Hello everyone and welcome to the within range coaching podcast. I'm Ranger, certified holistic
success coach. And in this podcast, I'm bringing down the journey that entrepreneurs face as they
start their organization, find solutions to the roadblocks in their way and create an impact that
lasts. So if you're an entrepreneur, nonprofit leader or purpose driven community member that
wants to learn how to grow your impact and develop yourself as the person behind the mission,
then this podcast is for you. I know you're just as eager to get started as I am. So let's jump
right in. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening everybody. And welcome to today's episode
of the within range coaching podcast. Now guys, I've been posting about a certain new addition
to the within range coaching team on social media and that is Julian eyes brand new kitten Walker.
Walker Oak Keelak joined our team just about a week and a half ago or so. I believe it was
May 10th. I had just gotten into Oklahoma, dropped some stuff off at my host family's house for the
night. And I was like, Hey, I'm going to do a few more miles tonight, just to really crank it out.
They're like, Oh, are you sure you don't want to just rest up? And I'm like, you know, no, it's
fine. I'm just going to try to get as many miles as I can. And, but no more than two or three miles
in, I was walking on the side of the highway, editing a YouTube video, singing a song out loud.
When I heard a little meow coming from the left, I looked over, heard it again, looked down. And
that's when I first saw the little black kitten that is now the, what I've been calling the
development ambassador for within range coaching or little fundraising guru. And yeah, no, I took
him back to my host family's house. Um, when their neighbors said that she could watch him for a few
days while Julie and I decided whether or not we wanted to care for him. I said, I'm 95% sure we're
keeping the kitten, but you go and hold onto him for now. We'll go from there. Um, called my fiance,
we chitter chatted for a few minutes and we were both pretty much solidly in agreement that we were
committed to getting the kitten. We just needed to figure it out. We haven't almost figured out
at the time of recording. The plan is that she'll fly out to Oklahoma, pick the kitten up from my
grandma and fly back. But really the today's episode, of course, we're, we're joined by a
kitten and cat rescue. And the reason for that is as I was walking the next few days and thinking
about the cat and the kitten, I was thinking about my experience at the reptile rescue and how I feel
like most, most of the problems, and I'm sure our guests today will let me know how correct I am on
this. Most of our problems with the feral cat dog, um, issue that we have in the country really does
stem from spaying and neutering your pets. Uh, what was it? Bob Barker on the wheel of fortune
at the end of every episode would mention, you know, help control the pet population, get your
pet spayed and neutered. And I feel like it's such a simple, I can hear Mary Kate laughing and,
you know, I feel like it's such a simple solution that really isn't, not that it's, not that it's
free, not that it's cheap, but it's an inexpensive way to really prevent these issues from happening.
And I'm pretty sure that Walker, there's a good chance if he wasn't a feral cat, then he was dumped
and abandoned on the side of the road. And whether that was his case specifically or not, I do know
that that does happen pretty regularly. And I'm sure our guests will be able to shed some light
on that in the region that she's from. But anyway, that's the background for this episode and why I
was so excited to finally get someone on the show that can speak to it and tell me what's actually
going on rather than the things I make up when I'm walking in 90 degree heat at 3 PM on a Tuesday.
But anyway, without further ado, I'd like to welcome today's guest, Miss Mary Kate, who is
the vice president of the Floyd felines rescue in Georgia. Mary Kate, how are you doing today?
I am doing well and I'm sitting here having a cup of coffee with one of my house full of cats
myself, because when you work in rescue, you can't go home without cats. So here I am. This is how I
spend my afternoon, but I'm glad to be here. We really appreciate you contacting us and I'm really
happy to be here. So thanks for inviting me. Yeah, no problem at all. And I don't know, I've talked
about this a few times before, but just how fun and great social media is. I just made a post
ranting about how easy it is to get your pet spayed and neutered to prevent these issues.
One of the gals that's been following me since the very beginning tagged the I think the president
for is that? Yeah, yeah, Chris.
Had Christie and was like, hey, he's looking for a cat rescue to interview. And Christie was like,
who the heck is this guy? And you know, then the the woman who tagged her explained and I reached
out to her and we chatted. And yeah, I mean, just looking at your guys as socials and the work you
guys are doing, I'm so glad that I made that post and was able to find you guys because you guys are
you're legit. You're not just some run out of the house glorified animal hoarder that calls
himself a rescue. Like if you're on the just a minute ago, we're talking about you have a
just a minute ago, we're talking about you have a facility in a building. But we do.
But let's put a pin in that for a second. I'm rambling now. But Mary Kate, can you just kind
of share what your intention is for today's episode and give us a little bit of background
about you? Sure. And I've already told you once that I tend to ramble too. So if you want to
interrupt me and shift gears, you're more than welcome to do that. We Floyd Phelan started on
paper, I guess, if you would say we incorporated in 2015, we were kind of a loosely connected group
of people who had learned that our animal control here in Floyd County, we're in Northwest Georgia,
we're in a little town called Rome. And we're at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains. And our
county is Floyd County. Floyd County 10 years ago, had the third highest intake of cats in the state
of Georgia. And 75% of those cats were euthanized weekly. And, you know, they say that that if you
have the right people in the right place at the right time, you can affect change and you can.
