As you can see from the picture, my cats are scared. Look at them, they’re saying, "Hold me! I’m terrified!" Let me tell you why. There appears to be a herd of roaming cats in my neighborhood.

Nobody really knows where they came from or who they once belonged to. Lots of homes have been foreclosed in my neighborhood, and the assumption of those of us who have been discussing the cat problem is that they are probably cats left behind from people who have been foreclosed on. Unfortunately, the pet owners who left their cats behind were irresponsible by leaving their cats behind, but they were also irresponsible in not spaying and neutering.

Because the neighborhood cat herd is breeding. Just yesterday I pulled into my driveway and got out of my car to see a tiny kitten dash across my yard and into the neighbor’s backyard. Ack. Kittens. That’s just what we need. Animal control has been called several times about this cat herd, but animal control can only do so much- this is a huge neighborhood and there are SO many cats roaming around here.

A neighboring county has, from what I understand, a trap, spay and release program where if you trap and bring in feral cats, they will spay them for free. Unfortunately, my county doesn’t have this. Does anyone have experience in getting this type of program to come to your own community? Also, what would you do? I think my dad has a humane trap somewhere in his collection of random stuff. Should I trap the cats and bring them to the shelter? I hate doing that- they will probably be put down. But this problem is beginning to get out of control, and none of my neighbors seem to be willing to do anything but complain about it.