A SHORT HISTORY
In the summer of 1999 the husband and wife team of Mark Dodge and Karn Myers founded Best Friends Catnippers as an outreach program of the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary of Kanab, Utah. In 2006, they created FixNation, Inc., which a year later led to establishment of the first full-time spay-neuter clinic for homeless cats in California. The story of how this came about is as follows:
Mark developed a love affair with cats at a very young age. When he first met Karn, she was also an animal person, but having grown up in "the country" thought of cats mainly as barn patrol. Of course, once Karn experienced a kitty purring in response to attention, she was converted. Since then they have shared their lives with Spencer, Omar, Maxine, Bentley, Fonzie, Happy, Salsa and their current crew – Wolfgang, Kenya, Shona, Shadow, Magic, Indie, Simon and Mandy. All but the last two, taken in when Mark’s mother passed away in 2006, started life as feral kittens.
As life progressed, they found that virtually every art piece they acquired was in an animal theme, that the charities they most heavily supported were animal or wildlife oriented and that “animal issues” were important to them. This progression eventually led Mark and Karn to Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, and in 1995 they began contributing financially and volunteering for various Best Friends programs in Los Angeles…
In 1997 Karn was working for a special effects company in the movie business. Every morning and every afternoon, she noticed two women doing something at the adjacent property, which turned out to be feeding a colony of feral cats. (What is a “feral cat”? she wondered) Karn became friends with the 2 caregivers, and thus began a yearlong research project into the vast world of homeless, stray, wild and feral cats. Karn started networking, investigating, and through the head of the Best Friends Brigade (another LA outreach program of Best Friends), started developing momentum about "doing something" about the homeless cat situation in LA. This led to Mark, a corporate attorney, joining the effort, with Internet research and, eventually, networking with other individuals with a similar interest.
In 1998 their investigation led them to the Feral Cat Coalition in San Diego. Then it was discovered that their dear friend, Kimberly Pauli (executive secretary by day, kitten rescuer by night) had been driving down there once a month to volunteer at FCC clinics. Karn and Mark, with the idea of duplicating their TNR program in LA, went to two clinics and videotaped them for reference purposes. Then, they put together an organizational plan and made a formal proposal to the outreach program directors for Best Friends. After review and a good deal of dialogue, Best Friends adopted them and provided the initial funding to get the program going. Their first clinic was in October of 1999.
In 2006 the combination of track record, ambition and opportunity all converged when PetSmart Charities, with help from Best Friends Animal Society, offered to help fund a full-time TNR clinic under a new 501(c)(3) organization. Thus was conceived, with help from the Found Animals Foundation, and other private donors, FixNation, Inc.
