Julius Pet Rescue first vision
Pets Cure
Julius Pet Rescue seeks to be a place where feral cats can be domesticated by first offering the reality they most need. That is, safety.
The first meeting drew a conflict between doing a huge shelter starting a national chain, my goal and just doing a small shelter than expanding, most of the people’s goal.
WE all agreed that unless a feral cat has a contagious terminal disease the Julius Pet Rescue would be a no-kill shelter, unless the diseased cat appeared happy just to live out it’s life in a nice safe place and isn’t contagious to human’s or with a disease that can’t be transferred second hand to other humans’ pets.
Once feral cats can comprehend and realize the Maslow’s lowest level of need (safety) then other levels towards socialization to domestication could occur. Most animal wardens and shelters want to just TNR feral cats then let them have their expected life of not much more than 2 years.
Once they have the guarantee of food and water without scavenging cats, with no cold or rain or wind or predators (non-human or human) they could progress to petting and eventual transfer to a regular shelter for adoption or adopted from The Julius Pet Rescue.
For the JPR would be more like a middleman from the wild to homes or shelters. There would be little success of taking a feral cat and putting them in a regular shelter with a very small cage, open air, expected to all of a sudden forget the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder of living on the streets.
Feral cats that have been given a clean bill of health and have achieved socialization would be allowed to have a place more like a shelter. Those who are new or with diseases would have their own 15 foot by 15 foot plastic germ free, self ventilated “pretend mini-home.”
All cats would get some sort of at least occasional vet care which might not be up to weekly exams at most shelters but better than dying in the wilderness where maybe a few anti-biotics (e.g.) could have been an ounce of prevention.
Volunteers would change litter boxes and food and water using recyclable containers that would be ready to be exchanged for the old litter and any food and water. To make the job easier a hospital style meal cart would be used to both pick up and drop off new stuff. The old containers would be exchanged for money just like most all shelters get money for recycled aluminum cans.
Being green also helps getting green. Instead of risking dishes not being clean enough without enough soap, bleach or hot enough water, there would be brand new un-opened dishes every day. Some shelters do food, water and litter twice a day. I don’t think the feral cats that haven’t had empowerment and progressed beyond safety would want to have their own indoor cat colony of one upset more than once. It would be up to the volunteers to get to know each cat and have it be their call whether to do it again.
Volunteers would decide how much socialization to give each cat but would (again like a hospital) use new plastic gloves between each room dramatically reducing exposure to catching any cat diseases or taking anything home to their own domesticated cats. I suggested a limit of 4 hours a week for each volunteer and a shower and change or clothes as soon as possible after the shift to reduce exposure to volunteers’ home pets or any pets of humans they might be in contact.
To have what I hope would be a large number of cats (500 or more) would require a fairly large facility. A suggestion was made to appeal to the publicity factor to Giant Eagle to donate one of their many empty stores. I suggested that The J.P.R. be a REO building about to be torn down, then renovated for mostly cat living as opposed to shelters which have many features adapted for long term human use.
Unless any non-profit organization exists solely on grants or government funding (which a statistically insignificant do) they have to ask for money. Which is where the Julius Pet Rescue would be revolutionary.
Instead of spontaneous fundraisers with really cute ideas, I propose on going revenue generation by creating a sort of Julius Pet Rescue virtual store selling virtually anything that can be sold either online or through affiliate marketing. Affiliate Marketing is like a self hired sales job where one basically fills out a form then gets a website then sells their favorite products. Sort of like a high tech Avon sales rep.
There would be no policy that volunteers have to participate in revenue generation.
Volunteers would sell then donate a large majority of their commissions to the JPR being very careful not to upset lawyers referring to their commission contributions as a personal choice, not a legal representation of the company.
Not only would customers get products they would buy anyway. They would just get them from a different retailer and have the satisfaction that virtually all the profits from their purchase is going to help feral cats.
There was great debate in the first meeting whether to have everyone sell different products or everyone sell the same thing.
I personally like to watch TV,(not just the Animal Planet) so I have chosen to sell Dish Network and am donating almost all of my commissions to anyone who orders through www.vmcsatellite.com/?aid=272026 |