An Adventure to Austin Pets Alive!
At BARCS, we work with many great rescue organizations. Rescue organizations pull animals from BARCS when they are in need of specialized medical care, socialization, behavior training or just because! Recently, two of our big-hearted fosters made a lengthy journey to Texas for some special cats…
Our Rescue Coordinator Macy had just sent a rescue plea for Bubba, an 11 year old, black and white beauty with no teeth and FeLV. One avid reader of BARCS rescue pleas forwarded Bubba’s story to her network—and that was when Natascha at Austin Pets Alive! reached out.
Natascha is admittedly a sucker for “felvies,” a pet name for FeLV+ cats, and simply couldn’t turn Bubba’s cute face down. Notably, Austin Pets Alive! has great success with adopting out FeLV+ cats—they even have an entire research department dedicated to it.
At the time, BARCS also had two other FeLV+ cats, Gregor and Cecilia, so Macy asked if the rescue be willing to take a couple more. Of course, they agreed! In order to free up space in the shelter, our team sent Bubba, Gregor and Cecilia to foster while we figured out transportation logistics. After all, Austin, Texas is a big distance away from Baltimore, Maryland.
Awhile back, before we had gotten in touch with Austin Pets Alive!, Macy had polled our volunteers to see how far they'd be willing to travel to transport animals in order to find new rescues to partner with. She quickly remembered that a dedicated foster and volunteer, Carol, mentioned that she and her husband would be willing to fly. So, Macy reached out to give her the details, and within a couple days, Carol and her husband Jerry agreed to fly our kitties out of the kindness of their hearts!
A week before the trip was scheduled to take place, Macy noticed we had another senior FeLV+ cat named Claude who was very shy at the shelter and continuously being overlooked. Wanting nothing but the best for Claude, she asked Natascha if they'd be willing to add one more. Thankfully, Natasha said yes.
Unfortunately, Texas decided to have tornado weather the day we had settled on, which pushed the flight back two days. Despite the bumps in planning, the trip was well worth it. Claude, Bubba, Gregor and Cecilia made it to their destination without incident, and now they’ll have a much better chance of finding loving forever homes.
A massive thank you to Carol and Jerry for taking the long journey and to the team at Austin Pets Alive! for helping “felvie” kitties in Baltimore. We can’t wait to work with you again in the future!
Share
