Second Chance Kitten Rescue was founded in 2018, however we didn't establish our corporation until 2024. We are an up and coming non-profit 501(c)(3), in-home kitten rescue dedicated to help solving the problem with Arizona's stray, feral, misplaced, and abused cats/kittens.
We started off with trapping and releasing adult cats back in 2019, then quickly realized we had tons of tiny helpless fur babies that needed a lot of attention and most importantly we needed to keep them off the streets, by providing a safe place with medical care and rehabilitation. In addition to our TNR efforts, we provide a safe environment, rehabilitate, provide medical care and eventually rehome these precious babies and in some cases, we are able to help their mothers, fathers and offspring find their Fur Ever homes too!
Second Chance Kitten Rescue is committed to humanely reducing the feral and free-roaming cat overpopulation in Arizona through the use of Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR). TNR humanely stabilizes the population, improves the cats’ lives, addresses neighbors’ concerns, and helps the entire community reach a solution that benefits everyone.
TNR is the most humane and effective method available to end feral and free-roaming cat overpopulation. Our goal is to make Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) fully understood, accepted and practiced in every community.
Your donations help keep our mission alive and saves the lives of hundreds of innocent cats/kittens each year. Our efforts wouldn't be possible without caring people like yourself. Thank you for your support.
We are also searching for volunteers to help with our mission. Please call or email us if you are interested in helping.
Rehabilitating and finding Fur Ever homes for abused, neglected, stray & feral kittens is our mission, however, this is a challenging process that requires a lot of time and patience. With just the two of us, this proves to be a daily challenge for us.
We spend countless hours desensitizing each kitty to become familiar with humans, dogs, new sounds, new foods, and accepting love and cuddles. This includes one on one play time throughout the day, introducing background noises such as soft music and/or a TV.
Our babies require a lot more work initially because they are scared, confused, hungry, and in a panic once they are discovered. They are hand reared, which involves providing for their basic needs, such as bottle feeding numerous times a day and throughout the night, toileting them, and keeping them warm and healthy. In addition, we teach them social skills such as bite inhibition, so their new adaptors aren't dealing with bad behaviors. These are all things their mothers would naturally do for them.
Once the babies reach the age of 4-6 weeks, we transition them to a mush/gruel and also introduce hard food. Once they no longer desire the mush, we transition them to hard food throughout the day and soft food 2-3 times a day, always allowing them to eat until their little tummies are content. By this time, they are well adjusted and nearly ready for their Fur Ever Homes!
Hi! I am Chance and this is my story.
My mom was living in Burbank, California and had rescued a cat named Frankie from a pet store in her neighborhood. One day in that same pet store, where she frequented, there was a little bit of chaos and panic because a 10-day old puppy was surrendered to them and he was refusing a bottle. It had been hours and he wouldn't eat until momma Ari walked in and they asked her to try help. She had worked as volunteer Emergency Marine Technician at the NE Aquarium in their quarantine unit and rescued Frankie. So, here I came, carried out like a tiny little polar bear with my eyes and ears still shut but when my soon to be foster mom picked me up and gave me lots of kisses on my head and spoke in her soft, sweet voice, I took the bottle!
Momma Ari became my foster which was a lot of work cos I was a bottle baby and she had a full time job at ESPN. But fate put as together at the right time because I needed a CHANCE and she took a CHANCE on me when she needed a purpose. Due to illegal breeding of wolfdogs in the Palmdale desert and a negligent, illegal breeder I was the only survivor of a litter of six. The lady wanted me back once she heard I had survived and that was was going to be unique and gorgeous BUT my foster mom stood her ground! I had an umbilical cord hernia, a infect bit mark from 'wolf dad' and my foster mom would press charges of neglect and illegal breeding. She did inform the right people.
At 8-weeks old my foster mom became my forever mom and we were bonded with a very special relationship. She took me hiking 3 times a week, I got to play with my cat brother Frankie and go to doggie day care when she worked. We would go to the Starbucks round the corner and hang out and lots of people wanted to know my breed, and I went for special visits and treats to the pet store that helped me.
Being a wolfdog means I was very special and required certain training and care. My mom wanted to give me the best life and educate herself on wolfdogs cos I was a strong, big chested boy and could be quite stubborn at times.
TO BE CONTINUED
Second Chance Kitten Rescue believes in the right of animals to exist without fear of abuse, exploitation or extermination. We fight for the humane treatment of animals and the prevention of their suffering. Rescuing abused, neglected, stray & feral cats is our mission!