And I think that awareness, if I had to choose what, what I wanted people to hear tonight from
you and I talking, is that is how powerful awareness can be and what awareness of a situation or an
event or you know, in our case, just the whole animal welfare landscape here being aware of what
was happening was a catalyst for really big things to come. And we did have the right people in the
right place at the right time, we had people who wanted our community to be better than that.
75% of cats coming into a shelter and being euthanized every week is that's terrible.
It's I don't care who you are, how you feel about animals, it's terrible. And it's I think a
community can do better. And we had enough people in our group who felt that the community could
do better. But if your community is going to be better, we had to be better. If you want it to be
better, you have to be better. So we sort of loosely formed a group and Christy had a connection with
another licensed rescue out of another community about an hour away. And she said, we want to get
some of these cats out of the shelter, what do we do? And they sort of said, you know, use our
license, you can be a foster under our license, you can pull these cats, get some cats out.
And we started doing that. And we had we had no facility, we had our own houses, and we had
sheds, and we had garages, and we got crates, and we got, you know, we just got the basics. And
that's how we started. And we started just simply trying to save lives, because there were so many,
just thousands of adoptable healthy animals being euthanized in the shelter. And so
that's how we started. But I think, you know, you mentioned seeing Walker on the side of the road,
your little kitten, and I don't even know how many cats have come to us that way. They're everywhere.
And we're in the rural south, we're in Georgia, you do have to fight, I think there's a certain
mentality still in the in rural areas, you have a lot of farmland, we still have people who think
we still have people who think that cats are their yard pets, they're just they're just, you just put
them in the backyard, they're mousers, they're not, they really are not pets. And until recently, we
had zero low cost spay neuter options in our community. But this area, it's not a wealthy area.
With the economy being the way it is, you know, when when people are having to choose between
buying groceries and taking their cat to the vet, the cat's not going to go to the vet when it costs
$250 to get that cat fixed, and they're trying to feed their children. So you have a lot of different,
a lot of different things going on there. For the spay neuter is simple. If we don't spay a neuter
out in the community, it's never going to change at that shelter level. The shelters are always
going to continue to have thousands of animals coming in. So what we did, and let me mention this
too, I think in rescue, we see things in rescue that other people find invisible other the general
public has no idea that a female cat can have three litters in one year. They have no idea that
that female cat in five years time can produce 20,000 descendants. They don't know that. We know
that. Yeah, look up there's something called the cat. I think it's called the cat pyramid. It kind
of gives you a breakdown of you take a male cat and a female cat and they breed and then their
offspring. And if all those cats live and you get down to like, I don't know, in six years time,
and you've got like 400,000 cats, I mean, they don't, they're not all going to survive. But
the numbers are outrageous. They are real and shelters can't keep up with that. And,
you know, shelters, the most county municipal shelters are not rescue oriented. They're just
not. They do a job that they're paid to do. They are paid to take in the animals, find something
to do with those animals. And if they don't have the support of a rescue, in our experience, most
county shelters are as good as the rescues that are supporting them. And there's a lot more that
goes along with that. Yeah. And if I can, if I can jump in there with you for just a second,
with the with the euthanization of I guess, so many animals and adoptable pets, you know, there's,
it sounds like there's nothing wrong with the cats. It sounds like there's just so many of them that
there's no other option. Like what, can you explain a little bit more about what it means to be like
a kill shelter versus a no kill? Like why, why do they have to put so many down? Like what is the
reasoning regardless of feelings, I guess? There are, there are not enough homes for all the animals
that come in. If you think about, for instance, here in Floyd County, we take in the, all of the
animals that come in to our shelter. Let's say we take in, we've taken in 200. Our county, our
community is producing those animals. There are not enough people in this county who are going to
come back and adopt those animals. There's just not enough homes. What we do and what we do and
what our shelter has done is we provide rescue transports. Are you familiar with that term?
Rescue transports, no. Okay, rescue transport means we have, I'll use us as an example, we have a
rescue partner in Delaware and she in turn has a connection with the rescue in Maryland. So we have
an option now, we send rescue transports. The cats have to be healthy. They have to have a health
certificate. They have to be vaccinated. If they're old enough to be spayed, they have to be spayed
and have a rabies shot. We send those cats on, we have a van. Those cats go about once a month to
our rescue contact, our rescue partner in the northeast where this rescue has 30 PetSmart stores
and they take, they specifically exist to pull animals from the high kill shelters in the south.
