Wayward Ranch Animal Sanctuary, Inc.: COVID-19 Operation Grant Report

How did this grant help your organization and the pets in your care?

Ear mite treatment: $22.95
Adult cat pregnancy check-up, FVRCP vaccine: $77
Kitten health checks, antibiotics, FVRCP vaccine and pyrantel pamoate deworming (x2): $150.05

We are so grateful to have received this grant, and thanks to your assistance we were able to reopen our intake for cats with special medical needs, leading to our being able to rescue two adult cats from the Animal Care Centers of NYC. One needed treatment for ear mites and the other arrived pregnant and required veterinary care leading up to her delivering two healthy kittens! The kittens both became ill with an upper-respiratory infection they caught from their mother, so we used this grant to treat their infection with antibiotics. These four cats in total have benefited from our receiving this grant.

How many pets did this grant help?

4

Please provide a story of one or more specific pets this grant helped.

When we saw a photo of a fearful and pregnant cat at the Animal Care Centers of NYC, we knew we had to help her. She was a new arrival there from a hoarding situation, and clearly felt lost and confused to now be in a cage in a loud and crowded shelter. When she came to us, she was thin and in need of plenty of TLC, and with her beautiful markings in the shape of a shell, we decided to name her Turtle.

We moved her into our office in the hope that she would come out of her shell more in a home setting, but sadly that was not the case. We waited a week, but her due date was getting closer and closer; she was hiding in the most unsafe places and we were concerned about the safety of her kittens if she tried to give birth in one of her hiding spots.

We set her up in a large crate to deliver safely and two days later, on June 28, she delivered three kittens. Sadly, one was stillborn, maybe from the poor nutrition she received while pregnant, and we named her Star. The other two kittens were healthy and active. We named the runt Squirt and the larger kitten Crush (after the turtles from Finding Nemo).

Crush and Squirt unfortunately caught an upper-respiratory infection from Turtle their first week after being born, but luckily thanks to this grant we were able to treat them with antibiotics right away and they have both made complete recoveries. They are growing bigger each day and now the whole family has moved out of the crate and into our small-animal room, where they have plenty of room to run and play.

Turtle is still timid with us, but throughout the last few weeks of our helping to weigh and care for her kittens, she has learned we are trustworthy. While she still hides from time to time, watching her kittens explore their new room motivates her to do the same.

We are so grateful to the Petfinder Foundation for helping us to save this family. In due time, all three will be spayed/neutered, vaccinated, microchipped, and adopted to loving homes. We weren’t sure if we would be able to help animals during the COVID crisis, but thanks to this grant, we were able to save four cats who truly needed our help.