August 29, 2025 • 44 mins
In this week's episode, we sit down with Erin and Cori Caimi and they talk about the cats that have made a sprawling, abandoned shopping mall their home. We explore the complex world of caring for a large colony of feral cats—a task that is as challenging as it is rewarding.
From implementing a rigorous "Trap-Neuter-Return" (TNR) program to ensure the colony's health and prevent overpopulation, to providing daily food, fresh water, and vet care, they talk about the dedication it takes to manage a cat community in such an unusual environment. Learn about the these felines and the critical role their human caretakers play in their survival. It’s a story of compassion, resilience, and the unexpected bond between humans and the animals they've chosen to protect.
#FeralCats #TNR #StrayCats #CatColony
If you would like to support us, every single dollar helps our animals directly: https://buymeacoffee.com/uforescue
Websites👇
Website: https://linktr.ee/animalposse
Website: https://linktr.ee/uforescue
Website: https://unwantedfeline.org/
Social Media👇
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UFORescue/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/animalposse
About our Channel:
Animal Posse is your go-to place for everything animal rescue! Join us as we share heartwarming stories, crucial insights, and ways to make a difference for animals in need. We're proud to be powered by our 501(c)(3) non-profit, Unwanted Feline Organization, working together to bring animal lovers together and save lives.
👍 Like, Share, and Subscribe
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dixie (00:02):
Welcome to Animal Posse, the podcast dedicated to the
people and rescues making adifference in the lives of animals.
Okay, so joining me today is Erinand Cori, and they are feral cat
colony caretakers, and TNR advocates.
(00:24):
So hi ladies, how are you?
We're good.
How are you?
I'm good.
I know y'all just got done feeding cats?
Erin (00:31):
Yes.
Dixie (00:31):
How long does it take you to go feed all the cats?
Before we get into discussingwhat exactly y'all do?
Erin (00:37):
I guess between an hour and 15 minutes to an hour and a half.
Dixie (00:41):
How did y'all get into feeding cats and doing TNR?
Cori (00:46):
They actually put out a call for help because they were losing their.
Colony caretaker.
Yeah,
Erin (00:54):
but start before that.
At the hotel.
At the hotel.
Oh yeah.
Both times.
Both places.
The same exact thing has happened.
Cori (01:03):
We started at a hotel
first , and they called for help.
So we said we'd do it, exceptthey didn't tell us how many cats
so we started feeding and trapping.
We have been doing it since 2011 andwe are down to three cats at the hotel.
(01:24):
Over that period of time.
Some have got adopted, we lost some,and then others have just wandered
off and found another colony.
Dixie (01:35):
Where was the call put out that y'all first saw it to
go apply to help these cats?
Cori (01:40):
Facebook.
Dixie (01:41):
Before that, were you ever involved in taking care of cat colonies?
Cori (01:44):
Nope.
Erin (01:45):
No, not really.
We just feeding at our house'cause we live in a subdivision
that borders an apartment complex.
And we have a lot ofabandoned cats from there.
And they just migrate into our yard.
So we feed 'em and trap 'em.
And we've been doing thatsince we moved there in 2003.
Dixie (02:05):
I know apartments can be a big problem.
I deal with that near my home too.
Erin (02:09):
Yeah.
And the apartments that we live by,they're not cat friendly , so we're
not allowed to go in there and trap.
So the apartment complexhas a huge cat problem.
Dixie (02:21):
I'm sure y'all are putting a dent in it though.
Cori (02:23):
We try.
We try.
Yeah.
We try.
We set traps in our yard.
Then we have a couple ofneighbors that do it too.
So they trap as well.
And then when we see them,like other places outside the
gate where we do feed outside the gate ofthe apartment complex, we trap 'em there.
(02:44):
So we'll sit and do a, mainly a drop.
Dixie (02:47):
Do you find the apartment is a problem in general, just like you
can never catch up almost with theapartments because of people moving in
and just abandoning animals when theymove out and not spaying and neutering?
