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Kitten Warrior Worked!!!

One of our amazing Kitten Warriors
Back in April, I put out a plea asking for help and communicated with our supporters about the terrible situation we were dealing with in regards to kitten deaths. 

In our blog I wrote:  Kittens are dying at an alarming rate.  We have one more spring/summer in the terrible environment of this old shelter and this year we are going to be diligent about getting kittens out of this environment.  We are calling all homes with an extra bathroom, basement, guest room, laundry room; any place a kitten or a litter can live until they are vaccinated and ready to get adopted.   Last year 134 kittens lost their lives in our shelter because of the poor condition of this building.  We are done with this. When people drop off stray kittens, they think they are better off here when they just aren’t.  Rusted surfaces, poor air handling and crowded conditions, coupled with poor immune systems = dying kittens

We are not an organization who just throws up our hands and says, “oh well.”
We try to fix the problem that we are facing, especially when it comes to the lives of innocent animals.

Before this spring’s kitten season started we consulted with a team of epidemiology veterinarians at Cornell University and asked how we might reduce the amount of cats and kittens we see die in our shelter each summer.  They gave us some great new ideas and we began implementing them immediately but the number one thing they said was that we needed to get the kittens out of the shelter ASAP into foster homes.   This environment was the problem, the overcrowding and the air handling system and the deterioration of the surfaces were all causing the problem. 

That is when I came up with the idea of creating marketing or branding of our foster program to somehow make the idea of fostering something fun and inviting.  Thus creating an army of Kitten Warriors who can help us save lives. 

It worked!!!  In the busy kitten months we have had 62 more kittens and cats in foster homes.   This has resulted in a 65% reduction in kitten and cat deaths this summer vs last summer.   That is remarkable and all because when we ask for help people responded.

I think our Kitten Warriors is the best team of people around.  They listened to our call for help everytime, they raised the tiniest of kittens needing constant attention to those just needing a nice safe place to live until they were old enough to find homes.  They even ended up adopting a few. This amazing group of people affected major change and helped us save so many kittens.  Thank you Kitten Warriors and we will be calling on you next Summer.

If you want to become a Kitten Warrior email tj@lynchburghumane.org and get signed up. 



If you can't be a kitten warrior but would like to donate please Donate Today.

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