HOW PET FBI WAS FOUNDED
 AS TOLD BY THE FOUNDER, MARESA FANELLI

The Farm Stand Felines

The origin of Pet FBI actually dates back to 1982 when we first moved to Columbus. Around the corner from our house was a farm stand, quaint vestige of the neighborhood’s once rural character and the last three acre undeveloped parcel in an area of wall-to-wall suburban subdivisions. It wasn’t long after that the farmer gave into the lure of quick cash and sold out to a developer who promptly constructed yet another subdivision. The farmer pocketed his windfall and simply abandoned all the cats that had served him so well by keeping the field mice out of his produce.

Unfortunately, the cats were not unionized. No severance pay. And they didn’t have a pension plan either. They were left to fend for themselves as best they could. The construction destroyed their accustomed habitat and drove them from their familiar fields into the surrounding residential neighborhoods. A few unfortunates were killed by cars or trapped and euthanized by Animal Control as “nuisances”. They had committed the crime of being born, abandoned, and then trying to survive in the manicured environment of affluent Upper Arlington, Ohio.

These were not domesticated cats; they were ferals and destined to remain fearful of humans as is the case with any cat that has not had contact with people in the formative period of six to eight weeks of age. So they could not be “taken in”. I once lured one into our house, but when I shut the sliding glass door behind her, she had a panic attack and hurled herself against the glass. I had to release her immediately.

Georgette

One pretty tabby showed up in our yard. She was so thin and pathetic; you could count her ribs. She looked me in the eye, pleadingly. How could I not put food out for her?  Still, I took on this responsibility rather grudgingly. I knew she would become a permanent charge, and already we had our two companion cats, Inky and Chirpy. Would they get into a fight? We named the skinny tabby Georgette because we assumed her to be the sibling of a neighbor’s protégé, whom they had named George.

So Georgette had found herself a home. I was very proud of myself when she began to plump up – and then alarmed when she continued to plump up, eventually assuming the shape of a football. Then one day an irate neighbor called and announced “Maresa, your cat had three kittens under my porch!”.  Now there were four! So I read up on cats and found out that they can reproduce at four months of age. A little arithmetic and I figured out that soon there could be six or more, then 18 or so, the classic geometric progression, even assuming small litters, even assuming half of them were male!  What to do???  We resolved to capture the kittens as soon as they were old enough, six weeks, and my husband found homes for them all by asking absolutely everyone at work. But soon there was a second litter!  We were running out of people who wanted a kitten.

TNR - Trap-Neuter-Return –(Before Alley Cat Allies gave it that name.)

I had become attached to Georgette. She was an exemplary Mom, so protective. There was so much dignity in the way she cared for her young and fulfilled her biological imperative – to reproduce and keep reproducing, to nurture her offspring unstintingly, to groom them, to teach them how to be cats. I’m sure she bore us a grudge for snatching the kittens away from her; I swear she gave us dirty looks. But she could produce up to three or four litters a year! There was a tom from the farm stand still roaming the neighborhood; he would see to that. As much as I hated to subject her to the trauma of it, she had to be trapped. If only I could explain it to her! We borrowed a humane trap from Animal Control, baited it with tuna, caught poor frantic Georgette and took her to a vet who was willing to deal with a feral cat.

Georgina and Toes

Soon after Georgette’s return to our yard, she was joined by another female tabby whom we took to be her daughter from a previous litter. They formed a powerful bond. They were almost inseparable. If ever Georgette went off by herself, Georgina would come bounding out to greet her on her return, uttering a kind of delighted churring sound. But Georgina was already pregnant and soon gave birth to a litter of three, distinguished by not one but two extra toes. By now we had exhausted our pool of potential adopter-acquaintances. So we placed an ad in the paper, asked a lot of questions of the people who responded and found good homes for two of the kittens. Then we TNR’d Georgina.

Now we had a three-generation family in our yard, including Toes, a male, whose paws looked like little flippers with their extra digits.

Toes ( polydactyl cat) and his grandma,Georgette
  Note the big paw!

Georgette, Georgina and Toes were a fixture in our garden for many, many years. At any time of day, you could look out and see them basking in the sun, or frolicking with each other, or grooming each other lovingly. Although they never allowed themselves to be picked up, they kept me company when I worked in the garden, followed me around and they never ever trampled a single delicate seedling.

In the winter they would pile up together on an old ski jacket in the little shelter I had built for them and at the sound of the sliding glass door opening when I would put out their food, they would come shooting out and trot over to the door with their tails crooked in perfect unison. Thus did I develop a special affection for feral cats

Toes Takes a Powder

Once Toes disappeared for several days. I was distressed to realize that some neighbor might call Animal Control and have him removed. He would surely be put down, because he was not friendly to anyone but us. I called all the shelters and was dismayed to learn that they don’t keep records of lost and found pets.  You could not just ask “Has anyone turned in a tabby cat from such and such a neighborhood?” You had to go in and visit the shelter, a heartbreaking task – peering at all those little faces behind the bars of their cages, knowing that they were probably doomed, knowing it is in your power to save them. What is one more cat? But how to choose?