What constitutes a no kill shelter is that if you can, if you're a live outcome,
a live outcome meaning adoptions or exiting through a rescue transport, if you're,
if that percentage is, if you're, I'm going to say it backwards if I'm not careful, if 95%
of what you take in, the animals you take in, if they leave alive, that's called a live outcome
percentage. If you euthanize less than 5% of that total, then you're a no kill shelter. Our shelter,
did that make sense? Yeah. Okay. So yeah. So if they, if 95% of the animals leave alive,
they're considered no kill shelter. It's a no kill shelter. If they are euthanizing less than 5%,
5% or less of the total animals that have gone through intake into their shelter, then they are
a no kill shelter. And that 5% is usually animals who come in that are two six feet tall, five
six to be helped. They've been hit by a car or, you know, where we live, it might be a raccoon
that somebody found, you know, half dead on the road and brought in. I was going to ask for
clarification. Like what about, and that 5% accounts for the animals that come in that are
injured that are on the brink of death anyway, or have a disease. I know, I know what is it?
Yellow fungus is something that reptiles can get. That's kind of considered a, right, euthanizing
worthy disease. So I figured that that would come into play with some, some other mammals like cats
and dogs. It does, it does. But now our shelter, the same shelter that had the third highest intake
of cats in the state 10 years ago and was euthanized in 75% of those. Our shelter for now,
we have an extra penny tax in this county. It's called a special purpose local option sales tax.
And we voted one year to use that money to build a new shelter, a new animal control shelter. It
has a rescue side, which is an adoption side, and it still has the animal control side. And we had a
fantastic director. He has since moved on to other things, but he created a rescue transport or rescue
coordinator position. They have hired a full-time veterinarian. We have a full-time vet tech on staff.
This is all new. This is all new to the rural county shelters here in the South. This is becoming
a trend that the shelters are seeing the benefit of having a vet on staff rescue transport, because
the taxpayers, most taxpayers, when they find out that their local shelter is euthanizing that many
healthy animals, they all have a fit. It makes people angry. Why are you, why are you putting
all these animals to sleep? But again, remember I told you, people who, we see things in rescue
in this world that to most people it's invisible. They don't know these, they don't see it. They
don't understand the numbers. They blame animal control for having that many animals in the first
place. It's not their fault. It all goes back, as you said, to spay neuter. Everything here that
we're talking about all goes back to spay neuter, spay neuter, spay neuter, spay neuter. And in an
area such as ours, we did not have any low cost spay neuter options here. We do now. Floyd Felines,
our group, has, we started a couple of years ago, we started a low cost spay neuter clinic
that we have a vet who is just a little, a little ways down the road. It's a little travel to get
to him, but he's a rescue vet. He has great prices for low cost spay neuter. He does most of our
vetting and he runs this clinic for us. We pick up the cats from the owners, meet us with their cats
in a parking lot with our van and our driver. They've signed up. They've paid a small amount
for their animal to be fixed, for their cat to be spayed or neutered. And they're transported to the
vet that day to be spayed and neutered. They're spayed and neutered. They come back on the same
van that afternoon and they go back home. What we found out when we started this program was that
people do want to get their pets fixed. We have spent years saying some bad things about people
in the community who, why don't these people spay and neuter their pets? Why? Why? Why? Why?
They do want to spay and neuter their pets. This program, these schedules, these clinics are full
every single time we open them. They are full. They fill up quickly. It all goes back to money,
just like everything else in the world. It all comes down to money. They can't afford,
they can't afford big vet prices, but they can afford a low cost price and they sign up all day long.
Hey listeners, I just want to give a quick shout out to today's episode sponsor, Dr. Deaton and his
incredible clinic, Deaton Veterinary Services in Cedar Bluff, Alabama. Dr. Deaton partners with local
nonprofit rescue organizations and is committed to serving the citizens of Northeast Alabama
and Northwest Georgia with empathy, honesty, and integrity. He also aims to serve pet owners
anywhere in the world from his YouTube channel, Dr. D Rescue Vet. From how to trim your dog's nails
to informative videos about disease that can affect your pet, Dr. D is the rescue vet that aims
to serve. Visit his YouTube channel to learn some incredible and valuable insights into pet care
to keep your furry family members safe and healthy for years to come. His YouTube channel is linked
down in the show notes, so be sure to check him out and subscribe. Let's all support a community
hero dedicated to making a difference. Now let's get back to the show.
