Kittens are Cute but Neuter is Cuter! 2023-24
Tax deductible
Prevention-- through high volume and targeted sterilization-- is the kindest and most cost-effective way to end the suffering of unwanted cats and dogs!
Montenegro is a small Balkan country where the streets are full of unwanted kittens, puppies, cats and dogs who live, suffer, and die in the streets. That's why Kotor Kitties provides free and heavily subsidized spay-neuter surgeries through the first High Quality, High Volume Spay-Neuter program, and the first Trap-Neuter-Return program in the country.
In just 5 years, our all-volunteer project has improved the lives of more than 10,500 free-roaming cats, and prevented the suffering of thousands of kittens that won't be born into sickness and suffering.
Your gift of just $50 dollars will spay and vaccinate a female cat in Montenegro, stop a cycle of suffering, infuse money into a small local veterinary business, and put tax dollars into the struggling Montenegrin economy! With just $38 you can do the same for a male cat, and help prevent behavioral problems that lead to them being injured or killed.
- In a 2018 survey on just one block in Kotor, 3 mama cats gave birth to 10 kittens. All of them appeared to be healthy.
- Ten weeks later, only one kitten survived. The rest died of an upper respiratory infection (URI).
We named the surviving kitten Maisie (shown above with her mama, whom we spayed.)
This is Maisie after her spay. Later she was hit by a car, and disappeared for a week. When she reappeared, her leg was shattered. Declining free surgery from our vet to reset the leg (which involved a long recovery) the feeder adopted her and made her an indoor cat, because she could no longer run and jump freely.
Kotor Kitties is a coordinated partnership of 3 all-volunteer groups:
- A non-profit 501(c)(3), based in Seattle, Washington, was founded in 2019 because Montenegro needed a spay-neuter program!
- In 2020, a group of Kotor Kitties volunteers from UK founded a charity, registered in England and Wales. If you are a UK resident, please donate through Just Giving so the cats can also benefit from your government's Gift Aid, along with your donation.
- In 2021 a Montenegrin NGO was approved and registered as a volunteer charity in Montenegro.
We work in partnership with local Montenegrin vets willing to learn the less-invasive spay-neuter techniques that make Trap-Neuter-Return of community cats possible, and also allows quicker recovery, with less pain, for all cats! The vets give Kotor Kitties a deep discount on pricing because of the high volume of work they do for us, and the savings they see in time, anesthesia, and suture material by using the less-invasive techniques.
Two of three young mamas abandoned with their babies along a busy highway last year. These survived and now proudly wear their ear tips to show they've been sterilized.
Many kittens lose most or all of their eyesight due to preventable viruses. Some have their eyes removed, to prevent further infections. The problem is finding adopters for them, since they cannot live safely on the streets without vision.
A wonderful tech-oriented volunteer created a tracking system and database for our veterinary services with the cats. It's simple to enter each cat's data on a phone! He's currently expanding it to track our equipment--cat carriers, traps, and such--so it can be easily checked out for use, but we can easily find it again!
Please visit one of our volunteer-created websites to learn more about our work!
Organizer
Kotor Kitties
Beneficiary