With determination and passion, best friends Amber Wiggil and Amy Long have taken their love for animals – especially cats – to a new level.
Starting Furever Homes in March and Furever Fixed in May, after noticing the ever-increasing number of kittens needing homes, the pair have been hard at work using any and all of their spare time to get cats sterilised and find responsible homes for multiple litters of kittens.
“Earlier this year Amy was fostering for another animal welfare and she just couldn’t keep up with the amount of kittens coming in so we started up our own fostering programme, but we realised that the main problem was the abundance of unsterilised domestic and stray cats,” said Wiggil, 27.
The recently registered NPO aims to relieve other animal welfare organisations such as Pet Pals and the SPCA, but their main priority is the sterilisation of both domestic and stray cats.
They run a trap, neuter and release programme in various areas around East London such as Dawn, Southernwood, Arcadia and various business premises with a stray cat problem, and only accept domestic kittens if people are willing to sterilise their cats once they have had the litter.
To date, Furever Fixed has sterilised almost 400 cats and has recently worked in the Garcia Flats area to sterilise a further 49 adult cats.
“Our biggest frustration is that people do not sterilise their animals and cats are a huge problem because female cats can fall pregnant again essentially right after they’ve had a litter. Their breeding rate is phenomenal, especially from about September to February which is peak breeding season,” said Long, 30, while fending off five tiny kittens before they made their great escape out of the cat room.
Yes, Long has an entire room in her Cambridge home dedicated to kittens and between the pair, Wiggil and Long are now fostering over 50 kittens at their homes.
Inundated with 90 little felines looking for “furever” homes, the other 38 meowing balls of fluff are spread out between their six dedicated foster helper – and more just keep coming in on a daily basis.
“We sometimes get calls at 12pm asking if they can drop off a litter of kittens, because people just don’t know what to do with them,” said Wiggil.
The organisation also has a strict adoption policy whereby any adopted kittens must be sterilised when they are old enough. Vet appointments for adoptees are made in advance by Wiggil and Long and the pair follow up on each adoption.
“Most of the time when people are not willing to sterilise their animals, they say is because of funding. We are given welfare rates for all of our sterilisations and have a really good relationship with the Beacon Bay vet who gives us about five sterilisation slots a day. Those who adopt through us can pay R800 to have their cats sterilised and we even offer a payment plan,” said Long.
Through hard work, a troop of volunteers, fosters, generous sponsors, supporters and regular fundraising efforts, Furever Homes and Furever Fixed keep going.
For anyone wanting to adopt or surrender kittens please contact Wiggil on 071-293-3963. For sterilisations please contact Long on 079-696-2626. You can also contact them at fureverfixed@gmail.com...