BETHESDA, MD Alley Cat Allies is pleased to announce its latest collaboration with Rude Ranch Animal Rescue in Harwood, Md. Together we are developing a Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) pilot project to spay, neuter and vaccinate community cats in Anne Arundel County. The partnership includes a $50,000 grant from Alley Cat Allies, which will allow Rude Ranch Animal Rescue to expand its spay and neuter surgery capacity to serve more cats as TNR expands in the county. Alley Cat Allies is the only national advocacy organization dedicated to the humane treatment of cats.
“Rude Ranch and its spay and neuter clinic have been highly successful in developing programs that demonstrate the benefit to communities of saving the lives of outdoor cats, making them an excellent group with whom to partner. We’re very excited to be able to help them save more cats than ever before,” said Becky Robinson, president and founder of Alley Cat Allies. “Anne Arundel County is playing a crucial piece in today’s good news, and we congratulate the county for joining the more than 600 communities nationwide that have embraced Trap-Neuter-Return as the most humane and effective approach to manage and care for cat populations in our midst.”
The facility expansion and surgical equipment provided by Alley Cat Allies will allow Rude Ranch Animal Rescue to increase its clinic capacity by 50 percent and to double its spay/neuter capacity to more than 20,000 surgeries per year.
“This pilot program with Anne Arundel County owes a great debtboth in terms of impetus and financial backingto Alley Cat Allies. As a result of their support, we are expanding our capacity and will be able to implement an aggressive TNR program,” said Bob Rude, executive director of Rude Ranch Animal Rescue. “We are now prepared to meet rising demands for spay, neuter and vaccination services for community cats, and to reduce shelter and animal control intake and euthanasia.”
The pilot project is the result of an agreement between the Anne Arundel Community Cat Coalition, led by the Spay Spa & Neuter Nook, a subsidiary of Rude Ranch Animal Rescue, and Anne Arundel County.
The agreement allows the Coalition to engage in TNR, whereby community cats are trapped, spayed or neutered, vaccinated, and eartipped to indicate that the cat has been spayed or neutered and vaccinated. This ends the breeding of cats and stabilizes the population, something that the cruel, wasteful, and failed policy of trap-and-kill has proven itself incapable of doing after a century of trying. TNR is a balanced approach to helping improve co-existence between outdoor cats and humans in our shared environment. Communities that have adopted TNR report that it stabilizes cat populations, greatly reduces the number of calls received from citizens concerned about cats, decreases euthanasia rates in animal shelters, and saves municipalities money.
The pilot project begins this month and will take place in Hillsmere Shores.
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About Alley Cat Allies
Alley Cat Allies, headquartered in Bethesda, Md., is the only national advocacy organization dedicated to the protection and humane treatment of cats. Founded in 1990, today Alley Cat Allies has more than half a millions supporters and helps tens of thousands of individuals, communities and organizations save and improve the lives of millions of cats and kittens worldwide. Its website is www.alleycat.org, and Alley Cat Allies is active on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+ and YouTube.
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