Erin (02:59):
Yes.
, Our biggest area we feed is anabandoned mall and there are restaurants
along the road into the mall.
We caught all the cats at this restaurant.
They had three mamas with all kind ofbabies, caught them all, got 'em fixed
and into a rescue, and now we havetwo more mamas there with five babies
(03:26):
that we're basically starting over
Cori (03:28):
and it's right next to the apartment complex.
Dixie (03:31):
I don't find a lot of people bring up apartment complexes.
I find personally that theapartment complexes seem to
be like the biggest problem.
Erin (03:43):
They are.
And part of the huge problemis these management companies
do not want you trapping.
They don't want you feeding,they don't want you trapping.
But the residents of the apartmentcomplex, they wanna feed the cats.
Because they have all ofthese cats in their area and.
They just feel bad for them.
Dixie (04:02):
I wish that there was some kind of way to get them on board, because I
wanna have a place for people to move in.
That's, of course, pet friendlyso they can go move in pets to an
apartment, but at the same time,they just get out of control so fast
at these apartments, like you said,because of the management companies.
And them allowing pets, but notenforcing, spay, neutering of
(04:26):
the pets that the people have.
Erin (04:28):
And some of these apartments are short term apartments and
when they leave their cats.
And we have that huge problem.
We've noticed that problemsince we moved in, in 2003.
Most of our cats that we do see in ourstreet all come from the apartment.
Yeah.
And I wanna say 99% of them are not fixed.
Dixie (04:50):
Yeah.
See that's the same thing by me.
Like I try to catch up.
If I see 'em, I go out, Istart trapping right away.
But, it's never ending.
You can never catch up.
'cause as soon as somebodyelse moves in, that's it.
Then you see kittens again.
Erin (05:03):
And then they come from the apartments.
They either come to my house,'cause my house is between
the apartments and the mall.
So the apartment's right in themiddle of us, so if they don't come
to my house, they come to the mall.
And
Cori (05:17):
we started with two cats at the mall.
We are now over 50.
Dixie (05:23):
Wow.
Erin (05:24):
And the majority of 'em are fixed, but it's just never ending
because we always have more cats.
We have a brand new, what,five, six month old baby.
We saw yesterday.
No clue where this baby came from.
And
Cori (05:39):
all the cats in that one area are fixed.
Every
single one
of 'em.
Don't know where this baby came from.
Erin (05:45):
He's probably a dump.
Majority of our cats are dumps.
We have one, his name is Julius.
Beautiful Young Orange Tabby.
We grabbed him to get him fixed andhave his mouth looked at 'cause he
was having a problem dropping food.
So we brought him to the vet.
The vet got him ready to fixand he was already fixed, but
(06:09):
he did not have an ear tip.
And the vet said he was such a sweet,friendly cat that he belonged to someone,
but they just dumped him at the mall.
Dixie (06:18):
I know y'all were trying to get him checked for a chip.
Were y'all able to check?
Erin (06:21):
He is not chipped.
No.
And.
It's just, he's a wonderful,beautiful little cat,
but , they're always showing up.
Cori (06:29):
We had one man stopped her in the middle of feeding one day and
asked if he could bring his three cats.
The next day we had three new cats, caught'em all beautiful orange, fluffy cat.
Leo is just beautiful.
He's got that medium long hair.
Big, fluffy tail.
He talks up his arm to you.
(06:51):
He was one of the ones.
Him.
Mr.
Gray.
And Gail.
And Gail.
Now Gail is a very odd looking cat.
I don't know why these peoplewanna get rid of these cats 'cause
they're absolutely gorgeous.
Gail looks like a Russian blue with
silver eyes.
He is
beautiful.
Erin (07:10):
I have never seen a cat that looks like Gail.
Ever.
He's just so odd looking you whenhe's sitting there looking at you,
you cannot see his eyes because theyare the exact same color as him.
