ARTHUR – The cats are in luck at Arthur Animal Rescue Cooperative after the community came together to honour the late actress Betty White.
White died on Dec. 31, short of what would have been her centennial birthday on Jan. 17.
To honour the longtime TV actress and animal welfare advocate, the #BettyWhiteChallenge was started on social media, prompting people to donate cash to local animal rescues and shelters.
And did they ever, to the tune of over $4,000 to the Arthur Animal Rescue.
Audrey Peacock, the rescue’s founder, said many items had also been purchased from the rescue’s Amazon wishlist.
“We weren’t expecting anything like this,” Peacock remarked.
“It just sort of got going,” Peacock said of the call-out over social media and donations that came flooding in.
Volunteer and coordinator Sandra Schaefer said she was “shocked.”
“I’m just flabbergasted at the outpouring of support from the community; it’s a really great feeling to be surrounded by a community of people that really care,” Schaefer added.
The thousands of donated dollars will help the rescue to settle some outstanding veterinary bills, cover the cost of fixing cats and pay for the medication of elderly, chronically sick cats which aren’t easily adoptable.
“The people who … donate money, donate food, donate time … they’re the people who blow my mind – they’re amazing,” Peacock said of the support.
On White’s birthday, Peacock even got a call from an Arthur resident wondering if the rescue could help.
A man and his daughter brought in an unwell, malnourished cat who, despite being a male, was fittingly given the name Betty White.
The animal rescue began in 2015 out of necessity, Peacock said.
At the behest of her daughter, Peacock started up an Arthur Animal Rescue Cooperative Facebook page recruiting volunteers to foster the felines after making her first rescue of a cat and her kittens found in a driveway.
The operation is now run by Peacock and three other women – Lyndsay Berry, Amy Stephens, and Sandra Schaefer – who over the past six years, have facilitated care for well over 1,000 cats.
“We took so many in from Arthur and cleaned up the streets of Arthur,” Peacock said.
The rescue and its volunteers have cared for other four-legged creatures, but it’s cats which are the rescue’s speciality.
“I can’t stand seeing them out there with no one to look after them – I just can’t do it, I can’t,” Peacock said.
Last year alone, around 370 were cared for by volunteers and adopted out.
“There are so many more cats than dogs … it’s just unbelievable, the number of cats out there,” Peacock said.
Every cat is scanned for a microchip and posted to social media to try and match with an owner. Over the past six years, attempts to match animals with owners have been successful around four times, Peacock said.
Abandoned cats
The majority of cats, she explained, are from hoarding scenarios or are abandoned without being fixed and go on to reproduce with other strays, increasing the population.
All cats are quarantined for at least two weeks because of diseases and cared for in foster homes until in good health, fixed, vaccinated and microchipped and ready to be adopted out for a $250 fee – the fixing fee alone for the rescue is around $150.
Kittens are raised in incubators and bottle or tube-fed.
Heartland Animal Hospital, in addition to other area veterinarians, offer services to the rescue to check cats over, test for diseases, spay and neuter, and perform extensive surgeries.
Of the 31 cats and kittens currently being cared for by the rescue, Tinker and Annie are available for adoption.
Those interested in adopting now or in the future can fill out an adoption form online at www.arthuranimalrescue.com/adoptables.
