The seven women behind Dunedin-based Animal Rescue Network New Zealand (ARNNZ) are celebrating the organisation’s second birthday this month and admit you have to be a little crazy to devote your life to felines.
They help desex cats, provide permanent homes for kittens and just about everything in between.
The wild, the antisocial, the hungry, the ones the SPCA will not deal with, all find a home eventually, thanks to ARRNZ.
"There’s no too-hard basket for us. That’s why we have the volume we do," Sharon Pine said.
Four of the group’s seven-strong management team gathered at a Mosgiel property yesterday — where 21 kittens were being fostered — to speak to the ODT.
The tiny fluff balls rollicking round the room all had "forever homes" to go to in the next few weeks but there were more than 100 other kittens on the group’s books waiting to be adopted.
Ana Andrianova was behind the ARNNZ’s inception when her work at Otago University led to her noticing large numbers of stray cats in the area.
"I never thought I’d start a full-blown rescue," she said.
"It’s kind of difficult to work full-time and run a rescue full-time, but it just happened."
She met a vet who agreed to give her a discount on desexing the felines and it began.
A Facebook group quickly gathered momentum and now boasts 4000 followers.
"It started small but it grew so fast."
Now the women were hoping to find premises on which to centre their efforts and turn into a cattery.
Ms Andrianova said there would be no shortage of volunteers to help but the big challenge would be to raise the funds required.
This time of the year was the heart of "kitten season", Linda Mulholland explained.
"They are active in a romantic way from the middle of June to September, then they have their litters and start again," she said.
The desexing message simply was not getting through to cat owners, Ms Mulholland said.
Though ARNNZ had a network of 25 foster parents, it was always looking for more.
It came with its costs, though, Ms Pine said.
"They’re little eating and pooping machines."
The 21 kittens at the Mosgiel house got through 15 pouches of wet kitten food a day, as well as a mammoth bowl of dry food, not to mention the cat litter.
"You have to be slightly crazy and love animals so much to dedicate your lives to them," Ms Andrianova said.
"As much as we get tarnished with being crazy cat ladies, my marital status isn’t going to change any time soon. It’s a few hundred-odd lives changed versus dying alone," Ms Mulholland said, laughing.
● If you want to help or to find out more about kitten adoption, visit arnnz.org.nz.
- Rob Kidd
