ABOUT US
If you feel your home is not complete without a cat, then you know what special creatures they are….
Did you also know that hundreds of kittens are born in Los Angeles every week that will never have a home? That a single pair of fertile cats can create over the span of just a few short years over 200,000 offspring? That as a result of prolific natural breeding and pet abandonment there are well over 1 million wild, homeless, stray and “feral” cats living in the Los Angeles area?
As a consequence, homeless cats comprise the largest component of animals euthanized by Los Angeles animal shelters every year, at great public expense.
Thankfully, there is a humane, cost-effective alternative to killing homeless cats or doing nothing at all, and it’s called Trap-Neuter-Return – TNR for short – a community based program bringing together concerned citizens, veterinarians and animal welfare organizations to take responsibility for homeless cats, get them humanely trapped and sterilized, then returned to be cared for long-term so they can live out their natural lives.
TNR programs have been established in many cities and towns all across America in recent years. In Los Angeles, one such group, Best Friends Catnippers, has been responsible for “fixing” over 12,500 feral cats since 2000 – all on a volunteer basis. Started in 1999 by the husband-wife team of Mark Dodge and Karn Myers, the program has operated under the wing of Best Friends Animal Society, and also raised grant funding from many other sources to conduct regularly-scheduled high-volume spay-neuter clinics, and pay vets to do spay/neuter surgeries in their practices for caregivers of feral cats. In 2006 alone, Catnippers was responsible for fixing over 2,300 homeless cats.
In January of 2007 the Catnippers team secured grant funding from PetSmart Charities, the Found Animals Foundation, Best Friends Animal Society and several private donors to launch the very first full-time spay-neuter clinic in Los Angeles dedicated to serving feral cat caregivers and implementing TNR county-wide. Our new program is a separate 501(c)(3) organization, FixNation, Inc. and since July 16, 2007 we have been operating our clinic at the spay-neuter clinic adjacent to the LA City North Central Shelter at 3201 Lacy Street, Los Angeles, CA 90031.
FixNation is building a new, permanent facility adjacent to the Burbank airport, which is expected to be completed by June, 2008. Until then, our clinic at North Central will continue in full operation. See Clinic Operations. Additionally, Best Friends Catnippers will continue conducting bi-monthly clinics as volunteer support group and sister program. See Best Friends Catnippers.
