The following are instructions on how we can help you rescue a stray cat/kitten(s) in your neighborhood, or relinquish your own cat for adoption.  Basically, the more YOU can do, the more successful we will be in helping you.  Usually people have many more resources than they think.

If you live or work in Trenton or you found the cat in Trenton, you may bring the cat to the shelter.  YOU MUST CALL THE SHELTER FIRST TO ENSURE that they have cage space (609-989-3254).  If the animal is injured, please bring it to a vet immediately. If you feel you can afford a vet visit, please visit the other category on this website called “Financial Help for Sick and Injured Animals”.

If you do not live or work in Trenton, your first contact requesting help should be an email to the President of Delaware Valley Second Chance for Animals - CorinaMarcus@yahoo.com  Let her know that you have a cat or kittens who need rescuing/adoption.

If you have a stray cat outdoors, you must determine whether or not it is friendly enough to handle.  If the cat is wild, there are ways to trap it and the websites listed below can tell you how.  Also, check out the category “That stray cat” on this website for more information.  You MUST catch the cat or a male cat will continue spraying around your house or a female will continue giving birth outside your house. 

If the cat is friendly enough to handle, try to find some way or someone to foster the cat until it is adopted. Can you keep it in a garage or an extra bathroom (no – cats DON’T give each other diseases through bathroom doors), a shed or an extra room?  Ask neighbors, friends, co-workers – if they have a safe place to keep it.  We can loan you large crates to contain the cat in if you can keep it out of the elements.  Have you asked every possible person?  Can you at least provide the stray with some sort of shelter and feeding schedule until we can help you?

Super websites and contacts to visit for local and immediate help with outdoor cats:

trentontnr@gmail.com

www.ForgottenCats.org

If the cat is in ANY immediate danger, let us know and we’ll try to put emergency action plan together for you.  PLEASE include a PHONE number when contacting us for help. 

If it is your own cat, we hope that you are willing to keep it (even if it is kept in a basement or separate room because of allergies or litter box issues, etc.) until we can find a temporary or permanent home. Your cat must be up to date on its yearly inoculation shots, rabies shot, and should be spayed or neutered and been FeLV/FIV (AIDS/leukemia) tested and negative.  If your cat is not up to date, bring it to your vet, have all this done and then we can help you.

Once all this is done:

You may choose to get your cat listed on our website or displayed at our adoption days. Check our website www.dvsc.petfinder.com for examples of how pictures look and biographies read.  Take a digital picture of the cat (borrow a camera if you have to), and email the picture along with a biography of the cat to Michele at Bartram116@aol.com and she will post it. Again, include your name, PHONE # for contact and email address.  Take as close a shot of the cat as you can get and don’t worry about what is in the background, we can edit it anyway we choose.  If the cat does not have a name, we will name it.   

Once you have completed ALL of the above (taken the cat in, had it seen by a vet, spayed, tested and acclimated to people) you are ready to display the cat with us at our adoption days at PetSmart Langhorne (right across the street from Sesame Place and the Oxford Valley mall).  If you are affiliated with Trenton, you will be displaying your cat on Sundays.  If you are working with DVSC, you will be displaying your cat with on Saturdays from 12 noon until 4pm.  

To reserve a cage for displaying your cat, send an email to nturner038@comcast.net and introduce yourself.  Tell her you have completed all the necessary requirements on how to relinquish a cat and that you will soon need a display cage for either day.  Once she confirms your day, just bring your cat and ALL medical records.   Give her all your contact numbers and address.  If POSSIBLE, go to Delaware Valley Second Chance for Animal’s website www.dvsc.petfinder.com or Trenton Shelter’s website www.tas.petfinder.com and print 3 copies of your cats’ bios and bring them with you to adoption day. We will hang them on the cage.  

If all this is too much for you to do, you may contact other groups in your area by doing a search on www.PetFinder.com menu called “Rescue Groups”. 

Thank you. 

Trenton Cat Volunteers/DVSC Volunteers