He was unadoptable because of a litter box problem. We counted ourselves very lucky to have found him a lovely barn in New Hampshire with a young couple that kept goats and chickens and a beagle that became Pumpkin’s best friend. They renamed him, Mr. Peabells, and told us he had a habit of visiting nearby neighbors and hanging on their screen door until they let him into the house. Everybody loved him until the day he disappeared. We have to count him as a loss.
30, 31. Molly & George. They were not adoptable because of litter box issues. We placed them in a great barn in Sturbridge with a very friendly horse and a donkey as Barn mates. There is a video of them in our Cat Rescue section. During the acclimation period, George loved to sit in his owner’s lap. Molly was a little braver. But once the cage door was opened, George took to the fields. Molly was so beloved that they moved her into the house to sleep at night, but returned to the barn every morning. Then an unexpected thing happened: Molly refused to come into the house anymore, spent her days catching chipmunks in the field and dropping them on the front steps of the house. Neither one catches mice in the barn. Sightings of George are few and far between. Molly remains personally elusive.
32, 33, 34. Cheddar, Cody, Blue. They are living happily in Groton; Clementine is a full member of their little tribe. The mices and birds have left the barn building. Jewel is starting to come into the barn after 9 months. See Barn Cat Journeys for a video report.
35. Stripe. He was a beautiful calico kitten that bit quite a few people, including three people at his first foster home, Sara, the president of our group, when he got loose in her tack room just before she took him to be neutered, a barn owner that returned him about 2 weeks after we delivered him, and me (when I went to pick him up). We took him home for a couple weeks, set him up in an acclimation cage on a very nice porch, and wished we could keep him. But we couldn’t. We also couldn’t pet him. We took him to live with Felix and Tiny and asked the barn owner to keep him in an acclimation cage in her garage. She petted him the day he arrived, struck up a great friendship with the little guy, and last we heard, was considering turning him into an indoor-outdoor cat.
36 Sylvester aka Mr. Kitty aka Mr. Smitty-Living happily at a farm in Abingdon. He was a stray whom we neutered as a favor to the woman who was feeding him. He got into fights with her other cats so she gave him to a friend. He got into fights again and the friend turned him into the MSPCA. We were sort of flabbergasted that a cat we saved could end up in a shelter. We found him a barn home and they fell in love with him. This includes the husband/wife owners, a horse named Centauro and three little dogs that he plays with very nicely. See him in Barn Cat Journeys.
37, 38 Gidget & Gadget- These twin black kitties were as cute as could be but they were not friendly, and a barn seemed like a lot better place for them to live than the streets of Brighton, MA. We posted pleas for a barn for them and were happily surprised when Taz’s owner called to say that she thought he needed company and would take them in. We received this email from her some weeks after we dropped off the kittens…(You can see them in Barn Cat Journeys.)
Hi Sandy,
Just wanted to drop a note and let you know that Taz and the “sisters” (Gidget & Gadget) are doing VERY well together. We closed up the barn and opened their cage on Thanksgiving Day. It was a nice warm day and they were happy to be out. They remained close & stayed in the tack room for almost a week before they found their way to the loft with Taz. Now the 3 of them are living up there together and seem very content. The kittens are soooo happy to be out of their cage. They run around like crazy in the barn and have found their way into every nook and peak down to spy on us from the eaves. The larger black one (Gadget) walks the rails over the horses stalls. She’s very curious. When they run around upstairs they sound like a herd of elephants. When it’s feeding time, they come & sit on the steps to wait, or I find them curled up together perched on the highest hay bales in the loft. They’re all very shiny and look fat & healthy. Taz especially, he’s very fat & fluffy now.
Sadly, no Salem.
36, 37 two orange cats for Max - Just settled in Boxford. When we brought them, Max had gone missing for two weeks, but returned a day after they were settled in. The kittens are currently (as of 12/08) in an acclimation cage in a heated tack room. Last we heard, Max sits on his owner’s lap when she is visiting the kittens.