Cori (07:25):
He's beautiful.
Got 'em all trapped and fixed andbrought 'em right back to the mall.
Dixie (07:31):
Okay, so let's get to the mall then.
So y'all started at a hotel?
How is it that you gothooked up with the mall?
Erin (07:39):
Same story.
They put a call out on Facebook tofeed these two cats at the mall.
'Cause their caretaker was moving toAtlanta to take care of her mother.
So we were like, yeah, we can takecare of these two that's right
around the corner from my house.
And that was Beauty and Tiger.
Who we just recently found out Tiger was alittle girl 'cause they were already both
(08:02):
fixed by the time we were feeding them.
And that was in 2016 maybe.
And then we had a third one show up.
She just showed up.
We don't know where she came from.
We called her Smelly.
Smelly was a pain.
(08:22):
No matter what we did to try and trapher, she would get on top of the trap
and just lay there the entire time.
We'd trap her every single time.
She'd get on top of thetrap and just lay there.
Cori (08:32):
Didn't matter if it was a regular trap or a drop trap.
Erin (08:36):
Smelly was on top.
We called her smellybecause she couldn't smell.
We'd put her food down and have toliterally show her where her food was
'cause she couldn't find it by smelling.
It was the funniest thing.
Biggest talker in the world and.
We tried for yearscatching her, never did.
And she had a litter of three andthen a, another litter of four.
(09:03):
And we trapped all them.
They're all fixed now.
We call 'em the juvie.
And people just then started seeing thecats there, and then they started dumping.
Dixie (09:16):
Was the mall open and operational when y'all first started?
Erin (09:21):
Oh yes.
The mall didn't close until2021 after Hurricane Ida.
One time we have a littleone there named Crooky.
She has a crooked tail,so her name's Crooky.
She got into the mall while itwas still open and one, and thank
goodness she comes when we call her.
Because we just opened the doorsone night when the mall had closed,
(09:41):
the manager had let us in and wejust called her and here she came.
So we got her out pretty quick'cause she was ready to eat.
Cori (09:49):
When the fire marshal would come check the building, crooky
would go with the manager in thefire marshal and walk around the
building for him to check all the fireextinguishers or the sprinkler systems.
She'd go for a walk with him.
Dixie (10:04):
She was his assistant.
Sometimes you needthose feline assistance.
Erin (10:07):
That's
right.
Right now the police department, whenpeople break into the mall, they call 'em
the guard cats because most of the timewhen somebody breaks in, the cats get
in and by the cameras in the mall thatwe watch we can tell where the door is.
The door that's open becauseof the cat that's in the mall.
(10:28):
We know where that cat's from'cause we know all of our cats.
Dixie (10:32):
That's what I was gonna ask.
So you have over 50 now?
Yes.
Okay.
And they all have names?
Erin (10:38):
Pretty much.
Cori (10:39):
The majority do,
yes.
Dixie (10:43):
And as far as getting involved, when you first got involved, even
with the hotel, like who taughtyou how to trap, was that something
that You'all learned on your own?
Erin (10:51):
YouTube.
Cori (10:54):
Yeah, we taught ourselves.
'cause there was really nobodyto show us how to trap back then.
'cause TNR was not popularwhen we started at the mall.
Uhhuh or at the, actually at the hotel.
TNR wasn't popular then back then.
Now that it's gotten to be known now.
Quite a few people
do it but when we first started in 2011.
There wasn't a lot of peopletrapping at that point.
Erin (11:16):
And today we do have more trappers, but they're so overwhelmed.
It's unbelievable how many trappersare, I'm on this Facebook group the
community cat page, and every day theyare trapping cats and they're talking 30
cats a day, 40 cats a day, and they'rejust bringing them in to get fixed.
Thank goodness we have the.
(11:38):
TNR program, where in our area it's free.
It's just, the trappers are sooverwhelmed and there's not enough of us.
