March 2015 Sanctuary Newsletter
Greetings!
Wow! Moses just celebrated his 9th birthday on February 27th! We cannot believe how fast nine years has passed. Happy Birthday Big Boy!
Yogie and Friends just participated in the 1st Annual Louisiana Comic Con and had a blast doing it. We met some amazing people and made new fans and supporters. We want to thank all the Yogie volunteers and the event organizers for making it such a fun and successful event. Several of us are fans of the show, Criminal Minds, and met one of the cast members, Nicholas Brendon, of the show. Nicholas Brendon, is an American actor and writer. He is best known for his character Xander Harris in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003) and Kevin Lynch in Criminal Minds (2007–present). He was very nice and so down to earth. Thank you for posing with us and stopping by our booth. We had fun. And that is me posing with him in my cheetah face outfit. Lol!
We will be raffling off another autographed, first edition, John Grisham book. His newest book is Gray Mountain. Tickets are just $2 each and you can get them by mailing a check or money to: Yogie and Friends Grisham Raffle, 128 Fob Lane, Frierson, LA 71027. Tickets will also be available at our spring bake sale as well as Discount Tobacco, 1201 Shady Grove Drive, Bossier City, Louisiana. Be sure to LEGIBLY write your information on a card or piece of paper to include your name, mailing address (in case we need to mail the book to you), and current phone contact so we can contact you if you win. Drawing will be held at Petco on Youree Drive, Shreveport on April 4th at 4pm. Winner need not be present to win.
Adoptable Cats/Kittens: We will be posting photos of adoptable cats and kittens as soon as they are available. We are updating our adoption forms/applications and process to ensure these animals get the best homes. We have approximately 18 kittens currently in foster care. Many have already been spayed/neutered and are current on vaccinations. We will keep you posted.
Amazon: If you shop via Amazon.com you select Yogie and Friends as your charity of choice. They will donate a percentage of the sales to us. It’s a very easy way to help.
We also have an Amazon wish list to help with the feeding and caring of our feral cat colonies as well as the adoptable cats and kittens we are fostering. Please help if you can.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/?ie=UTF8&cid=A2LGJPU9KN7C2N
We still need your financial help with the nine big cats we are boarding and any and all donations are appreciated as we continue to care for them. They are safe and well.
Money we raise during any of our fundraisers goes to the boarding of our big cats and for TNR. We have always been, and will continue to be, a 100% volunteer driven organization.
Combined Federal Campaign (CFC): CFC is in full swing right now, so if you are a Military member or Federal Employee we hope you will donate to Yogie and Friends via CFC. This program is easy and another good way to give financial assistance to the big cats. We hope you will please consider Yogie and Friends when making your CFC contribution. Our CFC number is 42427.
Kroger Community Rewards Program: Link your Kroger Plus Card for the Community Rewards Program. If you haven’t registered your Kroger Plus Card online yet, then you can do so at any time. Once your card is registered you can go to the Community Rewards Program page, select Yogie and Friends as your charity of choice and then link your Kroger Plus Card to the Rewards program. Every time an enrolled participant shops at Kroger using his or her Kroger Plus card, Yogie and Friends will begin accumulating rewards. In addition, once a household member enrolls his or her card, all linked Kroger Plus cards within that household will begin earning funds for Yogie and Friends. That is if you have selected us as your charity of choice and we sure hope you have. Please make sure you register your Kroger Plus Card on line and then link Yogie and Friends as your charity of choice. This only applies to Texas and Louisiana shoppers for us. Thank you in advance. Our charity NPO number is: 80724
Recycle Ink Cartridges and Cell Phones: Please consider helping us with our recycling program. Please don’t throw those old ink jet/laser jet cartridges in the trash. Give them to us. We recycle them and get cash for the cats. You can box up the cartridges; put a prepaid label on it that we will provide you, and then drop it off at any UPS shipping facility or they can pick it up at your business. If you need labels, then just contact us and we will get some to you.
Upcoming Events:
John Grisham Autographed
First Edition novel Gray Mountain
Raffle Tickets are $2.00 each
Drawing to be held at the Spring
Bake Sale at Petco.
