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Hello Friend,

February is National Spay/Neuter Awareness Month which is always an important time at MRFRS! Access to spay and neuter is critical for cats and their caretakers for their overall health and it is a key tool in containing overpopulation of both owned and unowned cats. Since 1992, MRFRS has been committed to providing access to spay/neuter to those most-at-need, altering 86,000+ cats to date through our Sunday Feral Cat Clinics and Catmobile.

Which makes this month the purr-fect time to introduce our newest team member – Dr. Erin Casey, who will be operating on the Catmobile (see below). In addition, we have set the dates for the Sunday Feral Cat Clinics taking place this Spring with our MSPCA partners to support the important work being done by TNR (trap/neuter/return) volunteers.

As we close out this month with World Spay Day on Tuesday, February 28^th, we’ll be sharing more information on the work MRFRS does to ensure access to life-saving spay/neuter surgery in our communities. Stay tuned!

Karen Glass

Director of Development & Communications, MRFRS

Staff Spotlight - Welcome Dr. Casey!

MRFRS understands the suffering that cat overpopulation causes, which is why we offer programs that provide access to low cost spay/neuter surgery. One of these programs is the Catmobile and our goal is to build meow-mentum on past success and fix as many cats as possible in 2023. Which is why we are very excited to welcome Dr. Erin Casey to MRFRS and our Catmobile program!

They graduated from the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine in 2019 and have prior experience in high volume, high quality spay/neuter of both dogs and cats.

Dr. Casey is 100% a cat person and currently lives with three cats: Winter, Tallullah, and Patch, who’s diabetic. When they are not caring for patients on the Catmobile, they enjoy hiking, drawing, writing, and playing video games.

We are so fur-tunate to have Dr. Casey’s talents on board driving our Catmobile spay/neuter efforts forward!

Be Part of Our Meow-mentum & Join Our Team!

MRFRS has designated 2023 as the year of "Building Meow-mentum Together". Our goal is to build on our programs and services in an effort to increase our impact in the communities we serve.

To accomplish all the goals that we have planned, we are looking for passionate and talented people to join our team! Within our Programs, we need Veterinary Technicians and Veterinary Assistants for our Catmobile program and Counselors for our Adoption Program. To help with our fundraising and community engagement events, we are looking for a superstar Special Events Manager.

To learn more about these opportunities, visit our website at www.mrfrs.org/careers. And please share this link with potential candidates you may know to help us find paw-some people to join the MRFRS team!

Ask a Vet

In honor of February being Spay/Neuter Awareness Month, we have a “special guest vet"! We invite you to watch this short video to learn more about the importance of spay/neuter for our feline friends.

One Simple Way to Help Cats This Month

Fix by Five

As we talk about spay/neuter, it's a good time to share the "Feline Fix by Five" campaign. Feline Fix by Five aims to provide tools and resources to help veterinarians and people talk about the best time to spay and neuter their kittens – which is before they are five months old!

While people may understand it's important to spay/neuter, they aren't sure when is the best time to have their cat fixed. A study conducted by PetSmart Charities in 2009 and 2011 found that 75% of people either didn't know or thought it was six to nine months or later.

Unfortunately, that timing is too late as a female kitten can go into heat at just four months old! Waiting too long to fix a kitten can lead to unwanted kittens being born who may - or may not - find a permanent home. Plus, when shelters are inundated with kittens, older or special needs cats are often passed over for adoption.

You can learn more about this important campaign and help share this information by visiting here.

Happy Tails

Hazel

Hazel was trapped by a rescue group and was in awful shape when they found her; she was emaciated and had an abscessed wound on her side. She was microchipped and after checking, we learned that this poor girl had ended up outside after her owner passed away.

Hazel was brought to MRFRS to find her new home and we knew it had to be the right match for this 7-year-old girl because she was already stressed from her harrowing experience outside. She was over grooming herself which isn’t surprising after all that she’d been through.

Our Adoption Counselor knew she had found the right home for Hazel when an applicant and her mother came in to meet our cats. There was almost an instant bond and they recently shared with us how it’s continued to grow: “Hazel only took about 36 hours to come out from under the bed. By the next day she was curled up at Mom’s feet, and by the next day curled up on Mom’s belly. Mom calls her snuggle bunny who just loves skritches and pets. Hazel is still super skittish, but sweet and friendly if you are still and quiet. At some point last week, she relaxed enough to start playing. I got the little furry mice, and she just loves them - kills them all every day to protect Mom and leaves her 'gifts'! Hazel gets so much love and attention now she seems to be grooming less too. They are both SO happy – it’s a perfect match!”

We couldn’t agree more!