Earlier we mentioned that there's like the stigma of cats are kind of those yard pets that they're
they're almost like a tool or I don't know more of like a what like the rat hunter you know like
that's yeah they're an animal that just happens to be useful almost. Well a part of the a true
feral cat is really part of the food chain and they are we have we have thousands of them here
and feral cats you know they colonize and but you can't you can't catch them the people can't even
if someone wants to get their feral cat fixed you can't just walk out in the backyard and pick him
up because nine times out of ten he's not friendly. Yeah we have a TNR program TNR stands for trap
neuter release and we use live traps we have a waiting list for this program in a colony we've
had we've done colonies we've done three cats we've done up to 30 in one area it just depends on
how many they have and we do it once a week we are aggressively practicing spay neuter here and
we we trap the cats we take them to the vet we have three different options with vets for
spay neuter in our TNR program we have a great driver we have a great trapper and she does this
she does it all week long she traps in all these different places and people have to sign up they
have to sign up it's some sort of a waiting list we're still working on a list that we've had since
about January because there the need is huge here but on the other side of that you and I were
talking before you started recording about our barn cat program you know those feral cats
a lot of times they come into the shelter people set traps there are people who don't like cats
and you know I'm not one of those people and you're not one of those people but there are
people who don't like cats and cats are can be a nuisance and they get on cars and they
dig up people's gardens and so trapped cats wind up at animal control all the time animal
control wills they are new to those cats let us know what they have and we pull those cats from
shelters and find barn homes for them because people do want mousers they do want cats in their
mousers they do want cats in their barns you know taking care of the mice and the cats in that case
feral cats who really don't want to be they don't want to be held they don't want to be petted on
the head they want to be fed and left alone and they make great mousers but they have a right to
live too and our little motto has always been that every life matters I love that yeah and I
think that's so I guess to kind of also clarify that definition of a feral cat because when I think
of a feral animal I think of wild not handleable is that pretty in line with what the definition
would be that absolutely is that's correct I don't know because I was thinking like when I think I'm
not sure if other people might think this too but when they think of feral they think of like a wild
animal like a wild variant of a cat or dog but I don't I don't think that necessarily exists
anymore right just in terms of like the selective breeding and how long they've been in the pet trade
like is that yeah you know to say or am I thinking too much no I think a true there is a true feral
cat a true feral cat is is truly a kind of a nasty animal he does not want human contact he's been on
his own for a long time he may be eating in someone's backyard because a little old lady like me wants
to put food down and feed everybody in the neighborhood but he's never been socialized he's
not a pet and he is going to be really ugly and probably draw blood if you try to touch him
that is a true feral cat feral if you look up the definition of feral it basically says wild or
living like wild now there are other feral cat we call them feral cat colonies where say they
say there's a again I love to blame the little old ladies and the little old man little old man
feeds a cat and of course she's either female or she or he attracts a female there's going to be
babies at some point if that cat shows up because there's nine times out of ten they're not they're
outside they're not fixed so you know in another year he's got 30 cats in the backyard they're not
completely wild because as they associate him with food but they're also not adoptable pets so we can't
bring them into an adoption program and find them a nice indoor home and there's millions of those
cats in the country that fall in that category because they simply are living a life outside
and they may associate us with food but they don't associate us any other way with comfort or
friendship or companionship they just live outside and they make great barn cats because they do
appreciate humans for food but that's it gotcha and I think I might have missed a sentence or two of
what you just said because I just saw something that might clarify a question I was about to ask
you so thanks to the listeners I'm so sorry if I just ask her the same question she just answered
but the the different the differentiation between a stray cat and a feral cat I think that's more so
where I might be confused on like is there a difference there for you or for me there is to
there is a fit to me if a true feral cat is a wild animal yes whether he's associated me with food
or not he's a wild animal a stray cat is a cat who in our instance here and it happens every day
someone moves and they leave their cat behind friendly cat now the cat doesn't have a home
he wanders from place to place looking for someone to feed him that's a stray cat but he's not
necessarily feral he may be perfectly friendly he may have lived outside his entire life but he's
got he had an owner who petted him on the head or kids who played with him and he's friendly and
he's looking for his next home and that's a stray cat but a feral cat is really a wild animal that
somehow got it he's smelled the stinky food in your live trap and he got caught gotcha
and um okay so it sounds like that might be the case more so of a stray cat is a cat that like
maybe ran away or got separated or dumped or dumped um and then the feral cat is probably it
sounds like more of like a generational like born in the wild lives in the wild exactly exactly
okay and it sounds like even in that case like even with the feral cat it sounds like strays
potentially like i don't know again i might be over analyzing it strays breed in the wild have
wild babies they get used to the wild and they kind of become feral in that way which adds to
the issue okay i'm understanding the household family member to feral pipeline i guess
because that that's something that i kind of found interesting too is because i mean i definitely
grew up in a more rural area but people still from i guess maybe just my family or the people
around me or the people that i would associate with do you consider cats or dogs to be a part
of the family like you know you get them fixed you get them their vaccines you take them to the vet
if there's an issue etc etc and then there's actually a rescue i met uh final victory rescue
in south carolina and they they're the first ones that told me you know like you know the south this
like southeast portion of the state of the country does have a very different perspective of of cats
and dogs and like their usefulness or their what's the word i want to use like their value
