Monday, October 1, 2012
Valmar can't type, file or use a copier, yet he spends all day in an office. His resume includes purring, giving head butts and playing. Can he get a job being your cat?
At LifeLine Animal Project in Avondale Estates, the Dog House and Kitty Motel are often at capacity with homeless pets. Everywhere you look there are pets who were rescued off death row at kill-shelters, cats and dogs who were abandoned, abused or seized by authorities in criminal cases. All these animals are getting love and attention, medical care and, if needed, obedience training. All are waiting on adoption and their own, personal, new beginning/happy ending. Even the rescue and animal advocacy group's administrative office has a few furry occupants, mostly cats waiting on new homes, who spend all their time "helping" the staff work by taking up chair space for their naps, rolling pens off the desks, greeting visitors and sunning …
Monday, April 16, 2012
Amber alert! Amber the orange cat is looking for real home after living in a flea market parking lot for a year.
Cats are extremely sensitive and adaptable creatures but living on the streets is difficult for them. Outdoor and stray cats generally have one third of the lifespan of indoor or owned cats. Living on the streets ages them and they can develop a number of problems. Amber is one lucky cat. She was abandoned by her owners and left to fend for herself, which she did pretty handily living in the parking lot of a flea market for well over a year. It was starting to take its toll on her in terms of her health when she was rescued by LifeLine Animal Project. This petite orange tabby was very skinny and tired but still affectionate when saved by rescuers. She's adapted well to living in LifeLine's administrative offices with five other rescued …
Monday, January 23, 2012
Monty spends much of his day by the window of LifeLine's Kitty Motel, watching the world outside. Is he looking for you?
At one time Monty was probably the most polite stray cat in Atlanta. A mid-sized 2-year-old black-and-white feline, he's so courteous that that when he lived on the street other cats were always beating him up. He doesn't hold the past bullying episodes against anyone, however. He was rescued by LifeLine Animal Project and now he lives in their no-kill Kitty Motel with more than a dozen other cats, all of whom he gets along with. He's not a stray any longer, thanks to LifeLine, but he doesn't have a home of his own, either. He's never had a home. He's never been fostered or adopted and Mickie Blair would like to see that change. "He's healthy now but he was so sickly when he came in," says Blair, who serves as the animal rescue and …
Monday, January 2, 2012
Metro Atlanta has one of the highest kill rates in the nation for homeless pets in shelters. Two lucky cats and a kitten have escaped euthanasia but won't be home free until they have a home.
Charlene and Snickers are two adult cats who couldn't be more different if they tried. One is outgoing and bossy, the other a laid-back, lovable character. Then there's Halle, a half-pint kitten who just wants someone to talk to and will engage anyone who walks into the room where her cage is housed. The three felines do have some things in common; they are all healthy and love people. They also share one unfortunate reality. They are all homeless. "They are each stuck in a cage and that's really not fair to them," laments Mickie Blair, the cat adoption counselor at LifeLine Animal Project, where the cats are living until they are adopted. LifeLine's no-kill shelter includes their cage-free Kitty Motel, but it's full at present, so …
Monday, November 7, 2011
Nubby came to LifeLine Animal Project with turned-in eyelids and a mangled tail. To get better he just needs a little help and some new friends.
Sometimes bad things happen to good cats. Take Nubby, for example. When this big orange stray was saved by LifeLine Animal Project, it was immediately obvious upon his arrival at the rescue that he had a host of physical problems. He had entropian, a painful and problematic inward rolling of his lower eyelids, a condition more common in dogs than cats. His tail was horribly mangled, half it already gone and the rest infected, consistant with a run-in with a coyote or stray or off-leash dog. He was also diagnosed FIV-positive but was showed no obvious symptoms. Another thing that was immediately apparent: How sweet natured he was. Incredibly, although he was in obvious and terrible pain, he never tried to bite or scratch the hands that …
Monday, May 30, 2011
When a healthy colony of homeless cats was marked for death, a form of feline civil disobedience saved Salinger's life.
In films, homeless cats are often romanticized for their freedom-loving ways and street smarts. They are portrayed like Thomas O' Malley, the crafty stray in Disney's "The Aristocats," king of their domain, singing songs and living a life of adventure and intrigue. Reality in the outdoor cat world is that felines who are not spayed or neutered will not only have litter after litter, up to four a year, they will also catch and spread diseases from fighting and mating. They can loudly defend their territory and food. Many see these strays as feline gangs and unwelcome pests. When a colony of feral and stray cats have been stabilized through a program like LifeLine Animal Project’s Catlanta, a TNR (Trap Neuter Replace) initiative, they …
33.77626
-84.269387
Lifeline Animal Project
129 Lake St, Avondale Estates, GA
/articles/the-adventures-of-an-outdoor-cat
1834829
/locations/4457707
Monday, May 16, 2011
Cats and kittens who live on the streets are susceptible to many life-threatening dangers but Betsy beat the odds.
She was a young cat, homeless, hungry and pregnant. There was no safe place to give birth or care for her babies. Help arrived in the nick of time when LifeLine Animal Project took her in. Five tiny kittens were born on the fourth of July, earning their mother the name Betsy, short for Betsy Ross. The kittens were named Red, White, Blue, Star and Stripe. All were all adopted within a matter of months, except for Star, who died soon after birth. With the kittens in homes, Betsy was left alone again in a shelter scenario that many animal rescuers see over and over again. “Mother cats come in pregnant or with their kittens and the kittens get adopted and the moms are left in the shelters,” says Mickie Blair, LifeLine’s field coordinator and …
33.77626
-84.269387
Lifeline Animal Project
129 Lake St, Avondale Estates, GA
/articles/the-stray-cat-blues
1834829
/locations/4335669
Monday, April 4, 2011
Jimmy Gee has survived life as a kitten on the streets, being dumped by an adoptive parent, and almost being euthanized at animal control
If there were a reality show for felines along the line of "Survivor," cool cat Jimmy Gee would be a paws-down winner. He’s a handsome light-colored tabby with a confident stride and an odd orange undercoat, the result of some exotic relative in his family tree. At about 2 years-old he’s curious, adventurous and friendly. He’s also very lucky. Twice homeless through no fault of his own, the last foray onto the streets landed him at Animal Control. Due to overcrowding he was scheduled to be euthanized when someone thought to scan him for a microchip. The info on that chip revealed that he had once been rescued by LifeLine Animal Project and he was promptly returned to the nonprofit. As a kitten, Jimmy Gee was abandoned by his owners and …
Monday, February 21, 2011
Apricot and Kiwi are a duo who started out as drain kittens but have grown into a pretty pair of house cats. All they need now is a house.
Throughout the ages the domestic cat has appeared in and inspired many great works of art. Renoir, Picasso, Matisse, Franz Marc and even Andy Warhol all famously painted cats in various states of action or repose. Apricot and Kiwi, two homeless cats saved by LifeLine Animal Project in Avondale Estates, look like the sort of felines you see in fine art. They are stunning sister cats in muted shades of grey and white with vivid copper-colored eyes. One has long hair, one has short hair. Their natural feline grace seems amplified by their unusual coloring. Their rescue story started when they were five weeks old and in serious danger. A stray mother cat had hidden her litter of kittens in a storm drain but she was no where around when the…
Ralph Ellis
4:09 pm on Monday, October 1, 2012
Would you adopt a cat with Feline Immunodeficiency Virus? more ›