Catster Site News and Updates

At this point, you're certainly not surprised to hear the words "recession" or "economic crisis." You would have had to be living under a rock to not have seen, heard, read about or experienced the current state of the (now) global economic downturn. You or someone dear to you may be recently unemployed, you may be tightening your purse strings or you may be even switching to a less expensive cat food. The latter, of course, only applies if you are indeed lucky enough to still be able to properly care for a pet, and have not been forced to hand your four-legged friend over to a shelter.

It sounds unfathomable and drastic, but it's true--shelters all across the country have reached and surpassed their occupancy levels and are facing numbers the likes of which they've never seen before. It's happening all over.

From West Texas...

"We do our best to get them a home, but if we don't for some reason, it takes a while, they don't go anywhere. We'll keep them here forever if we have to," Lone Star SPCA Director, Kirk French, said. --NewsWest9.com, January 5, 2009

to Missouri...

"Some of them, when they're first abandoned, are pretty healthy, not thin, and may be wary of people, but don't live completely in hiding. But faster than you'd think, they get very thin, they might get mange, or injured somehow, they live in the shadows, and soon they have an air of dejection," [said] Randy Grim, head of Stray Rescue of St. Louis. -- USA Today, January 6, 2009

to Michigan...

Nearly 6,000 dogs and cats have been taken to the shelter this year. Of that, 401 were turned in by owners who cited financial pressures - an increase of 75 percent compared to the previous year, officials said. -- MLive.com, December 26, 2008

... the story is the same: too many pets, not enough shelter space or resources.

As unemployment rates go up, so do the turn-in rates at shelters, which means that the organizations that are responsible for the care, maintenance and funding of the shelters are forced to deal with a larger number of four-legged clients, but with the same (or fewer) resources. You don't have to be a mathematician to figure that one out. It quite simply does not work.

At Dogster and Catster, we take great pride in not only being able to provide our members with a fun experience, but with an informative and meaningful one as well. As times get tough for our furry little friends out there, we'd like try to do what we can to make the situation more manageable. Here is a list of Catster resources that will help you to find out more or lend a hand during these rough times:

The Catster Railroad - This is a special place for Catsters to help Catsters arrange for community transport of rescue cats or cats being re-homed.

The Catster Adoption Center - Find out about adoptable cats here. You can find shelter cats or cats that are at risk of being sent to a shelter.

Catster Local - This is where you can search for animal shelters and rescue organizations in your area.

Catster Adoption and Rescue Groups - Browse through all kinds of organizations that work to provide furrever homes for cats.

Catster Rescue and Adoption Answers - Browse through, ask or answer questions that have to do with rescue and adoption.

As long as this crisis exists, we here at Catster HQ will do our best to provide our members and readers with news, information and tips relating to the situation. Please feel free to pass links to our dog and cat articles and pet-centric services to any of your pet-loving friends who may find themselves in dire economic straights over the next few months.

Finally, leave a note in the comments section for this post if you have any thoughts or tips that you would like to share with other readers. Together, we can make a difference. And we will.

Tags

2009, adoption, cats, recession, rescue, shelters

Hiya, Catsters! As this year comes to a close, I thought it would be a purrfect idea to focus on some of the editorial highlights in and around the Catster empire in 2008! In addition to doing things like making extensive enhancements to our cat breed info pages and launching our all inclusive Dog and Cat Owner's Manuals, we managed to roll out a or enhance a few other new projects as well. Check it out!

2008 really was the year of the blog for Catster. It was with great pleasure that we launched The Cat's Meow: Catster's Cats and Kittens Blog, an event that was made even more exciting by the fact that Skeezix the Cat and his Food Lady Karen Nichols hopped on board to write it. Skeezix and Karen hit the catwalk running, and have been delighting readers with news, tips and fun for the past couple months now. Stay tuned for more fun--to make sure you don't miss a beat, sign up for the RSS feed or the email updates now!

We also launched Snuzzy this year, our pet and animal humor site where "cute and fuzzy collide." I've been pleasantly surprised with the success of this blog, and have enjoyed the feedback that I receive from our readers. So much of what makes Dogster and Catster successful has to do with the fact that our members and readers have great senses of humor and extreme fondness for all things cute, fuzzy and furry, so it was only logical that we launch the Snuzz. I look forward to continuing to find the snuzz and post it for you as the new year unfolds.

The Daily Cat Tip was also born in 2008, a blog that offers up a short daily bit of handy info that should be of interest to cat owners and cat lovers alike. Tracie Hotchner, author of The Cat Bible, has been writing the tips for us since we launched the blog in September. Look for more helpful tips on a whole slew of topics in 2009... AND, you can also get the tips delivered to you via Twitter! Just follow Catster by clicking here!

And speaking of Twitter, we've really been working hard to develop our Twitter presence, in order to make our followers aware of happenings, articles and fun stuff that cat lovers need to know about. We've got over 500 followers and more are coming every day! If you're not following us yet, and wish to do so, or just want to find out what all of the fuss is about, jump on over to our Twitter homepage.

Our Vet Blog, written by veterinarian Dr. Eric Barchas, has grown to be one of the most comprehensive medical blogs for pet owners on the Internet. Whether responding to your questions or to current events in the pet medical community, Dr. Barchas provides helpful daily advice to pet owners all over the world.

And, if that's not enough fur ya, we managed to sneak in a couple more exciting projects here at the end of 2008...

In order to start an open dialogue regarding the pet health insurance industry, we partnered with Trupanion to start the Pet Insurance and Health Care Blog in December. This is a place where readers are free to share their experiences, pawsitive and negative, with pet health care--so that we can all learn more about how the industry works!

And quizzes? We got yer quizzes! For those of you who have always been interested in finding out which celebrity your cat most closely matches, take our Celebrity Pet Quiz (also a 2008 addition) and find out!

And what good is a website with a bunch of different kinds of cats if we can't... stroll through all of them and try to guess their breeds! That's right, December also saw the launch of the Cat Breed Photo Game, which has been a huge hit in just a short period of time. Haven't played yet, or want to secure your name on the leader board? Give it a whirl now!

Turns out I could go on furever and ever, but I'll leave you with a little 2008 World's Coolest Dog Show info and let you get back to hanging out on Dogster. For the second year in a row, over 3 MILLION votes were cast on over 20,000 entries, making the coolest pet photo contest on the Internet a success once again!

Whew. What a year.

But the most important announcement that we have to make this year is that we plan to ride this creative momentum well into the new year! So stay tuned--we've got lots more excitement coming your way in 2009 from Catster HQ!

I'd like to finish by thanking all of our dedicated members, regular visitors and curious passers-by for helping us grow to be the #1 community for cat-lovers on the Internet. Many companies faced challenges in 2008, and Dogster and Catster were no exceptions. But we want you to know that we're keeping our tails up and our claws sharp as we push off into 2009, and aim to continue to provide you with the cat-friendly content that you've come to know and love. We always appreciate your feedback and look forward to continuing to hear from you in the coming year.

Purrs, meows and head-butts,

Anders Porter
Editorial & Content Manager
Dogster, Inc.

The following Catster members have received 25 Zealies each for the pawesome answers that they've given to guests and other members who post questions in our Answers section. People browsing through the Answers section can rate the answers that they read by letting us know if they thought that the answer given was helpful or not.

October's most helpful cats were: Izzie, Tabby, Natasha, Spike and Allie.

November's most helpful cats were: Izzie, Minxy, Kira, Mr. Fez and Maxine.

December's most helpful cats? Well, that's up to you! Head on over to Answers and start seeing where you can help out--you could be awarded 25 Zealies next month!