The Kitten League aims to ‘help people help cats’

Give a stray kitten a home, and you’ve saved one little bewhiskered life.

Ensure that kitten’s mother receives a safe and simple surgery so she no longer reproduces, and you’ve stopped a yearslong reproductive cycle.

And it wouldn’t hurt to neuter the feral tomcats that can’t help but love ‘em and leave ‘em too.

That’s the “teach a man to fish” philosophy — converted to felines — that the Sioux Falls area’s newest cat rescue has adopted.

“The Kitten League is a rescue that’s focused more on outreach, trying to help people trying to help cats,” founder Heather Swanson said at a meet-and-greet for the rescue Saturday at PetSmart at Dawley Farm Village.

“It’s not so much taking in kittens-kittens-kittens but to stop the cycle. We want to fix feral cats and put them back in their environment, doing trap, neuter, rescue,” Swanson said. “We do spay too — we’re not gender-biased.”

It’s not heartless to return feral cats to the wild, Swanson said. Most of them can’t be tamed to a domestic situation.

While The Kitten League does take in young and older cats, it doesn’t accept owner surrenders or cats that must be rehomed because of situations like a change in residence. The kittens it does accept are among the youngest, the ones whose mother deserted them or was killed. These newborns often must be tube or bottle fed if they are to survive.

“We try to help the kittens that don’t have anybody else to help them,” Swanson said.

Carrie Painter of Canton has fostered cats for about two years. She already had adopted a rescue cat when she found orphaned kittens. She turned to Swanson for advice and nursed them to maturity. Painter was hooked.

“It’s really rewarding. I’ve probably had more than 50 (fosters) now in past two years,” Painter said. “Otherwise, these cats don’t have a chance. The bottle kittens, without people like us, wouldn’t survive. Older kittens who are outside have no one to care for them. They’re searching for food, being killed by coyotes, being killed by cars. This way they find a home and are happy.”

About 15 people now foster with The Kitten League, and Swanson isn’t looking to expand currently. It takes a learning curve to teach volunteers how to nurture neonatal kittens. Since The Kitten League is only a few months old, she wants to focus on raising funds and finding homes for the cats they now have in their care.

At Saturday’s meet-and-greet, a ginger cat sat contentedly on a volunteer’s lap while its back was being stroked. A white cat swished its gray tail. Hoyt, a ginger with a white face and chest, drowsed in a nearby kennel. One of the two cats Swanson brought in had been adopted already; Saturday was the official adoption day.

The group takes applications to adopt particular cats at the events, but that doesn’t mean a prospective owner will walk out with their cat-mate. Particularly if the wannabe cat owner lives in a rental property, Swanson makes calls to make sure the apartment owner approves.

Swanson adopted her first cat as an adult in about 1995. It was a farm cat that didn’t play well with others, and she agreed to take it home. While she may not qualify for “crazy cat lady” status, felines have been a part of her life since then. She first affiliated with a rescue group in 2016 when she was looking for a companion for a cat that had lost its playmate. Swanson ended up with a blind cat.

She also has found herself helping cat owners who have become overwhelmed with multiple cats. That has included cleaning a residence for the cats’ return.

Painter currently has five cats. One of her “foster fails” was a kitten diagnosed with feline leukemia. Painter thought she was taking the kitten into hospice, but it recovered, and she couldn’t say goodbye. Generally, though, she knows the kittens are only hers on loan.

People ask her how can she give them up. Painter has an answer: “It’s hard, but you know they’re moving on to their forever home, and now you have the opportunity to help more.”

Swanson wants cat owners to understand the commitment they are making. She points to a suggestion that Painter often makes: If you want a pet that will make no impact on your home, get a fish, aka a “pet in a dish.”

She has started a “Spay It Forward” program, but it hasn’t caught on with area veterinarians as quickly as she would like. It’s part of her commitment to reducing the numbers of unwanted cats at the source.

“The thing that is frustrating even in what we do, people will feed colonies of stray cats, they’ll feed 20 cats, but they won’t fix any,” Swanson said. “They’ll get to know them — ‘That’s Mama Cat, she had a litter in April.’ Why not let us help you, so you’re only feeding three, not 20. Take on that responsibility, not just food. Stop the growth.”

To learn more about The Kitten League, visit its Facebook page. The next meet-and-greet will be noon to 3 p.m. March 19 at PetSmart at Dawley Farms, 625 S. Highline Lane.