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----2008---- Vol. 1 - Spring ----2007---- Vol. 2 - Summer ----2004---- Vol. 3 - Fall Vol. 2 - Summer Vol. 1 - Spring ----2003---- Vol. 4 - Winter Vol. 3 - Fall Vol. 2 - Summer Vol. 1 - Spring

	VOICE	JUNE 2004 Vol. 4, Iss. 2

Location & Number of Cats Trapped Candia -- 3 Concord Burns Ave 7 Hooksett Goonan Road 21 Holiday Acres Trailer Park 23 Hudson Boyd Road 5 Londonderry Constitution Drive 7 Mammoth Road 7 Manchester Autozone 1 Central Street 3 Dubuque Street 2 Zylas 3 South Gray St 1 Conant St 3 Walnut St 5 Manchester Street 1 Merrimack Patten Hill Road 6 Milford -- 3 New Boston -- 3 For a grand total of 104!!!!!!!

That’s an awful lot of litters we prevented especially since 46 were females!

Fundraising Corner By Lee Durling, Fundraising Committee Chair Our Fundraising Events for the summer got off to a great start thanks to the efforts of Laura Zsofka and her friend Christine Bureau. They arranged for Animal Allies to hold a car wash at Burger King on Daniel Webster Highway in Manchester on April 24th where we raised $425.02! This was not an effortless event. Thank goodness we had the help of some of the best little fundraisers going. They were Ben, Kara, Tim and Matthew, so, to them we say a great big "thank-you"! Please help us out with our Summer CALENDAR Raffle which is a 30 day calendar packed with wonderful winnings. One winner will be drawn every day in July for 31 days and winners will be notified by mail. We have a lot of great prizes one of which is donated by Journey Ewell's family...2 nights and 3 days at their beach house. Purchase at least 1 ticket which will cost $5.00 or to increase your chances of winning, 3 for $10.00! Thank-you to our many generous sponsors of this raffle! PET PHOTO CONTEST. If you have a pet that you are extremely proud of, and who isn't proud of their pets? Enter our Pet Photo Contest! Send in a picture of the pet that owns you along with their picture and a brief story, 50 words or less why they should win The Best Pet Contest. Fee to enter each pet is $5.00, feel free to enter as many times as you want! 3 winners will be picked every newsletter! The prize: an appropriate (cat, dog, rabbit, etc.) basket! This basket will be filled with items not only for the pet but for their person! YARD SALE. Clean out those basements, cellars, attics and help out the animals! Our yard sale date is July 17th with the rain date being July 24th. We need volunteers to help price the items a few days before and volunteers to help the day of the yard sale. We also are in need of folding tables. So, even if you can't volunteer that day, come and buy something. Please even if it's a hot day, don't let that stop you from coming, refreshments will be served! Our collection jars need to get out there, every little bit helps! If you know of any place of business that might put a collection jar out along with our brochures, feel free to give me a call at #603-641-6472. I'll be happy to give a call or stop in to see if they are willing to do so! Well, folks, I guess that's it for the fundraising update! Lee

TAIL TALE OF A TRAPPER It was one of those frigid winter days in February and another volunteer and I headed out to Hooksett to assess yet another "cat situation". When we arrived we saw a few cats scatter about. We began to scope out the area to determine where best to set the traps. Sadly, in our travels we found a baby kitten frozen to death near a vehicle in the yard. Up to that point I had been feeling a bit burnt out on trapping and not as gung ho as I once was, but when I picked up this baby my attitude changed. Knowing this was completely unacceptable I made the decision to get over my burnout, put my butt in gear and get trapping, as these cats and kittens needed help. From that day through the next 4 days, I and 3 other volunteers became focused and aggressively trapped all 21 cats from this location. We were able to catch the Angel baby’s brother who was no more than 6 weeks old. He was running around with the tip of his tail frostbitten off. He was shy but gentle from the day he was trapped and within a week he was purring and happy and truly relishing his new indoor life. He was named JD (short for Jack Daniels as he was clearly tough stuff!) and given lots of love and attention for a couple of weeks before the wonderful Salem Animal Rescue League offered to take him and adopt him into a new and loving home. Thank you SALEM ANIMAL RESCUE LEAGUE!!!!! As heartwrenching as finding the dead kitten was, I found great satisfaction in being part of the solution to ending such sadness from happening again. I took this very negative situation and started doing something positive to help these babies. There is now a managed colony at this site where all the cats are spayed, neutered and vaccinated and have a caretaker who feeds and watches out for them. There will be no more dead kittens found here and that is something all the volunteers who worked on this colony can be proud of. There are only a few active trappers in our group and we have a running list of over 30 sites that need attention. The more people that come forward and help with this endeavor the less suffering and death there will be. Please contact us to help with this very important task. Kittens like JD need and are counting on you.