Dixie (11:47):
And then it seems too, like we said earlier, no matter how much you
trap, it's hard to even see a dent in it.
Erin (11:54):
We actually had one entire, now the mall we feed at is 700,000 square feet.
Just the mall, not the outbuildings.
The outbuilding stores that arestill open, that's not included in
the 700,000 square feet, but themall itself is 700,000 square feet.
We had one entire side totally fixed.
(12:17):
Everybody had been TNR andwe can't say that anymore.
Because that's the sidethe apartments are on.
And every summer we see these certaincats that are coming to the mall and then
they go right back to the apartments.
I'll tell her, I'll tell Cori.
I'll be like, Hey, look, there'sa little tribal orange one.
And we know where he's from.
(12:38):
He's from the apartments.
and 'cause we'll see him over there.
And then every now and then we'llsee him over by us and then all of
a sudden we have Siamese kitten.
We don't have a Siamese cat at the mallat all, but we have Siamese kittens now.
, Thank goodness we wereable to catch all of them.
(12:59):
And they went to rescue
the Siamese went to one rescue,the black one got adopted from us.
'cause we work with our vet.
When we get kittens, they actuallygo into the cages at the vet and
they get adopted through the vet.
They work very well with us.
It's VCA.
And they also work with us when we needa vet emergency, all I have to do is call
(13:24):
and say I'm coming and they're waiting forme, which they work really well with us.
But we got, I have two ofcookies, babies at my house.
Because no matter what we did the twograys, we could not get them adopted.
Nobody wanted gray tabby's.
So now I have Humphrey and Dexterwho turned three last month.
(13:47):
Yeah.
Last month they turned three.
So no four.
They turned four.
'cause they were born in 2021right before Hurricane Ida.
But yeah,
Cori (13:56):
it's just everybody wants exotic looking cats now.
Yes.
They don't want regulargray tabbies anymore.
An orange or a
tuxedo or a calico or a torty.
Yeah.
They don't want regular gray tabbies.
Dixie (14:14):
Yeah, no, it's absolutely true.
And it's sad too because yourplain average looking cats
are usually your best cats.
Erin (14:21):
They are, Dexter and Humphrey are a blast and a half, and Dexter is probably
one of the sweetest cats I have ever seen.
I call him, I have a, an oldergentleman at my house named
Tips, who's an orange and white.
And then I have my littlegentleman who is Dexter.
Dexter is just, he'll come up, he'llcuddle, he wants to lay on you.
(14:45):
You go to the window and he's coming toclimb up you to, for you to hold him.
'cause he wants you to hold him bythe window so he can look for lizards.
They are the best cats.
And Dexter has the prettiestteal eyes I have ever seen.
He has his mama's eyes.
Cookie is still at the mall,but but they're beautiful
and they're the best cats.
Dixie (15:06):
Yeah.
It's a shame.
And I've been on a runof simes mixes lately.
I don't understand what's going on.
It just seems every time I geta kitten, it's a Siamese mix and
Erin (15:17):
we actually have a new Siamese at the mall.
We named him Sammy.
We have no idea where he came from.
Dixie (15:22):
Yeah and usually those are the easiest ones to get
adopted, , but you also get a lot ofpeople that want 'em just because,
oh, I'm looking for a Siamese.
They don't think about the temperament,they don't think about any of that.
All they think about are the looks,and I've had people inquire on
mine and they're like, oh, whatdoes the mom and dad look like?
(15:43):
And I'm like, I have no idea.
I'm like, the mom might have beena tabby, she was t and r, but I'm
like, I have no idea who the dad was.
I'm like, this isn't a breeder.
Erin (15:54):
It's so funny 'cause.
The, when we first caught cookies,baby, she had two Siamese and we
called a friend of ours who runs akitten rescue and the first thing
she says is, bring me to Siamese.
I have a waiting list.
Yep.
And they got adopted super fast,but the other three, not so much.
