Uptown Catz

08/25/2026

Here's the aftermath of a clinic day. It's not a small check. It's a big check and this is what we spend on clinic at least twice a month. If we have community cats then a few hundred dollars of this is covered. The rest is up to us to cover. This is why we beg for help. This is why we hustle at the thrift store. This is why we lose sleep at night over how to keep the rescue going with no long term funding and a shortage of volunteers.
Today we are thankful 🙏 for our big hearted volunteers 💖
🙏We are thankful for a yearly charitable donation from Lauderdale County government that covered a portion of this check.
🙏We are thankful for caring donors who write those donation checks often.
🙏We are thankful for our shoppers and donors at The Catz Meow
🙏 We are thankful for everyone who likes, comments, and share our posts.
🐱 We can't do it all but we are doing the best we can with what we have to work with 🐈

08/25/2026

Another load of Lauderdale kitties that will never be part of the cycle of overpopulation. We go just about every week so if you need to get your cat fixed for $100 then message us! If you’d like to sponsor a cat, message us!

08/22/2026

Anyone missing this cutie in Ripley? One of our supporters is keeping it safe for now, contact us to claim!

08/16/2026

Correction to my previous post about Sweetie Satan…

A few days ago i made a post about Sweetie, one of our long term residents who suddenly began showing signs of respiratory distress and ended up having to be euthanized. We were heartbroken and i made a post about her so that you could be sad with us.

Unfortunately, i got my histories mixed up. Sweetie Satan was not the abuse case. She was more of a “too much trouble, let’s dump her off at the shelter” case. She was living with a family who had multiple cats, and they had begun to harass her, to the point where she was living under the bed and refusing to come out. One of our founders was at the shelter the day she came in. Her “family” surrendered her and she came to our facility where she lived with LOTS of other cats, for about 5 years.

I have a problem with those folks as well. I have multiple cats and a couple that are shy. They live in my bedroom and never leave. That’s their happy place. They have everything they need there. It’s not ideal for me, but it’s ideal for them, so that’s where they live. If you ever went to our local shelter, and heard the non-stop barking, I’m not sure how you could think that was a better plan for a terrified cat. However, that’s what those folks did. But they didn’t kick her.

The kicked cat came in about the same time. I believe her name was Wiggles. She wasn’t friendly and had a lot of health issues by the time we got her, and after a month or so of unsuccessful care, ultimately had to be euthanized.

I’m not a vet. I have no official training in animal control. I just love cats, and all animals, actually. That’s basically it. I’ve learned A LOT about care, but nothing has taught me to be ok with ending a life. I’ve been responsible for so much death in the last 10 years, since I officially became active in rescue. When i do decide to let an animal go, it’s because the vet and i have talked it out and we know it’s the most humane option for the animal. Still, there’s a part of me that wants to start crying and never stop.

My rescue teams, both past and current, have made a tremendous difference to so many animals’ outcomes, and I’m grateful to each one of them for showing up again and again. We can’t save them all, no matter how much we want to, but we’ve saved so many, and we’ve mourned our losses together. Thank you for following us along our journey, and for supporting us in times of desperation and sadness. We couldn’t do it without you.

08/15/2026

Rhonda Hardy, who made a monthly donation to Uptown Catz for the past couple of years, passed away yesterday. Rhonda loved her cats and wanted to help Uptown. The kitties thank her for her support. Prayers for her family🙏🙏.
Christy Dailey

08/15/2026

Today we had to say a very tearful and unexpected goodbye to one of our longtime kitties. Her name was Sweetie Satan, which is an odd name, for sure, but actually summed her up pretty well. She came to us as an abuse case soon after we opened up in our facility on Randolph Street. I don’t even know if the folks who surrendered her realized they were admitting to being abusive and awful people who could’ve been charged for a crime if we lived in a more progressive community. She’d done something the man didn’t like and he’d kicked her across the room into a wall. I can’t recall what made them decide to bring her to us, but I’m glad they did.

She didn’t like us, which wasn’t surprising considering her history, and although we had her for over five years, that never changed much. She lived in one of our large enclosures for a long time, hanging out in her cat tree and judging us, until finally we needed it and decided she needed more exercise, so we opened the door and let her out into our crazy cat world, where she seemed happy and content. Several months ago, we put her in a cage to give her some dewormers, and she never left the cage. She loved her cozy bed and being the queen of her own small castle, and we doted on her with her favorite foods and treats. We left the door open so she could putz around if she wanted, which she did from time to time, and occasionally some of the other cats would stop in for a visit.

