Cat Woman Finds Homes For
Feline Friends –
story by Lynn Norris
pictures by Carol Strouth (Rooster – Peggy Sue – Tail – Kitten)
(published in the Westmoreland
News, Sept 5, 2001:1,13)
Big cats, little cats, cats of every hue.
Older cats, fluffy kits, eyes green, gold and blue.
Bold ones, bobtails, cats who won’t say mewwwwww.
Rascal, China, Mabel, Jiffy, Autumn, Murphy, Rooster, Dixie,
Chester, Rocky, Grayson, Onyx, Diamond, Peggy Sue…
Although the Cat in the Hat may not be in
residence, just about any other sort of feline presence can be
discerned at Wendy Erskine’s home.
And she’d love to send one of the 69 who
presently live with her, home with you.
Surf by on the web at http://westmoreland.petfinder.org
Folks from as far away as New Jersey and North
Carolina have fallen in love long distance and journeyed here to meet their
feline soul mates.
Or call Wendy at 224-1079.
Heck, she’s a great counselor and helped
smooth out a little dispute between me and my boy cat Harry without having met
either one of us.
Or drop by 1248 Holly Vista in Westmoreland
Shores.
Be warned, however.
“If I get somebody through that door, I’ll get
‘em a cat,” Wendy says. “If you can’t
find what you want here, you can’t find it anywhere!”
This woman means business. As of August 23, she had found homes for 627
cats in the course of the past four and a half years, an average of almost
three cats a week.
How does she do it?
She’ll introduce you to everybody at her
house — a house which is utterly immaculate despite the fact that cats can be
found in most nooks and crannies, inside and out.
Then she’ll elicit a profile of your
household.
After finding out whether there
are young kids, allergies, lots of traffic, other pets, and scheduling issues,
she’ll go into matchmaking mode based on her cats’ characters. Then she’ll
leave you to bond with one or more potential feline members of your family.
If at first you don’t succeed — and some cats do
change their stripes when they leave Erskine’s house for that of others — bring
the kitty back and try again for that special loving relationship.
Hey.
When change rears its head, cats just like people don’t always just grin
and bear it.
One peeved puss named Pudgie who was perfectly
happy at Wendy’s house and didn’t even utter a single syllable there from the
time she bottle-raised him as an itsy tiny baby, raised his voice in piteous
and incessant yowls when he was adopted out.
Not once, but three times.
“Let the poor thing come home and stay
here. He doesn’t want to leave,” said
Wendy’s fiancé Carl Short.
That’s understandable, considering the kind of
treatment the flotsam and jetsam of the feline community receive from this
kind-hearted lady.
Not only are their litter boxes cleaned twice a
day and the food bowls full, there’s always somebody to play with.
Including Wendy’s daughter Sammy, 14, a
W&L student, and just about every other kid in the neighborhood.
Wendy has always loved cats. When she moved here four years ago, she
brought eight of her own with her.
“One by one, more kept coming, till I had,
well… way too many.
“Then I started adopting them out. But every time I’d find a home for two,
three more would come.”
Wendy emphasizes that her goal is to find
homes for the cats she has already given shelter to, not take in other folks’
unwanted pets.
She does make exceptions for older people who
must go into nursing homes and are desperate to find a home for their beloved
children.
Sadly, these tend to be age 6 and up, which
makes them less winsome than kittens and thus harder to place. Cats can live 15-plus years if happy and
well-nurtured.
“Does she have a choice?” Wendy snorts
rhetorically. “Luckily, she’s really
good with them.”
Whereupon she rhapsodizes on how Sammy can
lure even the skeeriest pussycat back from unauthorized wanderings in the
direction of the street.
Whether a cat’s the strut-around sort like Rooster, a charmer
like Razzle Dazzle, or meek like wee Mouse, all of them yearn for somebody to
love, Wendy points out.
And don’t worry about whether they’ve been christened
by her or not — a visit to a vet mandates a moniker, but feel free to rename
your cat when you get him home.
“Everybody knows ‘Kitty, kitty, kitty’ really
means ‘The food’s ready.’”
Wendy was very conscious of the need for
neighborly relations and talked with prospective neighbors before she moved
here.
“I came here from Baltimore, where the
neighbors were climbing the walls over eight cats. They didn’t even want the cats walking through their yards! One put in a whole back yard full of mulch
landscaping, created a giant cat box, and… you guessed it.”
Folks here were glad to learn of her plans to
re-roof, re-side and generally re-furbish a home that had fallen into disrepair
some years ago, thereby removing an eyesore.
Only four of her cats are streetwise enough to
be allowed off the property, considering the amount of traffic in the
neighborhood.
The rest interact with nature in a large cat
yard behind the house, where a network of nets and tubing keep them from
climbing the trees and jumping the fence.
The chainlink fence is also topped with a cat-fence-in netting system
that leans in and prevents them from swarming up and over.
The four wanderers are, Wendy sums it up,
“fairly well-behaved. They catch the snakes
out of the ditch and take care of the mouse population. They’re fixed. They’re friendly. And
they’re clean.”
When you visit Wendy, whether to adopt a cat
or just to meet her feline friends, you’re bound to learn a little bit about
human irresponsibility, which is what has created an excess of unwanted pets.
“People have to take responsibility for
spaying and neutering their cats,” Wendy points out gently. She’s always ready to hand out a list of
vets whose price for the job is affordable.
See
list below, low-cost spaying and neutering
That means folks won’t have to pick between
getting their human children the shoes, food and clothes they need or taking
proper care of their animal friends.
If you don’t want a cat, perhaps you’d like to
help.
Things that come in handy include kitty litter
(the clumping kind), IAMS catfood (just that kind, please) and money (Wendy has
very high vet bills).
Or empty aluminum cans — they don’t have to be
washed or crushed, just bagged. You can
drop the bags at Wendy’s and Carl’s house, or if you have a lot, he’ll swing by
in his truck and pick them up.
If you need help spaying or neutering your
cat, call one or more of the following numbers. A slot will probably open up within a month of your initial call.
PAWS — 804-333-6393
Colonial Beach Humane Society — 224-2122
Lucky Ones — 540-775-7387
Well-Pet Clinic — 301-866-0303
Kincheloe Clinic – 540-834-0080
