We’ll have our color printer soon. We were gifted two lightweight drop traps, one from friends of mine whose email I cannot find to thank them. THANK YOU, SAGE AND TERRY!
We got some Fancy Feast— THANK YOU, KIM! We still need more Fancy Feast. If you ever wonder what Thundering Paws might need, it’s Fancy Feast pate.
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What We Need This Week
I’ll keep harping on it: we need the equivalent of 2,000 people giving us $10.53 a month. You may sign up on our website, our Facebook page, or send a check in the mail to P.O. Box 1555, Dripping Springs, TX 78620. This will enable us to pay all our bills and save a lot more kitties. Thank you!
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Stitch - a sweet, middle-aged kitty with unknown medical conditions
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PLANS FOR 2021
Last year when the shelters closed due to the pandemic, I overwhelmed staff, volunteers, and pretty much everyone associated with Thundering Paws by bringing in too many cats and kittens in the spring. Not only did I learn my lesson, but I now have help refusing to do so again this year.
 We will be bringing in 200 cats this year, which amounts to 16.67 cats a month. That means I keep the number to 16 a month for one month, and the next two months I can bring in 17. However, it won’t work like that at all.
Baby animals including kittens are born in the spring, which is Mother Nature’s way of keeping them from freezing. In Texas, cats begin getting pregnant this month. With a gestation of 60 days, kittens start arriving in March, and continue showing up—now that cold weather comes later in the year—through October or November.
We’ve taken in 11 cats so far this month:
- Marvelous and Hansel, who were returned;
- Willow who was bonded with Hansel - you can visit Hansel and Willow at Tomlinson’s in Belterra Village.
- Stitch and Fievel, both sweet, middle-aged kitties who need veterinary diagnoses and treatment, and who had no options but kill shelters in Temple (Stitch) and Copperas Cove (Fievel);
- Kitty, a one-year-old, long-haired brown tabby fellow from a couple who rescues cats in Dripping Springs;
- Sammi, a friendly cat from a community cat colony who will need inexpensive supplements in food for life;
- Odin, from a new foster (he’s already adopted);
- Tim and Tom, found by a Dripping Springs Pharmacy employee (they’re already adopted); and
- Mable, a year-old calico sweetheart who was dumped, unspayed by a neighbor of her rescuers. This kind couple took in nine other cats the neighbor also abandoned, got them all vetted, and all but the most timid one are placed.
It’s only mid-January. We may take in one or two more later this month but, as I said, we’re saving some intake for kitten season.
You may ask why we are spending resources on Fievel and Stitch, middle-aged cats with unknown medical conditions. I’d like to give you a logical explanation. The truth is that these two cats were offered to us and we feel they deserve as much consideration as any others. We’ve brought in kittens with severe problems, and we’ve spent your money helping them. 
We have a plan for Fievel which includes a dental cleaning and extractions, and an appointment with an ophthalmologist. Stitch’s first appointment with one of our vets will commence about the time this newsletter hits your inbox. A very generous donor has offered help with her expenses.
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Our TNR Program helps break the breeding cycle
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KITTEN SEASON, 2021
Are we are simply held hostage by “kitten season?” Well, yes and no. Our Trap/Neuter/Return Dripping Springs (TNR DS) program plans to interrupt the breeding cycle for as many cats as we can. Last year we focused on several locations, and finished one completely in northwestern Dripping Springs. Right now we are concentrating on a colony by the food trailer court in downtown Dripping Springs, another off Nutty Brown Road, a third off Bell Springs Road, and we will soon begin trapping a fourth in downtown Dripping Springs.
 When we trap, we get kittens. Some are in dreadful shape from poor nutrition; injuries from predators or mean or careless people; inbreeding—any number of things can go wrong. We help any cat or kitten with health issues.
Our trapping team consists of two very dedicated individuals, both of whom periodically inveigle spouses and other family members to join them. We take requests from the public for help, however, we need your cooperation. We get to define “cooperation.” Please realize that, while you may have very good ideas, and we may adopt some of them, ultimately, we’re the experts.
My favorite saying for TRN is, PLAN FIRST, TRAP SECOND. Otherwise, you have a feral cat in a trap, no idea what to do with him, he’s freaking out, and you let him go. You will never trap that cat again.
If you’d like to join the TNR DS team, get some cats trapped/neutered/returned, or simply talk about this program, please join us outside Tractor Supply, 1711b West Hwy. 290, Dripping Springs, on the second Saturday of the month, 12:30-1:30 p.m. (we’ll stay later if you’re there.)
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Thank you for everything you do for us, and for animals!
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