essentially right right and what i think is interesting is that they mirrored the same
thing that you just said earlier about how you kind of ship animals to the like the northeast how
there's like a different supply and demand like there's a ton of there's very economics sounding
i know but there's a huge supply of these animals down here further south but up north there's a
higher demand for these loving household pet family members can you kind of talk about that
difference of sure is it purely socioeconomic or is that just like the main one the main no it really
is it really is about supply up north in the northern states they haven't they have seasons
they have they have a winter they have and they have cold weather for certain a certain number
of months every year cats breed in the warmth they breed in the heat so up north they have one kitten
season and it lasts from april till maybe late summer maybe early fall cats when weather starts
to get cooler the cats stop breeding our cats breed year-round we have cats we have kittens in
december we sometimes have kittens in january and here what happens a lot too is in december
maybe let's say january you know we've had a little snap of cold and then you'll have three
weeks of this beautiful 60 degree weather and the sun shines and and all the cats so we all we even
say to each other oh gosh the cats are all out having a party right now they're all getting
pregnant you know it's just you have to have some sort of levity just to to do this but yeah yeah
of course of course you really do yeah crazy is another word but the north does have they and one
thing i think too about the north is that that for instance the area that we send our cats to in
maryland maryland the area that they're in is close to washington dc and i think some a lot of those
larger cities you're talking about a huge metropolitan area with way more people who are
all looking for pets you know the the the rescue that we send our cats to have 30 pet smart stores
that they send animals to so they they are they're bringing these these animals in and they have
targeted the high kill shelters or some of us aren't even high kill anymore but we still have
so many animals if it weren't for these rescues up north pulling these cats we'd be right back
where we started from you know this is a regular occurrence with us we send these cats at least once
a month and on our van we send we can fit about 20 to 25 carriers in that van and those carriers
hold anywhere from one to maybe one adult cat to four kittens so we may be sending we can send up to
you know 60 or 70 cats in one trip and it makes a huge difference for us huge so there there is a
and i think too in the north they have different they have different registration laws for pets
we have just passed a spay neuter ordinance here in our county that was that was passed in September
and just started they just started implementing it in april there's not a there's not a spay neuter
police van that's going to drive around making sure everybody's pets are are fixed but it allows
it allows the animal control officers to target you know a lot of those homes sometimes homes get
targeted for different things there may be a call might be made for children in the house somebody
go check on these children in the house and so you know department of family and children services
may go check and then they see that there's a dog tied up outside which there's also an ordinance
against tethering here so you know that that leads them to be able to say you know we're going to call
animal control and help maybe help these folks get the animal fixed and you know find out why
he's tied up and because he's not supposed to be it's just it's another way to sort of help where
we can it sometimes we feel like these things are like putting a bandaid on a broken leg but you have
to do you have to do something and we've we've come a really long way here um we're proud of how
far we've come we still have ways to go but um we're we're proud of what we're doing yeah i mean it
sounds like that's a pretty long i don't know like the the the trajectory of starting off is just the
what a a foster attached to another shelter uh using their license in order to take some
of these animals all the way to having i don't know like a kitty van where you just kind of like
i'll be honest with you it has been an adventure and we have been blessed beyond measure in this
in this rescue we and christy has done christy has done so much to make sure that we she's just to
go get her we got our first little space it was a little tiny building we had no money nobody knew
who we were we had no money but we had a couple of ladies who you know from someone's church who
knew who we were and knew what we were trying to do and loved cats and started helping helping fund
a few things and we we applied for and got our department of agriculture license we got our 501c
3 non-profit status um and we did those things fairly quickly the department of agriculture
license allows us to house up to 100 animals um at any time um you know we do wind up with more
than that during kitten season most shelters do but that's because so many of the adult cats come
with kittens and this is kitten season and we're just we are drowning in cats but i don't know how
we have been so blessed other than we've asked for it and we've prayed for it and we've prayed over
every little facility that we've been in and we have a lot of good people on our side we had a
county there's a county commissioner here in our county who is very proactive animal welfare and
she's had a lot of she had a lot of pull in helping our new shelter get built she also is the she's
co-founder of a group in rome that is a fundraising group for animal welfare and they raise money
and then sort of filter it out to the rescue groups here there's a group doing dogs and there's a
local humane society that they don't do a lot with animals but they do some they do a lot of
educational stuff so we've got some we've got a good team here of people that are all looking
out for the animals and it it takes it takes all of us we have a but floyd felines i have to say
with these 40 something volunteers that we have we're all we're all volunteers no one of floyd
felines is paid so when you when you're doing something that you feel called to do i think you
do it better i don't think we would be the same group if we were being paid i think we the the
payoff that we get from helping these animals is there's there's not there's no money there's not
an amount of money that can give you the same feeling you know what i mean yeah no and i i feel
like that's just that's just a testament to what you're committed to right like sure there's i mean
there's other non-profits where it might work better for someone you know like the the founder or the
ceo or whoever like you know there are instances where people get paid and sure yeah this isn't
saying that's bad that isn't saying that's negative it's just a different structure
but it sounds like it works for you guys it works for the cats it's keeping them at the the forefront
their best interests and heart any other thing you can really say about it right
um and just i guess with that being said like with your guys's success like do you know off the top