Fortunately, Toes came sauntering back ho-hum after leaving me frantic for several days. He was warmly greeted by his mother and grandmother who came bounding over to him, uttering those little churring sounds, and proceeding to give him a thorough wash.

April 1994, Georgina, Toes and Georgette huddle together.

1997 Pet FBI is Founded

A few years after that, the Internet erupted into our culture –and for better or for worse, it will never be the same again. I found a way to put it to good use.

I used to be distressed by lost and found posters for I knew all the worry and anguish they represented for someone, not to mention the plight of the unfortunate stray – hungry, thirsty, cold, lonely, bewildered, perhaps injured, perhaps sick. Why not create a place where all the information about lost animals in Columbus could be centralized and readily accessed? I knew nothing about computers so I approached a local Internet service provider and persuaded them that they should program a little lost and found pet database and host it as a community service. A friend advised me that no one would deal with you unless you were a legal entity, so I figured out how to file papers to incorporate a non-profit.

This was to be a little personal project that I could manage in a few hours a week on my own from my desk at home without getting “involved”. However, Pet FBI (Pets Found By Internet www.PetFBI.org) quickly evolved into something much bigger. People were asking me how they could help. We quickly outgrew the donated database and I contracted to have one programmed to serve all of Ohio. Soon I was managing a small organization, all volunteers. Publicity was needed for the database to be effective. We needed to contact people who posted lost and found ads in the paper, we needed to put up fliers at pet supply stores, public libraries, vets offices, etc. We needed to convince the shelters and suspicious dog wardens to collaborate with us. There were street fairs and public events like Pooch Parade and Pet EXPO in which to participate.

Mona

From the beginning there was one volunteer who stood out above all the others. Although she was a full time postal inspector, she was always available whenever there was anything to do, Mona had discovered Pet FBI because she needed to post many “found” reports. She suffered from an affliction peculiar to certain people: she could not set foot out of the house without coming across some cat or dog needing to be rescued.  Not only did she notice things that most people don’t see, like cats in bushes by the side of the road, or stranded on the median strip of the highway or scraggly stray dogs, she actually stopped to help them. To make matters worse, she and her husband had just purchased a house at the foot of a dead end country road that backed up to a metro park. It turned out to be a hot “dumping spot”. Irresponsible people would simply drop unwanted cats or dogs off there, and Mona ended up taking them in. She did not have the heart to bring them to a shelter where they risked being put down.

Mona “Cleans up” the Cat Colony at a Prison

Eventually, the “inn was full” as Mona put it; the garage was full; the barn was full, and so she joined a rescue group that was set up to find homes for cats and dogs.

This rescue group was fostering some cats at a woman’s correctional institute. When Mona visited she discovered that there was a colony of about sixty feral cats there. The prisoners were feeding them, but nothing was being done to stop them from multiplying. So, at her own expense, Mona purchased some traps, negotiated a volume rate with some vets and with the help of the prisoners, trapped all the cats, had them “fixed” and returned them to their caretakers.  This stabilized the colony. No more kittens!

Soon she was called upon by the families of the prisoners to help them with their pets or with strays and ferals they were feeding. This snowballed into a full-time second job. The inner city people came to recognize her hard-used van and dubbed it “the Neuter Scooter”.

Pet FBI OUTREACH and Colony Cats and Dogs

Mona needed help. My work for Pet FBI started escalating seriously when we expanded our mission to include Mona’s activities: spay/neuter assistance for disadvantaged people and TNR.  Then, inevitably, you get into “rescue” because you always come across kittens that can still be socialized, friendly strays that get mixed up with the feral colonies, and adoptable animals with treatable injuries or illnesses.

From a little personal project that I started in 1997 as something I could do on the side as a way of helping animals and people who care about animals without getting “involved”, Pet FBI has grown into a monster with a life of its own, but a benevolent monster, that has touched the lives of thousands of people over the years and changed the fate of thousands of cats and dogs and even an occasional iguana or cockatiel, if you count the database reunions!

As of this writing, July, 2006, over 15,000 people have submitted lost or found reports to or database. Pet FBI OUTREACH has  spayed or neutered almost 3000 cats and dogs, mostly ferals that were trapped and then returned to their caretakers.  The rescue arm of Pet FBI, Colony Cats and Dogs, has provided vet care and foster care for close to 400 cats and dogs until they could be placed in lifelong, loving homes.

We have a little family of "rescues". They are all spayed or neutered of course, but none is declawed.  With frequent vacuuming and scooping the house stays clean and neat and the furniture is NOT in tatters. I would never have thought that it was possible to have eight cats together and still have a clean house where  peace and harmony prevail. Our little feline family brings us great joy!

Dinner time at our house:   Counterclockwise from 5 o’clock:

Sylvia, Honeybun, Mona, Mittens, Henry the Eighth, Quirky and Elizabeth the Great. Not in picture – Lovey