Dixie (16:15):
Feeding all these cats at the mall, what are some of the challenges, aside
from people dumping animals that you face?
Erin (16:24):
The cost,
it comes out of our
own
pockets.
Dixie (16:28):
So you're not a 5 0 1 C3?
Erin (16:30):
No.
Everything that we feed them,comes out of our paychecks.
They have to go to the vet,comes out of our paychecks.
And we are very big on ifthere is a cat hurt or a cat
sick, they're going to the vet.
When we first noticed Julius droppinghis food, the little orange one at
the mall, two days, we grabbed him.
(16:50):
And got him to the vet.
Now we thought he still hadto be fixed, but he had only
been there a couple of weeks.
So we were like, okay, Julius hasto be fixed and he's dropping food.
He can't eat, he's in pain.
We had Julius, what, five minutes We putthe drop trap there and five minutes we
had him come to find out he is fixed.
(17:11):
But they gave him an antibiotic shot.
We had his teeth cleaned and.
That day and a pain shotand brought him back.
But all of that comesout of our own pocket.
Dixie (17:23):
And how much food do you go through?
Cori (17:26):
About five 30 pound bags a week.
And about 120 cans of cat food.
Wet food.
Dixie (17:33):
Wow.
So how much money on food alone?
Monthly.
Erin (17:37):
Monthly.
Oh, I gotta think about that.
You're talking a 30pound bag is usually $27,
a 60 can box of canned food is $43.
$43.
So we're talking 150 in cat food aweek and almost $90 in wet food a week.
Cori (17:59):
Wow.
That's not including
Erin (18:01):
vet bills.
Dixie (18:02):
Yeah, I can imagine With the vet bills added on top of that.
Erin (18:05):
Yeah.
Julius was 300,
Cori (18:08):
$261.
Yeah.
Dixie (18:11):
What other kind of veterinary emergencies have y'all had with these?
Cori (18:15):
We had one, we actually just had to recently put down she was
the original mall cat.
Her name was Beauty.
She was my super senior.
We
went on a Tuesday and fed her.
She was still eating, stillgetting around, but I noticed
flies and she was longhaired.
(18:38):
So I'm like, okay, maybe she got something
in her
hair,
went back on Wednesday, couldn't find her,and then I saw Leo my longhaired fluffy
orange cat looking down at something.
So I pulled over by Leo and I'mlike, what are you looking at?
And there was beauty.
I'm like, oh, I found beauty.
And I said, I'm gonnago down and feed her.
(18:59):
Erin goes, please tell me she's alive.
I said, yeah, she's alive.
She's looking at me.
So I went down to feed her and Inoticed more flies and I fed her and
she just turned her nose up at it.
So we grabbed her.
I called the vet right then and there,and my vet's bring her, just bring her.
Put her in a trap.
(19:20):
I'd never been able to touch beauty ever.
I just picked her up and put herin the trap, got her to the vet the
doctor's okay, let's just take a look.
We may not have to put her down.
Maybe she just has a woundsomewhere that's infected.
When we turned her over, she hadholes in her stomach full of maggots.
Erin (19:40):
She had cancer.
Cori (19:41):
The tumors burst.
Erin (19:43):
So you're talking, wait, that was 230.
That was $200.
And then another one big boyhad a cat bite on his foot.
So we had to trap him, get himfixed, and have his foot cleaned.
Antibiotics.
Romeo was probably our biggest,Romeo, was at the hotel.
(20:03):
Beautiful.
Flame Point, Siamese blind as a bat.
Romeo couldn't see nothing, but hewas the alpha cat over at the hotel.
He ruled everybody.
We took care of Romeo from thevery beginning, at the hotel 2011.
And two years ago we went to feedhim and he was wobbly and Romeo
(20:27):
was prone to ear infections.
So we're like, okay, maybeit's an ear infection.
We did everything for a monthand a half to get him better.
Even hospitalizing him at thevet for what, four or five days.
And no matter what Dr.