of your head roughly speaking like how many cats you've been able to place whether in your um your
feral cat barn cat program or into homes do do you happen to know that or am i kind of calling you
out on that no we have we i can come up with an i can always come up with numbers i know that
numbers i know that well the barn cat thing is really near and dear to my heart we we had another
group here years ago called the sterile feral and a friend of mine and i started that and it was
it was well it was a full it was a full-on um tnr program trap neuter release for feral cats and um
that has since disbanded and then we started floyd felines but um but i do i have a soft spot in
my heart for the ferals but the barn cat program since 2021 we have placed roughly 350 barn cats
in homes and that includes what we call garden homes that are friendly outside cats that don't
want to be in the house they've come from an outside environment and people like cats but
someone might be allergic or they don't want them in the house but they want a nice little cat in
the yard and we we do that we of course everybody has to be spayed and neutered before they go but
um in general in our between the the adoptable cats that we adopt out locally or send on rescue
transport we probably we have we affect the lives of about 1200 cats per year
um so i'd have to look at actual adoption numbers in order to because the and you know some days
that some months that's going to be higher the you know we talked about rescue transports um those
rescue transports count as not really adoptions but those are cats that are going to be adopted
those are cats that are there's a lot of outcome for them they're going to another adoption program
sometimes that rescue transport carries 60 or 70 cats and that's per month so we we do we do a lot
with a little really yeah and and it sounds like it so that's amazing 1200 plus some cats i mean
even just saving i mean breaking it down just helping one more cat day after day and like that
sounds that's more than that's multiple a day jeez i'm like doing the math in my head but you know
you said what you just said one more cat well that's that's how we that's how we operate we
we always we always say we always try to say yes yes when we have no money we have no we're tired
and i cannot tell you there's a group of women anywhere in this country that's more tired than
we are um i'm sure women and men women and men they'll call me out on that if i don't include
them in we have some great male volunteers too but we are we're tired but we love what we do
but we love what we do i wish you would check out our facebook page sometime we have yeah great
facebook writers this the the ladies the girls who are i call them girls but they're younger than
me so i can do that they're they the way they present our stories are is is beautiful they are
great writers we have great photographers and and they really will tug at your heartstrings i
personally don't have a facebook page but where i work you know i have a full-time job yeah um that
i have to have a job to pay the bills so i can do all this cat wrangling that i do but um i check
the facebook page at work sometimes and and their stories make me cry and i already know the story
it's just the the way they present our cats and our programs and and and our commitment to these
animals is it's just beautiful but i hope you'll look at it sometime yeah no i i follow you guys i
i've been checking things out you guys shared my post about the about this episode so thanks for that
i saw the little one yes i saw that today and he is absolutely adorable and i think
perfect name for him he's precious oh it was i took him outside to use the potty one day and i was
like oh your little blue eyes your little black on your chest the black match the shoes perfectly
i'm like trying to get a shoe sponsorship so i'm like hopefully they see this and we're like we'll
do it for the cat um does he have his own page yet does he have his own facebook page no he doesn't
have a page but he's being posted on my on my coaching page okay i plan to use them because
you know my my coaching business i work with like entrepreneurs non-profit leaders so what i'm going
to do moving forward with him is every time we talk about you know the the non-profits that we're
working with or the you know asking for donations you know especially for the walk kind of have him
there and i don't know i feel like people might be more willing to interact with the donation post
yes getting out of it he's your ambassador exactly development ambassador exactly uh you get it um
but that's what i was gonna that's what i was gonna say is with your guys's facebook page you
have 16 something thousand followers on your page uh 21 000 oh my goodness yes 21 000 followers uh i
mean even just the post i you guys shared for me 15 reactions 40 177 92 i mean i'm a numbers guy so
that's what excites me but like you're saying with these stories and these graphics like it looks like
they're posting potentially multiple times a day or at least you know 10 12 times a week and yeah i
i think that's something i'm not sure how involved you are with that but in terms of those that are
listening don't don't pass up the power of social media because it looks like you know every follower
doesn't necessarily mean a dollar in the pocket of the organization or anything but that reach that
attention that that helps that gets the word out and like you were saying earlier just the power of
what was it um how powerful awareness can be yes yes it is it just well it just it's such a catalyst
for for bigger things and we as much as we need money and we always need money we love money we
would love to have more money we can do more if we have more money but money doesn't make everything
what what makes you know we we love the the comments on the end of like i told you i don't have a
facebook page but i read it from work are we have the best followers we have the best followers i
i can fall down a rabbit hole looking at all of the comments that people have made and and this
has been really interesting to me to watch because because i'm not on social media myself is when we
post something let's say let's say we're posting about bottle feeders um because this is the time
of year we need we're full we we don't have any more bottle feeders there they've all got babies
right now and we make a plea and it's a serious plea you know y'all we have no bottle feeders this
group has come in we can't say no we don't say no but there is no one to feed these babies y'all
help us find help us find someone and watching the comments people talk to each other they're
not necessarily talking to us and one person will comment and say come on y'all we really need to
help this we need to help them y'all start sharing this i'm going to share it here and y'all share it
there and so it becomes this community effort you know i made the statement earlier that the
shelters in the southeast are their success is only their success is built on the foundation of
the rescues that are helping them i also believe that the rescues are as good as the people who are
supporting them we're doing the footwork that's it we're doing the footwork we go to the shelter