OUR BELIEFS We share a common respect and concern for all animals and oppose cruelty in any form. We believe all animals are entitled to the basic right not to suffer and that together we can stop the silent suffering. We promote animal welfare through humane education and direct community action. We educate the public about the suffering millions of animals are forced to endure each day at the hands of humans. OUR MAIN GOAL: COUNTDOWN TO ZERO Each year, thousands of healthy cats, dogs and other animals are put to death in NH shelters, simply for lack of a home. We are constantly striving to decrease the number of these killings and we won’t rest until that number is zero. Since our inception in 1994, Animal Allies has assisted thousands of people with spaying and neutering their animals. We locate affordable spay/neuter programs for people and have also funded hundreds of spay/neuter surgeries. We also work heavily with stray and feral cats. A feral cat is the 'wild' offspring of domestic cats and are the result of pet owners' abandonment or failure to spay and neuter their animals, allowing them to breed uncontrolled. Understandably, they are elusive and do not trust humans.

A TESTIMONIAL: My experience of Animal Allies By Laura Zsofka In the winter of 2001, I had just changed my work hours from nights to days, and as a result, I started taking my trash out in the evenings. When I drove up to the dumpster area in my mobile home park in Merrimack, I discovered lots of cats jumping out of the dumpsters when my lights shined on them, and they ran frantically into the woods towards a nearby junkyard. I became immediately concerned, because it was so cold out, that these poor cats needed some help. I began going and putting cat food out every night at the same time, when the rest of the park residents were probably asleep. The cats began to start to hang out and wait for me, little by little getting closer and closer, instead of running for their lives. These were definitely feral cats. Within a couple months, although none of them let me touch them, they would allow me to get within reach. I purposely never tried to grab one because I wanted them to trust me. It was an awesome experience to go into the woods on a freezing night and see lots and lots of cats coming out of the woods all around me to meet me for supper. I felt good, that I was helping them, but sad, that there were so many, and I knew springtime would be here too soon and more litters would be born. There was one particular little gray cutie that I named Scooter. He used to flirt all around me, rubbing up against the branches and trees. I could tell he was happy to see me every night and appreciative of the food and water, but he never let me touch him. I was madly in love with that little guy. I resolved to try to help them get fixed but didn’t know where to start, I couldn’t have afforded to fix all those cats, never mind how was I going to catch them? I made some phone calls and it was recommended to me that I call Animal Allies for help. I did, and Kathy Peirce called me right away. Three wonderful ladies, Doris, Linda & Kathy came and trapped 22 cats in my woods and got them all fixed and vaccinated. Animal Allies never asked me for a dime. I was so grateful. They told me they operate on donations and have caring vets who help out at a low cost. One of the cats had an eye missing. That eye got fixed and one of Kathy’s friends adopted her out. Some of those cats got released back to the junkyard and I continued to feed them, some went to the shelter and got adopted, some got barns. I know for a fact that the ones that got re-released don’t have nice lives like house cats do. As for the little gray cat named Scooter, he came to live with me after he got neutered. I’ve had him for a couple years, and he has become such a loving cat..At first he wouldn’t let me touch him, but little by little, month by month, he made progress, he even sits in my lap now and sleeps next to me. If he sees me come out of my room, he doesn’t walk down the hall to say hi, he runs! Scooter loves his home, it’s obvious he’s grateful and happy now. As for the junkyard cats that were re-released, they have mostly disappeared, one by one. It’s sad, but I’m thankful for the help Animal Allies gave me and that we prevented a lot more cats from being born in that junkyard. It’s always on my mind that there are a lot more wonderful cats like Scooter out there who would also love to have a nice home and they just need a chance. For this reason, I appointed myself as a fundraiser for Animal Allies. I have seen enough of what these ladies do to know that they don’t fool around, and they do a lot of good. [Editor’s Note: Laura has since organized two fundraisers that have generated over $700 for us. Thank you Laura!!!]

