Several tiny, scared kittens were trailing the skinny young cat when Abby Swoveland spotted the feral felines in Old Colorado City just about 14 years ago.
The elementary school teacher set out a dish of milk and left for work. The routine began: Set out food that would disappear though the cats still wouldn’t come close.
One litter was plenty, she thought so Hamlett Spay and Neuter Clinic came to the rescue, lending her traps and advising her how to lure the cats in with tuna juice on a paper towel. Later, clinic veterinarians spayed, neutered and inoculated the cats at no cost. All the animals had one ear “punched” with a tiny hole to signal that they are part of a managed feral cat community.
First Swoveland trapped a cat named Morris, a carrot-colored Casanova who still patrols West Kiowa Street and has shed all vestiges of shyness, boldly seeking attention - and especially from women!
Then there was Brinks, so named because he would lie wrapped around a Brink’s Inc. security sign, disappeared earlier this year. Neighbors suspect that a cat-hating former resident of disposed of Brinks after taking Morris to the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region and learning that the pound’s policy protects feral cats.
Dana Hass, “the cat whisperer,” helped Swoveland retrieve Morris and has cared for him since, along with the asthmatic Tigger and, until recently, “Big Red.”
Dr. Laurie Clauss, a neighbor and veterinarian with CatTails Feline Health Center, calls the latter cat “Mr. Orange.” No matter what you called him, the boy was a mess.
He liked to fight and would show up at Hass’s house covered in dried blood. After six or seven years of frequenting the Hass free feral feed, though, the ferocious feline turned tame and began demanding more and more human attention and affection.
Clauss “took advantage of that to take a blood test,” said Hass, a manager of the colony.
She started treating the 15-year-old cat for feline diabetes and arthritis and had pulled all his rotten teeth, and neutered and inoculated him, all free of charge. She’s keeping him in for the winter to oversee his recovery.
“She’s a guardian angel to me,” Hass said.
Hass and wife Beth, who is disabled, live on a very tight income but have cared for well over 12 cats at a time since they moved into the 1300 block of West Kiowa Street in 2008.
“Dana and Beth are such wonderful cat lovers,” Swoveland said. “They have always put out food and have gotten other stray kitties to come for food.”
Now they’ll get some help providing that food, Barb Jones said.
For 40 years, Jones has been shelling out food and care for community cats. She’s seen that nearly 1,400 cats in 30 colonies get fed, relying on grants and donations to Happy Cats Haven, a rescue group on the West Side.
“Community cats have a life,” said Jones, a retired elementary school teacher. “They’re just out there trying to survive. My grand colony, they all have houses. They need and deserve a safe life just like anything else does.”
“People who don’t like cats have just never known them, because cats are just amazing. I’m a dog person too, but I do cat rescue because that, to me, is where the need is greatest. Everybody loves dogs, but cats are really the forgotten species. I’m totally committed to making this a better world for cats.”
And so are dozens of others throughout Colorado Springs on whom hundreds of homeless kitties depend.