There are certain events in life that cause one to pause and reflect where they were at that moment. I remember for me, March 11, 2011, the date of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan and the resulting Fukushima nuclear meltdown, that it was a Friday and I was already at work before I realized what was going on around me. The chain of events began unbeknownst to me at 12:45 am, EST, which translated to Friday, 2:26 pm in Japan. I originally found out from Dan via a text message that there was an earthquake – we did not have a television in my office and the enormity of the situation did not hit me until I got home and saw the news footage replaying the same devastating scenes over and over.

At first glance, this image looks like a jigsaw puzzle of matchsticks strewn haphazardly on the floor. In reality, this is an aerial view of the resulting debris from the earthquake and tsunami that struck northern Japan on March 11, 2011.

For the hundreds of thousands of people along the northern coast of Japan, first came the roar and rumble of the 8.9 magnitude earthquake that had skyscrapers swaying in the wind and buckled highways, followed by gigantic waves as high as 30 feet that rushed ashore, whisking away cars and carrying buildings set ablaze by fires towards factories, fields and highways.  Read more

FixNation of Los Angeles officially opened its doors to the public on July 16, 2007 and is the first of its kind organization dedicated to reducing the population of homeless stray and feral cats by providing full-time, free spay/neuter services to caregivers of community cats and low-cost services for tame companion cats. When I was presented with the opportunity to interview with one of the founders, Karn Myers, I jumped at the chance. FixNation had recently made the news with an exciting funding raising event in honor of World Spay Day on February 28th called “FixNation’s 2012 Spay Day Celebration.” Our friend Jackson Galaxy of My Cat From Hell was the special featured guest and I just knew this was an organization I wanted to be affiliated with and help spread the good word about. Read more

I had known Marg of the popular blog, Marg’s Pets, in the background of my mind though the many cat blogs I was beginning to visit on a regular basis. Though each blog I frequented was unique, any comments left by Marg had one common theme – she was a humble and kind-hearted soul looking out for the welfare of animals, feral cats in particular. Everyone else also had a warm word for Marg and I soon began to develop a friendship with this humanitarian. Read more

Gracie at her feeding station - one of the Loews cats in jeopardy of being relocated.

Sometimes in life you do something for no other reason than it is the right thing to do. As the weeks continue in the Loews Portofino Resort battle versus the feral cats residing on the property, it appears no real compromise has been made as groups such as CARE Feline TNR, Alley Cat Allies, and Orange County Animal Services try to reason with hotel management to keep the cats safely on the property rather than relocating them as planned. The hotel has no legal obligation to provide for these cats, other than the implied fact of moral responsibility that they have knowingly allowed these cats to remain on premises since 2004 when Bellman, George Ricci, first discovered a wet, cold, hungry, and motherless kitten at the Loews Royal Pacific location (it should be of note that although we refer to the Loews Portofino in debate, the feral cats in both the Royal Pacific and the Portofino are subject to relocation).

Realizing that this story has much more to it than meets the eye, I decided to go to the source himself, George Ricci, for an exclusive interview to get a firsthand account as to the background of this now very complicated situation to try to make sense of it all. George first started at the Loews in Denver, Colorado in 1992 and moved to the Orlando Royal Pacific location in 2003 and then transferred to the Portofino in 2008. He was a Bellman in all three locations and at the end of 2011 he voluntarily went to “on-call” status to devote more time to his studies at becoming a court stenographer. Read more

Christine and Mon Cherie

Christine Michaels, caretaker of the Riverfront Cats Downtown Miami, was what you would call a classic and devout “dog person” for most of her life.  Like many people, she had serious misconceptions about the feline species and now admits that her mindset was due to ignorance. She never had a cat of her own to care for from kitten to adulthood and reflects that she based her opinion other people’s cats rather than her own experience.

As we continue part two of the series, The Mainstreaming of a Feral Cat, we find out how her life took a profound change in direction and why she now so tirelessly dedicates herself to her greatest passion – educating people about the misconceptions of stray and feral cats and saving their lives. Read more