every day we take care of the cats we do this we do that but our supporters are what make us floyd
felons does that make sense our supporters our followers are the reason that we can do this
if that facebook page disappeared tomorrow and all those followers went with it we'd be nothing
yeah we would have to close the doors and i think it's how important they are yeah and that's
something that i've been saying even with my walk and i'm seeing so many parallels and
it's insane but one of the things i've been saying is i'm i'm walking by myself but i couldn't do
this without the support of the community absolutely we all have our own things we all have our own
lives and passions and this and that but at the end of the day like somebody needs to do the
groundwork somebody needs to work in the kitten rescue and if you can't if you can't spend two
three four twelve hours a day working with the cats maybe you can send them 20 bucks a week maybe
you can send them 10 maybe five maybe a dollar but but if a hundred people if we get one more
again we were saying earlier just that power of one more you know if they tag their friend hey can
you pledge a dollar a week hey can you do this like like again the important work is getting out
there and helping the cats but with that money you can make it go so much further especially with
the impact yeah we can pinch a penny till it screams we we we know we can always stretch it and
you know people if people don't have money they have time they have time they have their own
social media posts they can share what we're doing they can tell somebody else about us they can
they can come and help transport cats to the vet they can come and wash some dishes in the sink
there is always something for someone to do to support us always it's not always just money but
we do love money i don't i can hear my my board of directors now saying we don't tell them we
don't need any money we always need money no i i hear you entirely and that's such i feel like
that's a hard thing that a lot of people have with non-profits is you know oh you're a non-profit why
are you asking for money all the time it's like well because yeah you need it like at the end of
the day it's it's the necessary tool that you need to work with and everybody could always use a
little bit more but i think it's so important like i don't know if we've really mentioned this yet
but just like the the knowledge and the expertise that you guys have sounds like it goes such a long
way with the impact you can make with it and i i really think that's the that's the key right it is
it is and we've noticed in the last couple of years people who are they're not simply messaging
us and saying i found a cat can you take it they're saying i found a cat what do i need to do
to help this cat can you help me help the cat will we want to find a home for this cat how do
we do this so people are really rescue can't do everything we we do more than we probably
probably we do more than we probably ever thought we could and we we do more than we sometimes think
is physically possible but we can't do everything when somebody says you know i've got this group
of kittens i can bottle feed them let me know what i need to do next that's golden for us but it's
not just golden for us it means it means that our community is paying attention and that just just
saying that alone almost makes me want to cry because we started this we started this venture
believing that our community really didn't care it's not about we have learned it's not about our
community not caring it's about our community not being aware and not knowing and and our
social media efforts have let the community know this is what's happening in your community and if
you want to be a part of this and you want your community to be better you have to be better just
like we do and they get it you know they're starting to get it and that's huge for us yeah
and that's that's such an interesting take too on just like the value of marketing marketing
breaking down the definition is just the process of making known yes absolutely if they don't know
the importance of spay and neuter because i'm sure if people never grew up talking about that or
knowing about it like again me and my fiance like julie and i like it wouldn't even be a thing that
we think they're like oh cat whatever but it's like once they have that information whether it's a
that knowledge whether it's a gift or a curse you know that extra bill now you have to pay right
but now that you have it now they now they can do something about it and it's almost like well i
can't really fault you for not knowing the importance of spaying and neutering your pet
but now that we've had this conversation figure it out and get out there make something happen
and like it's it's just that power of getting out there and and spreading the message like we like
i guess really what we've been saying the the whole premise of this episode just the power of
awareness it is and you know the the this thing about the spay neuter going back to that for a
minute there there are resources in almost every community yeah to help you get your pet fixed
there are if you don't if you don't know where those resources are call it call call the vet
call the local animal control find somebody get online there are places probably within half an
hour's drive of you there are every the trend for aggressive spay neuter in this country is outrageous
right now everybody's doing it because we all know if you're working in this industry everybody
knows like i told you earlier if we don't fix it out there if we don't fix it where it starts the
shelters are never going to be any different they're always going to be struggling to not
euthanize hundreds of animals a month we have to help them it's not their fault it's not animal
controls fault that all those animals are in the shelter it's our fault it's our fault we have to
take responsibility for that and that's what floyd felines has done we just have this remarkable
group of people who said enough is enough the community needs help we need to be better so
what can we do and here we are 10 years later and it's just been it has just been a crazy ride and
we love every minute of it and i think i don't know just to kind of wrap up the entire message
is it sounds like spay and neutering pun intended is really nipping the issue in the bud right
like we can we can all sit here we can all pledge a hundred dollars a week a thousand dollars a week
to our local shelter but really if we just spayed and neutered the pets around us and we and we took
care of that issue and it would make your guys's mission a heck of a lot easier we cannot do it all
alone we do a lot but we can't do it all alone we when we started this i was telling you earlier
when we we didn't have any money we didn't have a vet we didn't have we didn't know where the next
bit of help was coming from and there would be some situation with a cat and christy would call
and we'd talk and we'd say and at the end of this at the end of the conversation that the deal was
just get the cat just get the cat just get the cat and that still to this day is our is our mantra
just get the cat just like you did you picked up the kitten it's the same thing you see it you know