(20:48):
G did, he wasn't getting better.
He cost us probably couple of thousand.
Couple of thousand dollars.
Cori (20:56):
We wound up having to put him down.
Erin (20:58):
Yeah.
Dr.
G thinks he had brain cancer.
Most of our hotel cats.
That's what they die of.
Cancer.
Yes.
Majority of them died of cancer and
Dixie (21:11):
nobody can figure out why.
That's crazy.
See, I just lost one of myboys and they are speculating.
He had a heart tumor.
Yeah.
So it was like superfast, super unexpected.
Erin (21:22):
And that's how the cats at the hotel were.
You're talking super fast.
We wouldn't even know they were sick.
One day we went over and we called hermama Cat, and then we had a grandma.
We had grandma cat, andwe had red mama cat.
We saw blood on her.
We grabbed her, threw her inthe car, took her to the vet.
(21:42):
It was cancer.
Her tumor had burst.
Dixie (21:44):
Wow.
That is crazy.
Erin (21:46):
Grandma had cancer on her spine.
Cori (21:49):
Now this is all one family.
Uhhuh, this is grandma, mama, son,
Erin (21:53):
red.
They took his leg off becausehe had cancer in his leg and
he didn't survive recovery.
Cori (22:00):
And they all lived in.
One area of the hotel,
Dixie (22:03):
is this like an industrial area that it was in?
Erin (22:06):
No.
It's right next to the interstate betweena canal and, a major highway, but it's
restaurants, hotels, there's nothing.
Dixie (22:17):
Oh, that's
crazy because usually you don't see thattoo as much in like an outdoor cat, yeah.
It's usually other things, likerespiratory, those types of things.
That's just insane.
Erin (22:27):
Out of our 50 cats, we only had to put one down that had respiratory issues.
Her lungs filled with fluid.
We think she had FIP.
She was the only one.
The only one out of all the 50 cats, butthe majority of them that did die on us.
The majority were cancer.
Of course, you know thevet bills added up there.
(22:47):
Oh yeah, definitely.
One cat at the hotel he wasabandoned in his carrier.
His name is Polar.
He was a he's
Cori (22:56):
a Himalayan.
That looks like a siamese
Erin (22:59):
He's a him.
Yeah.
Manx.
No tail.
He's beautiful.
He was abandoned in hiskennel at the hotel.
We grabbed him, took him to the vet.
He had the worst UTI Dr.
G had ever seen.
He was matted, he wasin horrible condition.
Polar was over a thousand dollars.
(23:22):
So yeah, the cats take a hugechunk out of our paychecks.
Dixie (23:27):
So have you ever thought about doing a 5 0 1 C3?
Erin (23:32):
We have.
We just don't know.
Much about it.
When we have talked to otherrescues that are 5 0 1 c threes,
they tell us it's not worth it.
'Cause we are not a rescue.
We're just feeders and trappersof our own little colony.
A lot of them are like, it's not worth it.
To spend all the money to get a 5 0 1 C3.
(23:54):
And, so we never really pursued it.
So we just take careof our cats every day.
We are out there every singleday feeding our cats, checking
our cats, and thank goodness theowners of the mall are wonderful.
They, they let us dowhatever we need to do.
We have a key to the mall, soif there is a cat in there.
(24:18):
We can go in and get it.
Cori (24:19):
We have two cats in there at the moment.
Two cats a possum, two cats a anadult possum and a baby possum.
'cause we can see them on the cameras.
Dixie (24:29):
Do y'all ever have to go in the mall to go rescue the cats
or do any kind of rescue missionsfor cats that are in the mall?
Erin (24:35):
Oh yes.
We've had two on the roof takingcare of these cats since 2016.
We never, ever had a problem.
Then in January of this year, wehad our first cat get on the roof.
No clue how she got up there.
Cori (24:51):
There's no tree, there's
Erin (24:53):
nothing by her to get her on this three story building roof.