AND YET ANOTHER HAPPY SUCCESS STORY The “ferals” have been promoted to the station of “barn cats” now that they have been fixed. They stay around a lot more and know where their meals are served – (in the shed). They are all doing fine and I am so happy that we could keep the family together. Thank you again for all of your support. Ann-Marie & Larry Carpenter [Editor's Note: The Carpenters called us about feral cats they were caring for that needed to be spayed/neutered and vaccinated. We provided the discount vet services but they did the legwork and gave a nice donation. Thank you to them for caring!]

HELPING ANIMALS WITH THE CLICK OF A MOUSE Shop on line a lot? If so, go to the website buyforcharity.com and you can add dollars to the Animal Allies bank account. It won’t cost you anything extra and will benefit the animals greatly. Animal Allies has teamed up with eFundraising.com to bring you your favorite magazines at great prices, and a portion of the proceeds goes directly to Animal Allies to help further our mission! Now there's a win/win deal! Visit our website for more information.

SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR WONDERFUL GENEROUS DONORS Raymond Olivier Catherine Tierney Dr. George Messenger Kathy Foytho Carolynn Mary Stanton Theresia Manner Laraine Day Laura Zsofka Theresa Cote Mary Major Rosemary Palfini Kimberly Landry Michael Dupont Connie Pinard Stephen LaFond Frances Thomas Patricia Joyce Virginia Stanton John Hunt Susan Martel Sussan Coley Steven Kolios Lucille Potvin Gloria Goulet Debra Landoni Stephen Petroski Janey Barnard Carolyn Vogler Anna Maenhout Yvonne Petit Louise Prescott Colleen Sansouci Amy Mailhot Doris Rand Joanne Merrick Susanne Braddock Joanne Magnan Sue Simpson Hilary Walter Lori Bertrand James & Nancy Brooks Caroline Sutton Annette Whitmore Ann Marie Woodlock Vesta Stenta Ronald Peredna Lynne Spiegel Joyce Koerber Steve Kereazes Carriage Hill Farm

VISIT OUR NEW AND IMPROVED WEBSITE!!!!!!! http://www.animalallies.org Thanks to the generous donation of time, effort and lots of talent by Dan Wiedenheft and Hector Cruz we have a beautiful new website. Please check it out and spread the word!!! Thank you Dan and Hector!!!!

FERAL CAT SPAY/NEUTER CLINIC WITH MERRIMACK RIVER FELINE RESCUE Thanks to the efforts of Margaret Brender of Merrimack River Feline Rescue and the Animal Rescue League of Bedford, NH, plans are underway to have a feral cat spay/neuter clinic on Sunday, June 27, 2004. At this time there are two vets who will be participating and we hope to spay/neuter 25 cats. With the 30+ colonies that we have to attend to, we are certain we will be able to fill all the slots. For the day to be successful, we need lots of volunteers. Won’t you please consider volunteering for a couple of hours on that day? We need volunteers to help with admissions and recovery, trap cleaning, early-birds to help set-up and late-birds to help breakdown and clean-up. This is a great opportunity to help these most needy cats. We are especially in need of a couple of vet techs who can help. Please contact Kathy at 603-625-9081 if you can offer some time. Thank you.

Campaign Oprah: Spay Day USA 2004 A Voice for Animals out of Kentucky is proposing a campaign to inform Oprah and her staff of the importance of spay/neuter so they will do a program on the tragedy of pet overpopulation. Email Oprah and give her this great story idea: Spay/Neuter Saves Lives Go to: www.oprah.com/email/reach/email_showideas.jhtml to complete the form.