The term “animal welfare” can evoke a sense of calm or well-being for the conscious consumer, especially when it appears on a carton of eggs or a jug of milk proclaiming that animals were treated humanely during the creation of these products. But these claims often obscure the dark realities of where and how these products were made—on factory farms that systematically condemn animals to lives of extreme confinement, stress, pain, and even torture.
What is the Animal Welfare Act?
The Animal Welfare Act (AWA) is the primary federal law in the United States that protects animals. It was signed into law in 1966 and aims to ensure the humane treatment of animals that are bred for commercial sale, used in research, exhibited to the public, or transported commercially. The AWA applies to warm-blooded species, with some exceptions, such as birds, rats, and mice bred for research.
Despite the progressive underpinnings of the AWA, it leaves much to be desired by not protecting many animals who do not fall beneath its purview. For example, rats and mice who are used extensively in laboratories and subjected to extremely painful procedures like vivisection—or the dissection of living animals—are not protected by the act.
Farmed animals of all kinds are also excluded from the AWA, despite the fact that these animals account for the greatest numbers of animals who routinely endure cruelty and abuse on factory farms and in slaughterhouses. Farmed chickens, turkeys, cows, and pigs would arguably benefit the most from the legislation, yet they remain unprotected.
The Five Freedoms of Animal Welfare
The Five Freedoms of Animal Welfare, represent the bare minimum of living standards that animals in captivity should have:
1. Freedom from thirst and hunger
2. Freedom from discomfort by providing adequate shelter
3. Freedom from disease, pain, or injury
4. Freedom from distress and fear
5. Freedom to engage in natural behaviors
Unfortunately, there is room for interpretation in these guidelines that often disadvantages animals. For example, if animals are allowed to engage in some natural behaviors—such as chickens being allowed to perch and spread their wings, as opposed to being locked in battery cages where they can do neither of these things—this is seen as sufficiently maintaining their welfare. However, perching in a factory farm still means birds are confined to one indoor room for the duration of their drastically shortened lives.
On factory farms, animals are denied most if not all of the natural behaviors they would otherwise engage in. This has serious consequences for their physical and psychological health.
Animal welfare issues
Animal welfare issues can arise in any situation where animals are being used by humans, whether for food, entertainment, or experimentation. Below are a few examples of human activities that often impinge on animal welfare.
Animal testing
The US animal testing industry subjects 25 million animals to cruel tests each year. Rabbits, mice, guinea pigs, and other animals regularly undergo stressful operations and experiments. Some are restrained in devices while substances are dripped into their eyes, while others are force-fed or endure painful operations. Laboratory animals are often kept within stainless steel enclosures for much of their lives.
Lack of behavioral enrichment
Behavioral enrichment refers to the features added to animals’ living spaces meant to provide mental stimulation. Boredom is a common cause of mental distress for captive animals. In zoos, items such as tires, barrels stuffed with food, or artificial rocks or trees are meant to simulate wild environments and provide relief from restlessness. However, these additions still do not approximate a natural life, which is defined by choice, exploration, and variety. Zoos and aquariums may not seem as horrific as factory farms, but they remain problematic.
Animals on factory farms often live without any behavioral enrichment whatsoever. This extreme trauma triggers stress-induced behaviors such as chewing on the bars of their cages, attacking other animals, and even cannibalism.
Farmed animals
The most prevalent source of animal welfare violations in the US, based on the sheer number of animals affected, are farmed animals. Life within the industrial agricultural system means undergoing routine mutilations without anesthetics. Cows, pigs, and sheep have their tails removed, and portions of chickens’ beaks are often sliced off at a young age. These animals live in dark, crowded, unsanitary enclosures that are largely if not entirely indoors. Generally speaking, factory farms prioritize cost-efficiency and profits over animal welfare.
Blood sport
In blood sports—such as bullfighting or dogfighting—it is often the pain of an animal that provides the attraction for human audiences, leading to many welfare concerns. Dogfighting and cockfighting involve raising animals in tight confines, conducting invasive breeding activities, and forcing two animals to fight until they reach the point of serious injury or death. In bullfighting, bulls are stabbed repeatedly while being goaded around a ring in a stadium filled with cheering people. Blood sports offer the opposite of quick, painless deaths.
Sport hunting
Sport hunting is the killing of animals for fun, rather than food, and is usually carried out without regard for animal welfare. Species such as deer, rabbits, ducks, and bears are common targets of sport hunting in North America, where they're killed with weapons such as guns or crossbows. While hunters often try to kill animals with one shot, the animals are often grievously wounded instead. Many escape their hunter(s) only to die later from their wounds, slowly and painfully.
