Help Dottie, Community Cat with Severe Tail Injury

Dottie is one of thousands of community cats living in Buncombe County that we have trapped, had spayed/neutered, vaccinated and returned to her outdoor home. Just because Dottie is not an inside cat doesn't mean she isn't loved and valued as an important part of the family. Community cats live all over the world happily and healthily after being fixed and vaccinated, as long as they have a caretaker to look after them- providing food, water, and shelter in the extreme temperatures. We are so glad that Buncombe County identifies community cats as worthy of our care and concern, and stopped trapping them and bringing them to the shelter for euthanasia years ago. Once this lifesaving policy change was implemented, the euthanasia rates at the county shelter plummeted!

Every now and then, just like any animal that spends the majority of time outside, one of the community cats we know gets sick or injured. We then retrap that cat (community cats are also known as "feral" and don't want to be handled) so we can provide medical or surgical care to getting that animal healthy and back to his or her home. And today was one of those days. Dottie's human caregiver, Kathy, was alarmed to find that Dottie had a severe injury to her tail. We re-trapped her and got her to one of our partner vets, Pinnacle Animal Hospital, who decided the only way to help her would be to amputate the remaining part of the injured tail. Raising funds for community cats isn't that easy, so we told Dottie's caregiver we would post here today and ask if folks would chip in to help get Dottie the surgery she needs to get better and back to her family. Dottie's mom and siblings also are part of this cat colony, and are already missing her!

If we can raise the $300 needed to get her the pain meds, antibiotics, and surgery she needs, our Adoption Center manager, Audrey, will take Miss Dottie home and let her recover inside at her house (Audrey specializes in taking care of post op feral cats.) Surgery can happen as quickly as tomorrow if you can chip in today- even $10 will help.

Thanks for helping our community cat work which is super important to sustaining a true No Kill community!