A 77-year-old Euclid woman who has been feeding, neutering and finding homes for Greater Cleveland’s stray cats for two decades needs help herself.
Dorothy Max’s funds have run low. She spends six hours a day driving to areas where colonies of cats live in alleys, abandoned buildings and overgrown yards. It costs her about $75 a day just to feed them, plus the veterinary bills. Anyone interested in volunteering or donating cash, cat food or gasoline gift cards can call 216-289-0496. Max and a handful of other Save Our Strays volunteers offer cats and kittens for adoption. Spaying strays: Cleveland’s offer to pay $30 toward the $40 cost to neuter a stray cat at the Cleveland Animal Protective League is being gobbled up. Residents have caught more than 640 homeless city cats that were neutered, vaccinated and returned to their neighborhoods, keeping other not-neutered cats from moving in and breeding. The city earmarked $40,000 to neuter 1,333 cats this year. To participate by catching, transporting or feeding strays, contact the APL at 216-377-1624 or cleveland apl.org. More than 400 stray cats from the suburbs have also been trapped and neutered at the APL since Jan 1. Still, it will take many more years of trapping and neutering before Dorothy Max and other cat rescuers can rest. Picking puppies: You will soon be able to check out the breeders who supply pet stores quickly and easily at a U.S. Department of Agriculture Web site. See what federal inspectors have to say about dog breeders’ facilities and the health of their dogs at tinyurl.com/kvmuqj. Reputable pet stores will tell you which breeder supplied their pups. Getting the reports by mail took weeks or months. You can also report exhibitors and wholesale breeders who are operating without a license or keeping dogs in substandard facilities.
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