Sam is Playing!

Sam is eating well and starting to move around better. Today he decided to play for a bit!

Trapping the week of January 17th

Trapping activities were performed at the Sandestin Marina, Beachwalk, and Linkside this week. The following cats were trapped, sterilized and returned (except where noted)

FFSD100020 Marina male - Tested ill (FeLV) Euthanized

FFSD100021 Marina female - Spayed and returned

FFSD100022 Beachwalk female - Spayed and returned

FFSD100023 Linkside male - Neutered and returned

The tale of the Good "Sam"aritan

My husband coined that phrase and I thought it quite appropriate for this post.

"Sam", the poor little cat found hanging by his back leg from a planter stand, is now minus one leg but has a growing fan club of people who care an awful lot about his well being.


That he is still alive and receiving this care and affection is because of two people who cared. They called two more people who got involved. These people delivered Sam to concerned and skilled people who gave Sam emergency care and so on, and so on.

Each person made a difference in Sam's life. No one knew him, no one owned him, Sam will not bring fame or fortune to anyone who has made a difference in his young life.

Anne - Sam's current foster mom

He was just a poor, helpless, living creature who needed help. Abe Lincoln is attributed with saying "When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion." There's something very right about that.

Sam will get great care and attention as he recovers and learns how to get around on 3 legs. We'll all be watching him and cheering him on. As soon as he's well we will find him a home.

Trapping Activity for the Week of Jan 17

Three cats were trapped in the Tivoli Terrace Neighborhood on Sunday afternoon:

FFSD100016 female Tivoli terrace

FFSD100017 male Tivoli terrace

FFSD100018 Male Tivoli Terrace

A gray male was trapped in the Linkside neighborhood on January 19th:

FFSD100019 gray male Linkside

All cats have been spayed / neutered, received vaccinations and micro-chips and have been returned to their original location.

Sam lost the battle but is still hanging on!

Poor little Sam. We got him to the vet this morning for another evaluation. Even the non-vets among us knew things didn't look good...


There was nothing the antibiotics could do for him, the leg was falling apart before our eyes. The vet confirmed our worst fears and told us surgery was necessary or Sam might go into septic shock and we would lose him.

They called in a vet who specializes in this type of surgery and later in the afternoon Sam was recovering from surgery and doing well. He's the sweetest little cat we've ever seen and we're sorry he had to lose his leg but we are determined that Sam will get a good home for the rest of his life. Want to help? Click on the link below to help cover some of Sam's medical bills -

Sam comes home from the Vet soon and we'll have lots of pictures. Stay tuned!

Trapping activity the Week of January 10th

Volunteers trapped in three locations this week - Baytowne Wharf, Beachwalk Villas, and Tivoli.

On Sunday, Jan 10th, volunteers trapped from 11am until 4:30 pm in the Village of Baytowne Wharf. Eleven cats were trapped, 7 displayed a cropped ear (previously spayed or neutered) and were released. 4 cats were moved to a safe area for delivery to the vet Monday morning.

FFSD100008 gray female - Cabos

FFSD100009 gray male - Grand

FFSD100010 pale tortoise/calico female - Cabos

FFSD100011 siamese female - Aloha

Monday through Wednesday night, trapping was done in the Beachwalk Villas and Tivoli areas.

SDFF100012 Black female kitten Beachwalk

SDFF100014 Siamese male Tivoli Jan 13

SDFF100015 black female Tivoli Jan 13

Sam the Rescue Cat

Sam has been under our foster care for 4 days now. He was found Saturday afternoon by some homeowners in Beachwalk hanging upside down from a large wire planter stand.
We all thought he had a broken leg but it was actually badly infected with a long laceration. The vet patched him up and gave him antibiotics. It was up to us to feed him and help him mend from his injuries.


He has been a model patient so far and we're all starting to wonder if he really is a feral cat. He has only hissed once at us and does not mind being handled. After his emergency vet visit this weekend, we took him to our favorite vet (Cat Clinic of Destin) on Tuesday to be checked out. Sherry and Dr. Flynn took really good care of him.



Sam started eating more Tuesday night (kitten formula and chicken broth from an eye dropper) and we are hoping he finds the strength to make it to the litter box soon. That would cut down on the clean up considerably!