4 April 2015 11am-4pm Spring Bake Sale and Fundraiser
Petco, 6596 Youree Drive
Shreveport, LA
TBD 11am – @5pm Eat a (hot) Dog, Save a Cat
Parking Lot of Discount Tobacco
1201 Shady Grove, Bossier City
PLEASE spay and neuter your pets. Adopt! Don’t Shop! Also, please continue heartworm prevention all year round and not just in the summer months. Heartworm disease can be transmitted all year.
The Yogie and Friends Gang!
Posted in Monthly Newsletter
February 2015 Sanctuary Newsletter
Greetings Fans!
Can you believe it is February already?
All of our big cats are doing well in their boarding location and we want to thank those who are still helping us care and support our animals. We see them often. We don’t see them daily as it should be, but they are happy, healthy, and doing well. We spend a great deal of time on the road in order to visit them and let them know all is well and that we are still a part of their lives. Your continued donations help us with the boarding and care of our animals and we appreciate this.
Our Mission is modified, as has always been our plan and goal. We have been doing Trap-Spay/Neuter-Release (TNR) of feral cats all along on a limited basis. We knew that one day our big cats would be gone, but through natural attrition as is life, and not through boarding at another facility. But, our hand was forced as a result of threats and we are still supporting our remaining big cats. Just in another location.
We do a tremendous amount of TNR of feral cats. Some kittens have been successfully socialized and adopted out. We love that. All animals deserve a loving home. We care for several community cat colonies, which entails feeding and vetting the cats in these colonies. We will modify our facility to provide shelter for those animals with special needs or who cannot be adopted. Although we don’t believe there are any unadoptable animals. It just takes someone special willing to take on a special needs animal. We know they exist.
Money we raise during any of our fundraisers goes to the boarding of our big cats and for TNR. We have always been, and will continue to be, a 100% volunteer driven organization.
Combined Federal Campaign (CFC): CFC is in full swing right now, so if you are a Military member or Federal Employee we hope you will donate to Yogie and Friends via CFC. This program is easy and another good way to give financial assistance to the big cats. We hope you will please consider Yogie and Friends when making your CFC contribution. Our CFC number is 42427.
Kroger Community Rewards Program: Link your Kroger Plus Card for the Community Rewards Program. If you haven’t registered your Kroger Plus Card online yet, then you can do so at any time. Once your card is registered you can go to the Community Rewards Program page, select Yogie and Friends as your charity of choice and then link your Kroger Plus Card to the Rewards program. Every time an enrolled participant shops at Kroger using his or her Kroger Plus card, Yogie and Friends will begin accumulating rewards. In addition, once a household member enrolls his or her card, all linked Kroger Plus cards within that household will begin earning funds for Yogie and Friends. That is if you have selected us as your charity of choice and we sure hope you have. Please make sure you register your Kroger Plus Card on line and then link Yogie and Friends as your charity of choice. This only applies to Texas and Louisiana shoppers for us. Thank you in advance. Our charity NPO number is: 80724
Recycle Ink Cartridges and Cell Phones: Please consider helping us with our recycling program. Please don’t throw those old ink jet/laser jet cartridges in the trash. Give them to us. We recycle them and get cash for the cats. You can box up the cartridges; put a prepaid label on it that we will provide you, and then drop it off at any UPS shipping facility or they can pick it up at your business. If you need labels, then just contact us and we will get some to you.
Upcoming Events:
21 February 2015 10am – 7pm 1st Annual Comic Con
Bossier Civic Center
620 Benton Road
Bossier City, LA
TBD March 2015 11am-4pm Spring Bake Sale and Fundraiser
Petco, 6596 Youree Drive
Shreveport, LA
TBD 11am – @5pm Eat a (hot) Dog, Save a Cat
Parking Lot of Discount Tobacco
1201 Shady Grove, Bossier City
PLEASE spay and neuter your pets. Adopt! Don’t Shop! Also, please continue heartworm prevention all year round and not just in the summer months. Heartworm disease can be transmitted all year.
