In a year like this one, it can be difficult to find things to be thankful for.  Let's be honest, this has been a truly terrible year for just about everyone.  Sickness, contagion, job loss, economic shut down, violence, hatred, and many other nasty things have been going on, throughout the year.

And yet, just this weekend . . .

• A beautiful, young couple brought in a car load of cat litter.  
• A 10 year old collected money, instead of birthday gifts, and donated it to the cats.  
• A junior volunteer held a Thanksgiving pumpkin sale, and donated the proceeds to the cats.  
• A foster family held a garage sale, and donated the proceeds to the cats.
• Generous bakers donated thousands of tarts to raise money for the cats.
• Supporters bought thousands of tarts, and gave extra, all to help the cats.

That's just this weekend, and it's not over yet.  Throughout this long, difficult year you have given us many things to be thankful for, but the one thing we are most thankful for is YOU!

• You make it possible to continue our work with the cats.
• You keep our doors open.
• You provide food, litter, supplies.
• You pay the vet bills.
• You are amazing.

Thank you!

Happy Thanksgiving!

​I sincerely hope that this finds all of you safe and well.

Some of you may already know that I have spent the past month under quarantine, with 'probable' COVID-19 -- that is, I have many symptoms, but the test came back negative.  Symptoms are ongoing, but gradually improving.  Once I am symptom free for 24 hours, quarantine will end.  Running CSC from my bed and living room has been a challenge.  Our amazing staff and volunteers have taken up the slack at the adoption centre, to keep it running as smoothly as possible, and I am incredibly grateful for their dedication to cats.

Of course, there are many things that they can't do.  Keeping track of our financial status and communicating with our supporters fall into that category.  Sadly, I have been too ill to keep up with those responsibilities, and this is taking its toll on CSC.  As my health improves, I have been going over our situation, and things are not looking good, right now.

This week's Throne Speech, and the following address from Prime Minister Trudeau, along with the mask directive and gathering limits set by the province, have brought several things into clearer focus.  While we had originally hoped (way back in March) that the world would be well on its way toward a healthier, more normal day to day existence by now, the opposite is true.  It is now clear that any hope of returning to pre-pandemic operations this year is gone.  With this in mind, the following precautions are extended until the end of this year:

• Access to the adoption centre for adoption and fostering is by appointment only.  No more than 2 people per appointment, in order to maintain appropriate distancing.  Please call the adoption centre at 204 421-1919 to make an appointment.  More information can be found under the Adopt and Foster tabs at the top of this page.
• Our gift shop is open from 11 to 5 Wednesday through Sunday.  No appointment is necessary, but visitors may be asked to wait outside until appropriate distancing is possible.
• Donations of money, food, litter, and supplies may be dropped off between 11 and 5 daily.  No appointment is necessary, but you may be asked to wait outside until appropriate distancing is possible.
• No one will be allowed through the door if they are not wearing a mask that fully covers their nose, mouth, and chin.  There will be no exceptions.  Those who arrive without a mask may purchase either a disposable or reusable mask, and put it on before entry.
• Immediately on entry, all visitors must use the hand sanitizer provided at the front desk.  There will be no exceptions.
• All trap/neuter/return programs, colony manager training, community trapper program and training, neonatal kitten program and training, volunteer orientation, and school volunteer participation are cancelled until January, at the earliest.
• Intake is restricted to kittens from colonies already managed by trained CSC colony managers, and sick or injured adult cats from those colonies.  Emergency cases may be considered, if there is space available in an existing, appropriate foster home.
• Group gatherings and events are cancelled through to the end of the year.  This means that our Feral Cat Day events, December craft show, Christmas open house, and other gatherings are cancelled.  Cindy has committed to running the Christmas bake sale on a pre-order basis.

These measures are intended to help keep our staff, volunteers, and visitors safe and well.  Your understanding and cooperation are greatly appreciated.

Cancelling events, limiting access, and restricting the number of guests allowed on site at any one time have all affected the financial health of CSC.  Since March, cancelled or restricted events have meant a loss of over $100,000 desperately needed to care for the cats.  Cancellation of fall and winter events will have a similar effect.  For the first time in our history, we are asking foster families to provide food and litter for the cats they are fostering.  Originally this was to limit the number of visits to the adoption centre.  Now, it is helping us survive.

In March we asked for your help surviving what we thought would be 5 or 6 months of shut down and restrictions.  It seems we were wrong about how long the world would be turned upside down, and we have to ask again. The cats need your support now, more than ever.  Please don't let them down.

Please click here for a complete list of ways to send financial support.

Thank you.

It's that  magical time of year.  Adoptions are ramping up for spring, and kitten season has not yet hit with its full, devastating force.  Staff and volunteers are able to get the adoption centre sparkling in time for opening, every day.  The number of cats at our adoption centre is going down.  Cages are being folded up and moved to storage.  Deep cleaning and organizing are getting done.  The adoption centre hasn't looked this good in years.

And yet . . .

Anticipation of the full brunt of what is coming has us all working feverishly to prepare.  Kitten season has started.  Soon we will be trying to find space for hundreds of tiny critters that have nowhere else to go.  Adding to this sense of impending doom is the flood forecast.  With flood waters expected to force many from their homes, we anticipate many calls begging for help with stranded cats.  Our staff and volunteers are doing their very best to make sure that we can help as many as possible, but we need your help, too.  You are the key to saving hundreds of lives this spring.

How can you help?

