Cat’s Best Friend

TIP ME FREDERICK VOLUNTEERS, VETERINARIANS COME TO THE RESCUE FOR AT-RISK FELINES

By Kate Poindexter

Photography by Turner Photography Studio

Some pampered cats might enjoy the luxury of living nine lives, but many others lead a hardscrabble life outdoors. They face injury, disease and predators. Sadly, they also suffer cruelty at the hands of humans. 

Volunteers from Tip Me Frederick respond when people find outdoor cats that need attention. They adhere to the trap-neuter-return-manage (TNRM) method of animal care. They provide food and medical attention, including neutering and fostering for cats found throughout the county. They then return cats to their outdoor communities when they are healthy and follow up with caregivers who keep a watchful eye on the feline friends. 

“We’re here to help people with outdoor cats,” says Babs Wratten, Tip Me Frederick’s president. “Whatever you want to call them—community cats, outdoor cats—they’re just cats that need our help.”  

The organization’s name refers to the practice of surgically altering the tip of a cat’s left ear after medical treatment to signal that the animal has been neutered/spayed and vaccinated. The procedure is done by the veterinarians who have cared for the animals in clinical settings. A network of people, mostly volunteers, work in tandem to deliver life-changing services for animals in need. They also try to help human neighbors develop a better understanding and appreciation of cats.

Tip Me Frederick also assists people who have become cat caretakers as they manage food, water, shelter and other resources. They also perform a public relations function encouraging people to accept and understand outdoor cats that may live side-by-side them in their neighborhoods.

How many outdoor cats are living in Frederick County? Dr. Sara Hoewing of Vet Trek, a mobile clinic with a home office in the Libertytown/Mt. Pleasant area, estimates that they number in the thousands. She says many of them live in colonies, on farms and around commercial buildings. Since female cats can have up to 30 kittens in a year, shelters become overpopulated, so spaying and neutering becomes essential to alleviating the situation. That’s why when Tip Me Frederick calls, she answers.  

“Tip Me Frederick uses their funds for surgical spay and neuter and rabies vaccinations and I do a lot of the … spaying and neutering. I do it on an as-needed basis, sometimes one or two days a week,” says Hoewing. She also treats cats for injuries and illnesses. She says kittens, in particular, often have upper respiratory infections and eye problems. She administers antibiotics and other medications as needed.  She says a large part of her time is dedicated to rescue organizations and emphasizes that there are other vets who make time to do this kind of work. 

The need is great, but so is the motivation among the organization’s volunteers. On any given day they are out placing traps to safely capture animals in need, transporting them to veterinarians in Frederick County and nearby Adams County in Pennsylvania. They visit caregivers often and spend time soliciting and collecting donations of food, money and other resources. They are always looking for people to join them. 

“If you have a talent for something, we probably need it,” says Angela Brittain, the group’s treasurer and public relations volunteer. She says she will talk to anybody who is interested in helping. “We can only do as much work as we have volunteers and vets.”

Brittain has volunteered with TNRM organizations since the early 1990s in Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia. She shares stories of humanely trapping and transporting cats and occasionally finding other animals, either in her traps or eating food she has left out for cat communities. She jokes, “If it’s on my porch and it’s trapped, it’s getting fixed.” 

But she is quite serious when she asks for help from people who may be considering donating time, talent, or money. “If you want to support an animal organization stay grass roots, stay local,” she says. 

The organization accepts monetary donations through its website, applies for grants and participates with local businesses in organizing fundraising events. This past summer, Thanksgiving Farms in Adamstown donated the proceeds from one of its weekly Giving Fields Bouquets to help Tip Me Frederick. Enough money was raised in that single event to spay 14 female cats.     

While the main focus is on TNRM, Tip Me Frederick sometimes finds cats that can’t be returned to colonies because they have ongoing medical conditions, or they are very young and require specialized care. Foster and adoption director Dawn Moore, who joined in 2018 after having worked with the Washington County Humane Society says, “I’m motivated by bettering the lives of kittens and cats. We are their voice and advocate.”

She says she loves helping foster families take care of kittens. “We are bound to find kittens as young as a few days old to a few weeks old needing us to intervene, especially if a mother cat is not around. Or kittens needing help like being very sick or injured in someone’s backyard, under a deck, or behind a store or gas station. We scoop them up.”

Moore evaluates the kittens and reaches out to veterinarians for advice and care. Then she transfers them to available fosters. The kittens remain under Tip Me Frederick’s care until they are healthy and old enough to be spayed or neutered. During that time, they are dewormed, given vaccinations and any medications or other necessary medical treatment. “We work with other rescues. Some specialize in neonatal babies/bottle babies. We support each other in any way we can,” says Moore.

Cats may be beneficial to their human neighbors. Dr. Hoewing points out barn cats are a sub-group of outdoor cats. “They are not like wild animals. They have shelter and food provided by farmers,” she says. In exchange for those comforts, they perform work, keeping rodents and other pests at bay. It’s a symbiotic relationship that Tip Me Frederick encourages.

Volunteers acknowledge that cats hold a special place in their hearts. They are unabashedly pro-cat but understand that not everyone shares their sentiments. To the non-cat people in the community, they just ask that they do no harm and call Tip Me Frederick if there is a nuisance situation. They work with other animal organizations to take action to alleviate stressful interactions between people and cats. 

At their core, Tip Me Frederick volunteers are animal lovers who network with others to address the overpopulation situation through neutering and health care. “Kittens are deadly cute,” says Dawn Moore. “It’s like eating potato chips. You cannot stop at one. But if I can help opossums or bats, I’d do that in a heartbeat. They are equally adorable.” 

For more information, go to tipmefrederick.org.