She seemed fine until today, when one of the volunteers noticed that her breathing was heavy and labored. That’s never a good sign and we sent her off to the vet immediately. They called back with the worst news. Her chest was filled with fluid, so much so that her heart was obscured on the x-ray, and even her intestines were filled with gas from all the heavy breathing she was doing just to get enough air to stay alive. The vet said it was mostly likely lymphoma, and she wasn’t going to recover. We could’ve had the fluid pulled from her lungs but that’s both stressful and painful and basically pointless as it would come right back.

I hate to end a life, but i also hate to allow suffering when i know there’s no hope. The vet recommended saying goodbye, and while we all cried about it, we knew it was the right thing to do. We loved you, Sweetie Satan, and are going to miss you so much.

08/14/2026

37 cats headed to clinic for spay/neuter surgery. 37. Let that sink in. In 1 single day, we are preventing hundreds of kittens from being produced and added to our unwanted animal population in Lauderdale County. We do so much for the community with so few resources and so little support from our local governments. One day we might not be able to carry on, ask your commissioners, Mayors, and town council members what their future plans are for animal control. I can assure you they have no plans. Yet somehow they rely on us without considering the costs. We are tired. We are volunteers. We are inundated with requests for assistance. Say a prayer for us because we are certainly not appreciated enough by County government to even be remembered or considered. 24/7 we work for free for the animals and a thank you check from the city or County sure would be nice. 😿🐾

08/12/2026

Please buy something through our fundraiser! I know you might not want to hear it, but it's not too early to start Christmas shopping 🙀🎄

Table By Pampered Chef

08/11/2026

Show of hands for anyone who loves a fun trip to the dentist?? Anyone? Anyone??? 🦷🦷😷

Ok… that’s kinda what i thought. No one. Even though we understand all about the benefits of dental health, and even though our dentists work very hard to make it Not Scary, it’s still scary. And unpleasant. And no fun.

Imagine being a cat, with no clue about dental health. Imagine your mouth being so painful that eating is miserable and grooming is no longer an option. Your gums are bright red and inflamed and your teeth are disintegrating. Add to that, you don’t really like people. At. All.

This, unfortunately, is Iris’ current situation. Although Iris has been an Uptown Catz kitty since she was a kitten, we never grew on her. She watches us from her high up perches, she keeps a wary eye from her sunny spot in the windowsill, and up until recently, she was a big fan of all the culinary perks of being a UC kitty: the yummy canned food she got for breakfast every morning, the treats sprinkled around the room, the never ending bowls of kibble. But recently we noticed she wasn’t eating much, and she wasn’t looking so great either, with gunk around her mouth and her tail all matted.

After literally wrestling her into a carrier with my feral gloves on, a trip to the vet gave us bad news: Severe stomatitis, with lots of decayed teeth that will definitely have to come out. For a small percentage of cats, the recovery can be fairly simple, but many cats don’t bounce back. There is a new medicine that helps, but it’s a twice a day oral cream which won’t be easy to give.

And of course, like with any trip to the dentist, this isn’t cheap.

We actually struggled with whether to go forward with this treatment. Since Iris isn’t social, being handled for meds will be even harder for her. We have a very limited budget, and this will use up a big chunk of our vet bill money. But Iris is our cat. We’ve had her since she was a baby, and while she doesn’t love us, she loves her life at UC, and we love her and want to give her the best opportunity to live healthy and pain free. So after lots of debate, we voted to move forward with the appointment.

We are expecting our bill to be about $1500, between the procedure, meds and follow up care, so we need help. 🙏 Iris is important, but it’s kitten season and it’s been a bumper crop this year. We’re covered up with kittens with more waiting to come in and they almost never come with any money attached. 🤦‍♀️ Our spay/neuter bills run $1500+ EVERY WEEK. That’s $6000 month before we buy the first can of food or bag of litter or watt of electricity! ⚡️

So we’re basically desperate for help right now. Please contribute to Iris’ fundraiser. She’s a beautiful girl and we want her back home, healthy and happy, even if we never get to pet her. Thank you for all your support. Remember to shop and donate at The Catz Meow, which is our #1 source of funding.

08/05/2026