The Yogie and Friends Gang!
Posted in Monthly Newsletter
January 2015 Update
Happy New Year!
Yes, 2015 is now here. We hope and pray that all our fans and supporters had a safe and wonderful holiday season.
Many of you by now have seen the recent accusations about Yogie and Friends Exotic Cat Sanctuary. Some of you have received emails from certain animal rights groups or even a tweet about us. Let us clear up some issues here for you. For one thing we have never had any plans to move our cats anywhere. We have worked harder than ever to meet the ever increasing demands by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, as well as the USDA APHIS. It appears no matter what we have done for improvements it was never enough. You may have seen photos. What you never saw was the complete picture of our animals and the facility. You were only shown progressive bits and pieces. Photos and stories can be made to look any way a person wants them to if they have a particular goal in mind. Due to the fact that we have pending litigation I cannot address in this venue what I truly want to. I really want to address each accusation for you here, but that is best handled in a court of law. Know this. We have the truth on our side and if you choose to remain standing with us in this fight, then we thank you very much. If you decide to believe the accusations and want to turn away from on us we understand. It’s really hard to fight groups that have a lot of money on their side. Many of you have been to Yogie and Friends in person and even most recently our open house on November 29th, 2014 to show you just how much we have done and how good our animals look. In fact, contact Ninna Lopez, from Ninna’s Road to Rescue, who loved the sanctuary and spent the day with us. Or Animal Welfare, Inc. about just how nice our place is. We had a wonderful open house and people loved us and saw how well our animals looked and lived. As a result of these recent accusations we have received threats to both us and our animals. We have found bullet holes in our new privacy fence and several shell casings on the property. We were receiving threats from “fans” on our Facebook page hoping our animals would kill us and that the USDA would take our animals from us. As a result we decided to unpublish our page and get the authorities involved. We don’t have time to fight an on-line battle with people who are hating on us and especially those who have never once been to the sanctuary, let alone even stepped foot in the United States. As a result of these attacks and threats we had to do the unthinkable. We have, under the complete supervision of our veterinarian and her entire staff, moved our big cats out of state. We are now boarding, and yes still caring and supporting our animals, at a friend’s facility out of Louisiana. He has a space on his 16 acres that he allows for boarding. We now spend more time there visiting the animals. They are safe. Again, this is NOT what we wanted for them, but they are safe. Our volunteers are also safe now. We hope you all understand why we moved them. It was only after people threatened them and us and we found evidence of gunshots. How sad this is for us all.
Yogie and Friends knew that one day our big cats would be gone. But, it would have been through natural attrition and death by old age. We had decided years ago not to take in anymore animals because adding to the habitats they had would just lessen the space for those already in place. We have been doing Trap-Spay/Neuter-Return (TNR) of feral cat colonies in the area. We have been doing this for the past 6 years, but have not been doing so as publicly as we have our big cat program. We have been very successful with TNR and help as many as possible. Our goal has always been when the big cats cross the rainbow bridge that we would modify their habitats to provide sanctuary to domestic/feral cats that may be unadoptable or even provide shelter for those who are adoptable until they could find a forever home. We still plan to do so and are in the position to do so. It has always been a part of our mission under the Domestic Animal Project (DAP). There are not enough cat rescues and we wanted to be one to help in that arena.
We despise the fact that a few have chosen to damage our good name and reputation and forced us to move our big cats safely away from here.
Please do not hate us for doing the right thing to protect our big cats. We are very sad they are not with us. They are safe. They are not where the animal rights group wants, but they are our animals, not theirs. We see our cats often and they respond to us and are happy and healthy. It’s us who are not happy.
Yogie and Friends Exotic Cat Sanctuary is still here. We will drop the “Exotic” from our name, as has been our intention when the big cats lived out their lives with us.
We ask that you who know the truth about how good we are remember that truth. Please don’t believe those who have never seen. You’ve known us for 14 years. Please keep us in your prayers. We truly need and appreciate them. Thanks for being there for us.
Jenny, and the Yogie and Friends Gang!
Posted in Monthly Newsletter