But up she went.
She found her way down and.
Hurt herself in theprocess, but she's fine now.
Took her to the vet.
Had her checked.
When we got her fixed, 'cause she wasa baby, she was still only about five,
(25:16):
six months when she got up there.
And then a couple of months
ago, another cat on the roof.
We go feed and we hear screaming.
We look up and they'releaning over, screaming at us.
Great.
Up on the roof, we go settingtraps, putting cameras and him,
(25:38):
we caught within a week, right?
Yeah.
Cori (25:41):
The other little, when she showed up down probably what, four or five
days later from getting up on the roof.
But we think she either fell or she
jumped.
Because she messed up her legs pretty bad.
Now she still walks funny,and still runs funny.
(26:02):
But the vet that said,she's perfectly fine.
And then the new, the other onewho got on the roof a couple
times, I call him roofie.
We call him roofie.
He's perfectly fine.
He had a busted up nose from hittingthe trap constantly, but now he just
comes and screams at me to feed him.
Dixie (26:19):
So now I did hear about an elevator incident.
Cori (26:24):
Yes.
Oh, we've had more than that.
We had a kitten in the drain.
The fire department came out andhelped us get that little one out,
and a fireman actually adopted her.
Dixie (26:37):
Oh, awesome.
Cori (26:38):
Her name is now Espy.
And then we had another baby fallinto an elevator shaft, an outside
elevator shaft, and the elevatorcompany came out and helped us get.
Her out.
Erin (26:53):
Yeah.
The mall has no electricity.
So they literally had to come and hookup riggings and manually pull this
elevator up so that someone could getin the shaft to get this baby out.
Wow.
His name is Max.
Dixie (27:11):
Is he still a mall cat?
Erin (27:13):
Yes, he is.
He is.
We always are fussing at himand telling him to quit being a
bully 'cause he can be a bully.
He lives with Leo.
Leo is his best friend, Leo and Baldy.
We have Leo, Baldy, and Max who arethe bachelors, our bachelors and
they all live in one little area.
Max is the bully.
Baldy is the, I guess you could saythe introvert and Leo is the talker.
Dixie (27:41):
When y'all are feeding, do you ever get harassed by people?
Erin (27:45):
Yes.
Oh yes.
Oh yeah.
More though.
People stop and ask questions.
We've had a couple that, tellus we shouldn't be doing this.
We have to explain.
We do have permission.
The owners allow us to do this 'cause, they allow us to take care of the cats.
We watch them all for them.
(28:07):
We watch the cameras.
We know when there's people in there.
We know when there's break-ins.
We know when there's somethingwrong or broken or something.
Just because we've been thereso long, we can spot something
out of place immediately.
We know every single square inchof that mall inside and out.
(28:28):
So we take care of the cats andwe take care of the mall for them.
But we have had some people stop andscream at us and yell at us for doing it.
And a lot of times we just ignore 'em.
But the majority of thepeople are very friendly.
Stop and ask questions.
They love the cat.
(28:48):
They'll bring us food everynow and then they'll give us
some money for the cat food.
Not much, and it doesn't happenoften, but the majority of the people
that do stop are very friendly.
Dixie (28:59):
The ones that stop and will tell you something, are those just
like animal haters, cat haters?
Erin (29:06):
I don't know.
, There are some probablythat are cat haters.
They don't tell us why they'remad at us feeding the cat.
Just that they don't want us doing it.
Okay.
And most of them stay intheir car and just, pull off,
once we totally ignore them.
Dixie (29:27):
When you feed, do you have problems with other people trying to say, oh,
I'm gonna go feed the cats at the mall?
Cori (29:35):
We do have a problem with that, especially when we're trying to trap them.
One of our trapper friendswas actually trapping for us.
He was trapping the juvie forceand he got into an argument with a
woman because he was trying totrap them to get them fixed.
And she was determined to feed.
Erin (29:52):
Yeah, she was gonna feed him whether he liked it or not.