• Donate money:  saving lives costs a lot of money.  Veterinary care, rent, utilities, trained staff, food, supplies -- these all cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.
• Hold your own fundraising event for the cats:  garage sale, bake sale, pot luck, casual day, barbeque . . .
• Come to / participate in an event:  Plant sale, May 11; Whisker Walk, June 9 (whiskerwalk.ca for more details)
• Donate supplies:  cat food, clumping cat litter, paper towels, disposable gloves, wood stove pellets, garbage bags, postage stamps, office supplies.  Every item donated means dollars that can be reallocated to saving more lives.
• Foster:  foster homes save lives.  Keeping kittens out of the shelter environment until they have been well vaccinated helps keep them healthy by preventing exposure to deadly viruses.  The flood forecast makes having foster homes ready and waiting all the more important.
• Adopt:  every adoption helps save another life.
• Volunteer:  get involved at the adoption centre, help with fundraising, answer phones, drive for pick ups, help at information booths -- there are many ways to help!

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Most needed RIGHT NOW:

• KMR kitten formula
• High quality kitten kibble (please check labels -- no food colouring!)
• Canned cat food:  Friskies paté, turkey & giblets, chicken, chefs' dinner, and poultry platter are best tolerated by the most cats
• Wood stove pellets (used as litter in cages)
• snuggle safe heating pucks (Amazon.ca)
• Money (vet bills, medical supplies, etc.)

You are the deciding factor in everything that happens at Craig Street Cats.  Your support saves lives.

I just had a most unpleasant phone call from someone who has recently moved into Winnipeg from a rural property and left a group of outdoor cats behind.  To her credit, this person had, over the years, spayed or neutered all of the cats, and had provided food and basic shelter for them.  Until she moved.

I had the unpleasant duty of informing her that the cats were hers, and that leaving them behind is considered abandonment.  Further, that there are no shelters in Winnipeg that can take a group of outdoor cats.  The only possible exception would be the Winnipeg Humane Society, where the cats would be killed because they are not adoptable.

The rest of the call was even more unpleasant.  Apparently I am supposed to sugar coat the truth and let people believe that everything is wonderful when they leave animals behind or surrender them to a kill shelter.  I am not supposed to use the words abandonment and kill  I am supposed the allay their feelings of guilt by saying something comforting and untrue.

Well, that just won't happen.

You should feel guilty about things like this.  You should feel so guilty that you don't do it.  You should feel so guilty that you move heaven and earth to find an appropriate placement for the cats if you can't take them with you.

We are entering that horrid time of year when people start to realize that the kittens they have been feeding all summer will freeze to death if they don't find a shelter placement for them. Over the next few weeks we will be inundated with calls from those people who will insist that 'their kittens' are the finest, cutest, most amazing creatures ever born, and will be snapped up in an instant.

We have no room for any of them. Any space that comes open is reserved for critters in our managed colonies. We do not have a 'waiting list'.

We can encourage these people to take the cats into their own homes and try to find placements for them on their own. We can give them tips for screening potential adopters. We can offer access to low cost spay/neuter. We can even offer some dry cat food.

We cannot take the cats.

Many of the people who call will become abusive when told all this. They will accuse us of taking donations under false pretenses, not caring about the cats, being heartless. Some will threaten to harm the cats if we don't take them. Some will offer generous donations if we take 'their kittens'.

None of this changes the fact that we have no room.

The next few weeks will be very difficult for our entire staff and volunteer corps. We all want to take every critter. We can't. If we take any more, the ones we already have will start to get sick. All we can do is stick together, and try to make it through the next few weeks as best we can. Be kind to each other, and try to let the nasty things go.

Originally published on September 28, 2009.

Over the past week (Sept. 2009) the Winnipeg Humane Society has been engaged in a controversial bit of name calling.  WHS executive director, Bill McDonald, was quoted as having called no-kill shelters warehouses for animals that aren't being adopted because nobody wants to adopt them.  When asked to apologize McDonald went on the offensive and claimed that "so called" no-kill shelters don't want to acknowledge that "euthanasia" is a sad fact of life here in Winnipeg.  I don't want to get involved in the debate over who is or isn't right.  I do, however, want to convince everyone to use the correct terminology.

Euthanasia means mercy killing.  When you euthanize, you end suffering.  You put a being out of its misery.  Ending the life of a creature that is suffering is rightly called euthanasia.  In our society it is deemed humane to euthanize animals for which there is no other way to end suffering.

Ending the life of a healthy, adoptable animal, solely to create space for more animals, IS NOT EUTHANASIA.  Ending the life of a sick animal with a treatable illness or condition is not euthanasia.  Ending the life of a non-symptomatic animal with an untreatable disease or condition is not euthanasia.  These acts are destroying, putting down, or killing.  The WHS kills thousands of animals every year in order to make space for more animals.  They apply the word euthanasia to this space clearing in an attempt to make it appear humane, because our society does not consider the act of killing animals to create space for more animals to be humane.

Unfortunately, applying incorrect terminology clouds the issue and makes it difficult to follow whatever logic might be in use by the different parties to an argument.  The Humane Society calls its space clearing "euthanasia", thereby implying that it is humane to end the life of an animal that is not suffering.  The act may be done humanely, but that does not make it a humane act.  The use of the word "euthanasia" is, therefore, inappropriate.

I am asking all concerned to PLEASE FIND ANOTHER EUPHEMISM for what the WHS does when it kills animals to clear space for more animals.  Stop clouding the issue by using a word that means something entirely different.

It's been coming for quite awhile now.  The old website was designed for the original CSC TNR project, and worked very well for that.  Somehow, though, it just wasn't right for what we're doing now.

This new site is a work in progress.  We have a great deal of information to transfer over, and some editing and weeding to do, as well.  All that will take some time.  In the meantime, please enjoy cruising around and do let us know what you think of the new site!