Poaching
While game hunting usually refers to the legal hunting of animals, poaching usually means hunting outside the law. It's another form of vicious exploitation that's generally conducted without any regard for animal welfare. The lucrative trade in pangolins, for example, sees nearly 3 million of these animals caught from the wild each year and shipped over great distances, sometimes for weeks at a time. (They're then killed for their scales or meat.) Elephants, rhinoceroses, tigers, and gorillas are also heavily poached. Elephants and rhinos often have their tusks and horns cut away from their faces while the animals are still alive.
Whaling
It's difficult to kill a whale quickly, which is among the many reasons why the hunting of whales is rife with welfare issues. Particularly in larger whales, it can take a long time—sometimes minutes, sometimes hours—for a whale to finally succumb to a harpoon. A variety of weapons have been devised over the years to hasten the demise of whales, including explosive harpoons that detonate inside a whale’s body. But even these can take up to 25 minutes.
To make matters worse, whales are often in full view of their family members as they die.
Overpopulation in companion animals
When companion animals like dogs and cats aren’t spayed or neutered, they can inadvertently contribute to America's overpopulation problem, where there aren’t enough people willing to adopt the number of animals available. In these cases, animals are either abandoned to fend for themselves, or dropped at shelters. Life at a shelter can be stressful for animals because they're usually kept in cages where they don't have much room to move around.
While many shelters adopt policies to never kill animals (these are known as no-kill shelters), others euthanize animals who are deemed unadoptable. Euthanization at shelters typically meets the highest welfare standards, but it's still a tragic and avoidable outcome. On average, 1.5 million shelter animals are euthanized every year in the United States. According to the latest data as of July 2024, around 690,000 Shelter Animals are Euthanized each year including 330,000 Dogs and 360,000 Cats. Also, 45% of all cats who enter shelters are eventually euthanized.
Puppy mills
Puppy mills, unlike more legitimate dog breeders, present serious welfare concerns for the many animals in their care. Pregnant dogs in puppy mills can be locked within cages for the duration of their lives, made to churn out puppies until their bodies give out. Their offspring are taken from them soon after birth, only to endure their own traumatic experiences of crowding, malnutrition, and unsanitary conditions before being shipped to pet stores or other sellers and sold to an often unsuspecting public.
Puppies born in puppy mills can also have psychological and physical disorders that make them difficult to cohabitate with, and which sometimes lead to premature death.
Why is animal welfare important?
Though some critics argue that animal welfare only cements animals’ exploitation on farms, in laboratories, and in other industrial situations, welfare standards are effective in making the lives of animals more bearable. Th Humane Society and numerous advocates around the USA have succeeded in convincing some slaughterhouses to stop using killing methods that cause prolonged pain for chickens, and in persuading some factory farms to end extreme confinement of chickens. These are major milestones in the movement to end the abuse of animals raised for food.
While these changes may seem incremental in the face of a powerful industry that largely regards animals as inanimate objects rather than intelligent and sensitive beings, without welfare advocates, these animals' lives would be even more tortured and painful. A chicken who is allowed to grow at a less rapid rate, who is able to stand up without breaking any bones, who has room to spread their wings and move around, and who will be spared the horrors of live-shackle slaughter represents a very real, tangible improvement over the alternative.
Conclusion
It's a tragic reality that the intersection of human and animal lives so often results in pain and suffering for animals. Strengthening welfare standards not only improves the lives of animals; it can also educate the public about the harsh conditions animals face in places like factory farms and laboratories.
The conversation around animal welfare is constantly evolving, and it features many different viewpoints even from advocates with the same ultimate goals. Still, this ongoing dialogue and the actions it inspires continue to pull our society toward better conditions for animals. One day, progress in our movement ideally will result in all animals' liberation from the worst of human treatment.
For GREAT up to date information and statistics, please check out World Animal Foundation at http://worldanimalfoundation.org/cats/how-many-cats-are-in-the-world/.
Sign up to hear about events, pet news & blog updates.
Copyright © 2024 Second Chance Kitten Rescue - All Rights Reserved. Non-Profit 501(c)(3)
SCKR is temporarily NOT accepting kitten intakes - our rescue is at its maximum capacity until further notice.
With several babies needing extensive veterinarian care, and no grants coming in, any donation is greatly appreciated.🙏