Category Archives: Scratching Post

Tails High Second Anniversary Party!

Please join us in celebrating our Second Anniversary on Saturday, September 24, from 6:00-10:00 p.m. at the Old Town Hilton Hotel (across from the King Street Metro). The Hilton will donate a portion of all revenue from drinks and food purchased that evening by Tails High supporters. We will also be holding a silent auction, which was a huge success last year.

At our First Anniversary party last year, we were pleasantly surprised by the wonderful turnout, as was the Hilton, but even though service was quite slow, everyone had a fabulous time. The Hilton has assured us they will be prepared for our large group of cat lovers this year. Another improvement will be a cake. Katie, one of our junior volunteers, pointed out last year that a party isn’t a party without a cake!!

Adoptions in Record Time: Mimsy and Her Four Boys

We’ve been pretty successful in finding homes for cats and kittens, and most don’t have to wait long for their new families.  But the story of Mimsy and her four kittens is pretty amazing.

Mimsy was a young, pregnant brown tabby who was taken in by a cat-loving woman.  Four handsome tabby kittens arrived shortly thereafter.  The Good Samaritan and her family were moving out of the area.  We agreed to help, and Mimsy and her 2-week-old boys came the home of a TH foster.

Mimsy and her family prospered in the foster parents’ loving care. The boys were named Bismarck, Einstein, Smoky, and Woodley.  When the kittens were weaned, the foster parents tearfully brought Mimsy to be spayed so she could begin her new life with her forever family.  (Mimsy found that family less than a week later.)  They also brought back the gray tabby (Smoky), because they had decided to keep two of the three brown tabby kittens.  Smoky was adopted within a few days of being neutered.

After the other kittens were neutered, Bismarck and Woodley went back home.  The following morning, a family came to look at kittens, and walked out with their new family member, Einstein.  He is now the younger brother of another former Tails High kitty, Maxwell.  And so, poof!  One mama cat and four kittens went to four families.  Last we heard, all felines and humans are very, very happy — which makes all of us at Tails High very happy as well.

Tails High is Approved for the Combined Federal Campaign

Federal employees can contribute through the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC).  Our CFC number is 23910.  We’ll remind you as the time for making selections approaches, but hopefully you will give our CFC number to your animal-loving friends, neighbors, and family who are Federal employees and ask them to consider allocating a part of their CFC contribution to Tails High to enable us to rescue more homeless cats and kittens.

Update: Happy Jack Finds a New Home!

In our first issue, we profiled Happy Jack and Gemini, two miracle kittens who arrived at Tails High weighing less than 3 ounces.  Happy Jack had lost one of his eyes.  We’re pleased to report that Happy Jack and his new sister Snickers (a beautiful black and white tuxedo kitten) are blissfully happy in their new home.

In addition to rescuing homeless cats and kittens, Tails High works to help cat guardians and cat lovers every way we can. Please feel free to contact us by email (meow@tailshigh.org) or phone (703/819-5240) if you have a question or need advice on anything about your cat.  We’ll give advice from personal experience, as well as refer you to authoritative sources.

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Welcome

We invite you, as a member of the Tails High family, to read the first issue of The Scratching Post, our e-newsletter celebrating rescue cats and sharing information about our activities. Since we began this joyful venture in October 2009, we have found homes for over 300 homeless cats and kittens, and along the way it has been our pleasure to meet/email/talk with you and hundreds of other cat lovers.

Kitten Season

Kittens, kittens and more kittens!!  We’ve got calico kittens and tortie kittens and tabby kittens of various colors … gray kittens with white spots and white kittens with gray spots … orange kittens and black kittens and tuxedo kittens with mittens. As kittens are adopted (over 50 so far), more arrive to take their places. Enjoy the pictures in this issue, which are just a sampling of Tails High kittens of 2011. (And see our blog at www.tailshigh.org for more!!)

Happy Jack and Gemini: Beating the Odds

Together the two kittens weighed 5 ounces when they arrived at TH’s bottle feeder’s house, and one was missing an eye.  In her 20 years of working with tiny motherless kittens, Laura had never seen such small ones.  The odds were overwhelmingly against a good outcome, but the babies were fighters.  They wanted to live and eagerly took the bottles offered by Laura.  The next day, we put the two in Leni’s house, with a mama cat who had finished nursing her own babies.

The kittens gradually put on weight, thanks to nourishment from the mama cat and extra bottles from Leni.  It wasn’t until they were a month old that we allowed ourselves to hope they’d survive.  Leni named the boys Happy Jack and Gemini.  Now nearing 3 pounds, these two miracle kittens have a love of people and a zest for life that are truly  awww-inspiring.

Our Website

The Tails High website, www.tailshigh.org, is an ever-changing view of cats and kittens available for adoption. While there are many areas to explore on the website, please take special note of these three:

Events tab lists all of the upcoming Tails High adoption events in the coming weeks. Please stop by to meet and play with our super friendly and affectionate cats and kittens. It’s guaranteed to put a smile on your face the rest of the day.

Spay/Neuter Options tab provides information about where to get low-cost spay or neuter. This service is not necessary for Tails High cats because spay/neuter is taken care of as part of the adoption process. But spread the word to your friends and neighbors who adopted “free” kittens. It’s so important that all cats be spayed/neutered, because for every cat or kitten we help, there are hundreds being born who won’t find homes.

Recent Blog Posts (right-hand column) contain pictures and stories about Tails High cats and kittens (both before and after adoption), as well as helpful information for cat lovers.

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