how many people would have walked past that kitten it's just i try not to think about it
no but see you did that you you got the cat just pick up the kitten get the cat yeah no and but
yeah please please spay a neuter and if you if you see if you see a cat pick it up please pick it up
and that's the hard thing i know for a fact that everybody and all of my listeners that listen to
this would be the people that would pick up the cat and now i i hope that not only are they that
they were they the people coming into this podcast that would pick up the cat and figure it out
but now i hope that they're the people that can pick up the cat and know what to do with it to
not only help the the critter in front of them but the overall system and ecosystem and
overall system and ecosystem and i don't know family tree yeah you know it's it's margaret
mead said and i love this and i've got a refrigerator full of quotes but one of my
favorites is you know margaret mead said never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed
citizens is what she said can change the world because indeed it's the only thing that ever has
and that's true it's true you're doing it just with your podcast thanks i try
okay you are and you picked up the kitten picked up the kitten pick up the cat you're my hero
already you picked up the kitten yeah no i i agree and yeah i don't know man at the end of the day
it's it's just about being a little bit better being the type of person that would pick up the
cat or what did i what did i post the other day oh about the turtle there's a turtle crossing the
road and you know you always feel like you're in a rush i have a million things i need to do i have
a million things that i need to get done i don't have time to help out this one critter it's just
a turtle it's just a whatever it's just it's another life it's another person it's it's it's
another soul take a second help them out and i i can almost guarantee you that every single time
it will be worth it in the end every life is precious and it deserves a chance you know the
starfish story yes and if you know it i'll let you tell it but um at my last job i worked as a
county ag inspector and what i did was i carried around a um it was like a it was like a fake starfish
fossil that i got at some museum but i i carried it in my pocket because of that story because you
know on the days where it's like uh everything sucks everything nothing i do but do you want to
try to yeah i can lay up to kind of give a brief yeah you know and we get that way a lot in rescue
and in kitten season it's tough and it's it's really tough this is a hard time of year for us
but you know the starfish we were we repeat it to each other every now and then you know the guy
walking down the beach and he's seeing all the starfish that are beached on on the shore and
he's picking them up one by one and throwing them out in the ocean and another guy comes up and says
what are you doing and he says well i'm saving these lives i'm trying to throw them back in the
ocean he said man there's there's so many of them you know what you're doing can't possibly make a
difference and the guy picks up one starfish and holds it up and he says it makes a difference to
this one you know i get chill i get chills like i do too it makes me want to cry i know i know
and that's why that's why our mantra is every life matters every life it's why i don't it's
why i don't kill spiders if they're outside yeah you know because it does every life matters every
life is precious and deserves a chance yeah but we don't need more of them so please stay and
neuter the life that you find yes and yeah i i think to kind of wrap this up and then i'll ask
you where we can all kind of find your shelter on socials but growing up i wanted to be a
veterinarian i wanted to be a feline that when i was little oh yeah so i i read all the books by
james harriet he wrote all creatures great and small yes there's like there's like an amazon
there's a show for it now but one of the quotes from him is the love for all creatures is the
most noble attribute of man and i don't know i think that that really just wraps it up i'll
put that in the show notes and everything but i think that's really it does that's really the
tie-in for everything that's great thank you again for your time and for taking a little bit out of
your day to chitter chat with me in my audience about just the importance of picking up the cat
of helping them out if folks want to follow foyd felines or get in contact or support donate
follow you on socials where would the best places be for them to go facebook facebook facebook
facebook we are we have the best facebook writers and presenters they you can find anything out
about us that you want on facebook it's a it's a great forum we do have a website it's it's not
the best i'll be honest i would rather you go to facebook because you'll find out who we are what
we're doing who the cats are and you'll you'll see where we shine i really appreciate you having
us tonight thank you for inviting me we love talking about this stuff in it to have someone
say would you talk to me for you know an hour about what you do and how you started and
what's important to you that validates what we do i really appreciate so thank you for having us
yeah of course and you know i i wish i was a little bit closer to you guys when i was walking
through but yeah today i'm glad that i was able to make that connection somehow so thank you again
we are too thank you yeah of course and once again everyone thank you so much for listening
to today's episode and taking the time out of your day to learn about an issue that
really does affect every single one of us and can be affected by every single one of us
um spaying and neutering your pets or you know maybe donating to a cause that can spay and neuter
the pets in your neighborhood the cats or dogs can really just help with the pet population issue
that we have in the country um and something we didn't really touch on a lot during the podcast
i want to stress here is it's not just that there's too many pets it's these animals are born in in
the nature in the wild and i mean the the state i found walker in and that i've seen other cats
kind of fall into it's it's not pretty um they suffer they're not having a great time they pass
away painfully so it's not just about the animals you can see it's the animals that are kind of
suffering in that quiet desperation so again this is something that every single one of us can
change that we can work towards finding a solution for and i guess not even finding the solution the
solution is there it's it's doing the work to make the solution happen which is spaying and
neutering your pets so once again thank you for listening today thank you to our sponsor their
information can be found down in the show notes please check them out support them give them a
follow and all the information for our guest today void felines can be found in the show notes
so follow them on social media check out their website and remember that attention awareness
are really the biggest gifts you can give to a non-profit or cause that you believe in
so show them some support give them some attention share their posts for awareness
and as always have fun stay safe and be yourself we'll see you next time