October 16th is National Feral Cat Day 

October 29th is National Cat Day!

November 17th is National Black Cat Day!

People ask us what apartments allow pets in Brevard. We did some research!

Beachside - Indian Harbour Beach, Indiatlantic, and Satellite Beach: The Brittany, The Dunes, Harbour Pointe, Shore View

Cape Canaveral: Palms East/ Oceanside Village

Melbourne area (including Suntree/Viera & West Melbourne): Beachway Links, Berkshires of W. Melbourne, BridgeWater Pointe, Caribbean Isle, Coral Gardens Condos, Cypress Cove at Sunrise, Courtyard on the Green, Grand Oaks at the Lake, Hampton Greens, The Harbours & Hidden Harbour, Harvard, Hickory Pointe, Highland Viera West, Huntington Green, Lake in the Woods, Lake Pointe, Lakeside at Greenboro, Landmark at Grand Meadows, Legacy at Hibiscus Park, Mission Bay, Paradise Cay, The Park Townhomes, Parkway Place, Plantation Club, Portofino Villas, The Preserve at Longleaf, Princeton Park, Rivercrest, Saratoga, The Savannahs at James Landing, StoneWood Townhomes, Summerset, Sunbreeze, Tradewinds, Via Tuscany, Wickham Club, Wickham Village, Willow Brook Village, Windover Palms

Merritt Island: Catalina Club, Country Club/Courtenay Palms

Rockledge: Fountain Villas, Polo Glen, Woodhaven

Palm Bay: Country Gardens, Harbour Bay (formerly Riviera Terrace), The Landings, Lighthouse Pointe, Madalyn Landing, Malabar Lakes, Park at Palm Bay, The Pines, Villas at Palm Bay, The Vinings, Woodlake Village

Titusville: Park Villas, River Breeze, The Villas at La Cita

It cost animal control $94 million dollars to operate in Florida in 2008 ALONE. Breakdown of county cost of animal control in this Petition. Hundreds of thousands of animals are killed every year in Florida.

Please sign and SHARE this Petition.
http://www.change.org/petitions/view/florida_needs_animal_cruelty_surcharge_for_low_cost_spayneutering

If you have a feral or stray cat colony and you are doing TNR (Trap-Neuter-Return), this may interest you! Sometimes there is one (or maybe two) momcats you just cannot catch in a trap to take to the vet. When that happens, litter after litter is still born despite our best efforts. One of our foster moms, Mona, has a colony with a momcat like that. After 4 years of litters (9 litters!) she decided to try Feralstat. This is a feline contraceptive!! It works for the girls, and studies show it does not harm the other cats. So, October 2008 Mona started feeding this once a week, per the instructions. She is happy to report 3 1/2 years later there have been no more litters from the momcat! Note this product is not approved by the FDA yet. Anyone interested can contact Mona at meowmail1@gmail.com.

If you know of any groups that want to do fund raising, like some scout troop or something, please pass this neat program on to them! The contact is Cynthia Koppler, phone 321.733.7672 There are volunteers who will pick up donations in different areas.

Where to get grain-free canned foods?

Wellness: (www.omhpet.com) Wellness is a complete, balanced diet.  

No supplementation is needed and can be fed, as is, on a daily basis as the sole diet. Wellness is a very low carbohydrate (range epending on variety: 1%-12%), high quality canned food. Note: This company has chosen to start adding grains (brown rice) to some of the canned foods. This will increase the carbohydrate content. Be sure to look for a small yellow triangle on the front of the can stating that the food is "Grain Free". 

Nature's Variety: (www.naturesvariety.com) Nature's Variety canned food is also a complete, balance diet that is great for daily use. No supplementation is need. This is also a very low carbohydrate food. Nature's Variety also makes a high quality raw food.

EVO: (www.naturapet.com) Innova EVO is a complete diet for daily feeding and only 3% of its calories come from carbohydrates. **Please note that this food is very high in phosphorus and would not be a good food choice for any cat that is showing signs of renal insufficiency.

