This Thursday, March 4, at 6 p.m., Amplify Austin begins! This event is Thundering Paws’ largest fundraiser of the year. What we make at Amplify Austin determines how many cats and kittens we can take in and help to a happy outcome in 2021.
Our goal this year is 200 cats, 16.67 per month. I’ve been asked what .67 cats represent. It means we can take in 16 cats for four months and 17 cats for eight months. Since I’m the one with the say-so, I’m trying to hold some space for what I know is right around the corner—kitten season.
Actually, we’ve already stepped around that corner (see the below article for descriptions of our three pregnant kitties). We will have a pregnant cat spayed, thereby aborting the fetuses unless she is well advanced in the pregnancy. These three cats are too close to delivering.
Please contribute to us during Amplify Austin. Our “Power Hour” (our term) is 7 to 8 a.m. Friday, March 5. If we have the most unique donors* during that hour, we will win a $1,000 prize. We have won this prize every year that Amplify has been in existence. Help us keep our momentum!
We have $8,500 in matching grants so far. Match them many times over! Y’all are our steady and amazing support!
*“Unique donors” are those with an email address that is not duplicated, that is, you can’t donate twice during that hour from one email address.
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Thyme and Peppermint
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What Does The Sanctuary Do? How Does It Save Lives?
The Sanctuary at Thundering Paws is a safe place for our kitties to "land" when there's nowhere else they can go. We try to get most to a foster home but when that's not possible, we accommodate them here at the Sanctuary.
 Almond arrived from South Austin to the Sanctuary. Well into her pregnancy, Almond is slightly reactive on a test for feline leukemia. Since the reaction was slight, we hope she can fight off the virus. She will be retested in a month.
We discussed whether the risk of spaying her now was greater than that of letting her have kittens, some or all of whom may be feline leukemia positive (FeLV+.) We decided that Almond’s health is paramount and we are eagerly anticipating her family while she waits with her foster mom, who has been begging for a pregnant cat for over a year.
We had experience with a FeLV+ mom in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. Without the Sanctuary, we could have taken neither that mom nor Almond this time.
 Our second mom-to-be, Penny, came from Buda, young and VERY pregnant. One of our major donors alerted us to her, and trapper Mike Meves simply picked her up. She spent about four hours in a cage with food, water, a litter box, and our adoration, but she was at her foster home before nightfall.
Our third pregnant cat, Yuri, had to be trapped. She's giving us mixed messages, crying when she is left alone, but hissing at us, too. We've weighed her and treated her for fleas with little drama and no human injuries. (We speak fluent "cat" here.) Although she has a foster home that will be ready in mid-March, she'll have her family here. Without the Sanctuary, she would have to fight for her family's survival outside.
She was being fed by a man with early dementia. His wife and daughter were worried because he was so concerned with this kitty. He wanted to pick her up which could lead to a bad outcome for both man, cat, and kittens! If she bit him, the law in Texas states she must be euthanized and her tissue sent for rabies testing.
I often say that I didn't know I was starting "Thundering Paws Home for Teenage Pregnancy." This may be the first litter for all three of these young cats. It is definitely their last. Without the Sanctuary, they would all three continue to reproduce.
The Sanctuary is a backup for our fosters. Family emergencies happen and when they do, our foster cats come here. Often we can find them another foster but when we cannot, they are not abandoned.
Why, you ask, are we allowing cats to have kittens? Aren’t there enough kittens in the world? The answer is that there are indeed enough kittens and we have absolutely no argument with those who will abort them at any stage of development. However, we don’t if the cat is thought to be less than three or four weeks from delivery. Some cats might be thrilled but in my experience aborting a late pregnancy seriously depresses a cat.
 Also, some cats get returned and the Sanctuary is needed for them. A family that had never had a cat adopted mother and son, Thyme and Peppermint. The kitties weren’t what they expected. They've been returned and, serendipitously, the family who first fostered them was able to take them back. They spent zero time at the sanctuary. However, without the Sanctuary as a hub, we would not have had the ability to get them fostered again so quickly and so happily.
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Beautiful Boy Bijou
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My last example is that of Bijou. A man contacted us 9/25/19. A cat was having incontinent diarrhea on his deck and, try as he could, he was unable to frighten the cat away. Some animals just know who will get them some help.
One of our trappers got the kitty to the vet, where he was neutered, vaccinated, and examined. He came to Thundering Paws and, as he was starving, he was very food motivated so it was easy to medicate him in his food. Nothing we tried worked until we changed his diet to a hydrolyzed protein kibble and his diarrhea cleared up completely.
In the meantime, Bijou put up with weeks of at least twice daily baths, many rounds of medication, and being in a cage that was constantly disrupted for cleaning. Initially thought to be feral, Bijou proved his sweet, tame, spirit as, with many apologies, we did unpleasant things to him over and over.
He was found to be FIV+. Feline immunodeficiency virus has been SO overrated as a problem! It is not passed except through sex or a deep bite--almost always associated with sex or territory, which is associated with sex--and if a cat has good food, love, and an unstressed environment, he can live a normal life. One problem is that his immune system may be depressed. In Bijou’s case, this translated to many bouts of ringworm. He has finally been cleared of the fungus.
 FIV+, ringworm, maintained on expensive food to stop incontinent diarrhea, not a kitten (but fairly young), a bit timid: these were his issues. Where could this kitty get a place that would take him, first of all, and that offered the perseverance and time he needed to heal? Without the Sanctuary, Thundering Paws would not have been able to help Bijou. And I know of nowhere else that could or would.
But we are here, we could help Bijou, and we did. We gave him a home for life, people who love him, who are delighted to greet him each day. People who manage his medication, his diet, his output, his happiness.
We are absolutely thrilled to report that a month ago, a man named Sam applied to adopt Bijou. On a Zoom call with four Thundering Paws staff, Sam heard about all of Bijou’s issues, including that he likes a high perch, a window, a heating pad, and toys that make noise.
On February 27, Sam picked him up, along with his enclosed litter box (because he makes a dreadful mess), the ramp to that box (because somewhere along the way he had a hind ankle broken and can’t leap that high), his cat tree, his heating pad, his special food and treats, and many sticky notes with well wishes from all of us here. Sam reported that they are home in Belton and set up in the master bedroom. We eagerly await more reports.
 Without a Sanctuary, Bijou would still be dodging BB’s (one is implanted in a thigh), water hoses, angry homeowners, and who knows what other horrors that the poor kitty had to endure in his life before Thundering Paws.
There are great organizations that take in the bulk of cats from overcrowded shelters and environments. They try to be no-kill. However, few municipal shelters, no-kill or not, can give a cat what our Sanctuary can: the time and care to heal; and a loving home, whether he or she gets adopted or not. That's why we work so hard to have a Sanctuary.
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 Keep watching our website, social media platforms, and e-newsletter for more information on Relay4Rescue - a fun online game in which Thundering Paws will participate on April 10th.
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Thank You For Everything You Do For Animals!
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