Wednesday he graduated from eye-dropper to tablespoon. We suspect he's holding out for his own monogrammed cat food bowl...

Emergency in Beachwalk - helping the Underdog

Actually under-cat. But that sounds funny...

Saturday around 2:00 we got a call from someone in our community. "We have a cat in trouble and our friend said we should call you." What else do you say to a statement like that except, "I'll be right there."

We arrived on the patio with a trap and some towels to find a beautiful brown tabby, about 5 months old, nervously looking around for an escape route and dragging his right back leg behind him. After listening for some time to the sound of a cat screaming, these homeowners came out to investigate and found the poor cat suspended upside down by his right leg from a metal plant rack. They managed to get him loose before calling for help.

We calmly coerced him into a cage and took him to the closest emergency vet. His leg was not broken but badly strained and he had a bad infection and swelling in the same area. Had it not been for the response of the homeowner, the cat would have died during the cold night.
They patched him up, gave him antibiotics, and put a drain tube in his leg. We'll take him back to a local vet on Tuesday for an evaluation and shots.

"Sam" - FFSD10007

Thanks to a number of caring humans, "Sam" (that's the name we gave him) will probably be OK. For the first time in his young life, he's resting in a warm bed with a heating pad under him. He has food and water and can sleep through the night without worry of the threat from other animals or humans. He may warm up to us humans and find a nice home or he may always be a feral cat and return to the wild where he came from but for a few days or weeks we will care for him like he's a member of our family and do everything we can to make his life a little better.

Trapping Activity Jan 4 - 7

Sandestin volunteers continue to monitor and trap in the Beachwalk area to ensure all cats fall under current guidelines. Most cats trapped had their ears cropped, verifying that they have been sterilized and vaccinated. 5 did not have their ears cropped.

Of those 5 cats, only 2 had not been previously sterilized:

FFSD100004 young brown tabby male Beachwalk

FFSD100001 brown tabby male Beachwalk
The skin tear on his nose was superficial. The wound was treated.

The remaining 3 cats had already been sterilized. They had their ears cropped for future identification and received a full examination and rabies booster:

FFSD100005 siamese female Beachwalk

FFSD100006 siamese female Beachwalk

FFSD100003 black female Beachwalk

One very elusive female cat was trapped in Deerwood this week with the assistance of a helpful Deerwood homeowner. This cat had recently had kittens and was likely to become pregnant again as early as February of this year. One kitten was recovered in December, fostered and socialized. She is now at Petsmart available for adoption. Many thanks to the people who help us monitor traps and report on the cat population - we could not do this work without you!

FFSD100002 solid gray female Beachwalk

More than Words

This post is a general response to people who believe the Volunteers of Sandestin are doing the wrong thing-

Some have criticized that we cannot be working to reduce and eliminate the feral cats in our community because the top line of or blog says - "Working to protect and preserve the Feral cat population in Sandestin and find new homes for our abandoned feline friends." That doesn't sound like we are intent on reducing the cat population but our ACTIONS have spoken louder than 20 words at the top of a page ever could...

During our work for the last half of 2009 we have trapped 75 cats.

Of those, 15 (all kittens) were fostered and adopted out to new homes.

The remaining cats (60) were spayed or neutered, tested and found to be disease free, given all shots and vaccinations for future illnesses that might be spread to humans and other animals, and marked for identification through micro-chipping and left ear cropping.

If we had done NOTHING, here is a conservative estimate of the number of NEW kittens that would be running around Sandestin by the end of 2010:

29 females x 2.5 litters a year x 3 kittens per litter = 293 kittens
36 males x AT LEAST 3 kittens from mating with females that have not been trapped = 108

Total number of kittens that will now NOT HAPPEN in 2010 due to these efforts: 401

There is no way to argue that the TNR efforts are not having an impact on controlling and, over time, reducing the cat population in Sandestin.

The message at the top of this page and the mission statement to the left have been changed to reflect what should be obvious after reading this post. Please take some time to learn more about Trap-Neuter-Release and the positive impact this program is having all over our country.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post -
The Volunteers of Sandestin