Wysong's Au Jus Canned Meats: (www.wysong.net) Several of Wysong's regular canned diets have undesirable grains in them but the plain canned meats are grainless. These are referred to as "All Meat" or "Au Jus". These all-meat diets are devoid of calcium so they are not balanced for daily use. You must add Wysong's "Call of the Wild" supplement to ensure that the meals are properly balanced if used as a sole diet. Otherwise, use the Au Jus canned food, without supplementation, for a few meals each week. Not every meal needs to be balanced so this is an excellent use for this product. These products are relatively expensive and are sometimes hard to find.

Avoderm Select Cuts: (www.breeders-choice.com) This high quality product is a complete diet for daily use. Please disregard the Breeder's Choice website that urges the reader to provide dry food at all times. This is very poor advice.

Wysong's Archetype: This is not a canned food. It is a cold-processed grainless diet, containing high quality meats, bones, organs, probiotic cultures, and other supplements. You add water to hydrate this food and then serve. This product is relatively expensive and hard to find.

Merrick: (www.merrickpetcare.com) This company makes some varieties of canned products without grains but several of them do contain grains. Read the labels carefully.

Whole Paws: This is a Whole Foods Market brand and is only carried in their stores. I like this food because it is very basic and contains nothing other than a single meat source and broth. It is balanced for daily use and would be a very good 'hypoallergenic/ limited ingredient' diet to try for a cat with IBD or any allergy/food intolerance. It comes in 3 varieties: chicken, beef, and fish. Please note that beef and fish are considered to be common allergens in the cat so I urge you to feed the chicken variety only. Note: As of around mid 2006, WFM stopped making this food. I have no idea if they will ever start offering it again.

Country Pet: (www.countrypet.com) This is a frozen product that is not raw but also is not heavily cooked. This company blanches the meats prior to freezing. I feed this to my cats as a supplement to their raw meat diet for variety. I find it in a freezer cart in the pet food section at Whole Foods Market. Check their website for other sources. I feed the Chicken dog food and sometimes the Fish and Chicken cat food. I say "sometimes" because I do not like to feed a lot of fish to my cats and I never feed it to my IBD cat due to its tendency to be hyperallergenic in the cat. This is why I prefer the Chicken dog food over the Fish and Chicken cat food but we all know that commercially prepared (cooked) dog food, as a general rule, should not be fed to cats because cats need more taurine (an essential amino acid) than dogs do. I have checked with the company that produces this food and have been assured that there is enough taurine in the dog food to meet a cat's needs. (In fact, the cat and dog food contain the same amount of taruine.) That said, if I was going to feed more than 50% of the total diet comprising either of these foods, I would feel more comfortable adding in 50 mg of taurine to each meal for a total taurine supplementation of 100mg/day. (The other option is to just add 100 mg to one feeding/day. ) Taurine can be purchased in any health food store or Whole Foods Market or can be purchased online at www.iherb.com or other internet sources. Use the capsule or loose powder form and mix into the food. Some taurine is always lost even with minimal processing of the meat. This company does not add any extra taurine to either the cat or the dog food to account for any losses so it just adds to my personal comfort level to add some if this diet is going to make up more than 50% of the total diet.

PAWS is committed to finding the best possible homes for our foster cats and kittens. To this end, we want to "match" the cat or kitten based on your lifestyle. Please allow us to help you determine what is best for you and best for the cat. We have lots of satisfied adopters who agree we are very good at this!!

We have found a GREAT article which the author, Barbara C. French, gave permission to reference on our site.

www.breedlist.com/faq/young.html

Other websites you should review:   

http://www.heartforanimals.org/infants_kittens.php3

www.newyorktails.com/boredcat.htm

www.perfectpaws.com/help2.html

www.de-clawing.com

http://www.animaltalkrescue.org/docs/ATR_Single_Kitten_Syndrome_Information.pdf

Thanks for doing YOUR research before adopting!!!