And he got into an argument with her, but.
Cori (29:59):
I don't mind if they feed.
What gets me is theyleave their trash behind.
We try
and leave
no trash.
So they all have feedingstations, they all have water
bowls, they have food bowls.
They have cat housesthat the food goes in.
We try and make their footprint as smallas possible, where when other people
feed, they leave their plates, theyleave their cat food bags all over the
(30:22):
place and we wind up picking it up.
That drives me nuts.
We try and keep it as clean as possible
Erin (30:29):
because a lot of people in our area, they do complain about the mall, the grass
being high or the trash around the mall.
It's not nice looking.
You can tell it's abandoned'cause of all this stuff, and.
Of course it, , in the same parkinglot is a movie theater where when
people come out, they just throw theirtrash on the mo grounds and we have
(30:51):
cups and popcorn things all over.
So when we feed, we feed in actual foodbowls, they're hard bowls in their little
houses, you cannot see them really.
And they're behind things.
You're not gonna see them out in the open.
We don't want the cats eatingand feeding out in the open.
(31:13):
We don't want peoplecomplaining about them.
Cori (31:15):
There's only one area, mainly that is out in the open, and that's
because we don't have any other choice.
That's where we have to feed them.
But the other ones is eitherbehind trees or behind a wall.
So that you cannot see them.
Erin (31:28):
But people will pass and will see like these huge piles
of food in dirt, different areas.
Which, we're fine with feed the cats.
It helps us out a bit.
But just, don't make a mess.
And that's our biggest problemis people just make a mess.
Dixie (31:44):
And how many feeding stations do you have?
Cori (31:47):
I gotta count.
12.
12.
12?
Yeah.
12 areas around the mall.
Dixie (31:53):
That's a lot.
Erin (31:54):
Yeah.
They're all spread out.
They are literally around the entire mall.
They're on the sides.
They're in the front.
They're basically everywhere.
They are totally spread out overthe 700,000 square foot place.
We have to have thatmany feeding stations.
And then the juvie are probablyour largest colony at the mall.
(32:16):
Last time I counted there was 18 there.
Cori (32:20):
Now we did have
kittens this year.
We only had one set of kittens this year.
That's a good thing.
And all those kittens one wentto rescue two got adopted.
Dixie (32:32):
That's awesome.
Cori (32:34):
Haven't had any kittens since,
fingers crossed we're finished here.
Erin (32:39):
We have had some mamas that had kittens that didn't make it.
We do have a cat right
now that we cannot get fixed.
The vet does not think she would make it.
Cori (32:52):
She is a mama.
She does have one baby,little orange fluffy baby.
I did talk to my vet about getting herfixed, and he's I would wait because
he doesn't think she's healthy enough.
Dixie (33:05):
What's going on with her?
Cori (33:07):
When
she
breathes, you can
literally see her tryingto take a breath in.
Dixie (33:12):
Oh, like abdominal breathing?
Erin (33:14):
Yes.
She has been onantibiotics multiple times.
The antibiotics work for awhile and then she's back to.
The heavy breathing, she is very thin.
No matter what we do, we dewormher, we give her high calorie
supplements, she will not gain weight.
And he basically said shewould not make the surgery.
(33:34):
So there's not much wecan really do with her.
Except feed and take care of her.
Her babies do notusually survive actually.
I've only ever seen one survive.
Cori (33:45):
And that's this one.
That's this one little orange
fluff ball.
She did have kittens last season.
None of them survived.
She had two
Dixie (33:56):
and that's crazy.
Cori (33:58):
Yeah.
Dixie (33:58):
Does she take care of 'em?
Cori (33:59):
Yes.
Oh
yeah.
Yes.
She takes care of his littleorange one, this little one.
She's always by him.
She nurses him.
She's taken
really good care of him.
Erin (34:09):
It's just, I don't think they're healthy enough.
Because she's not healthy enough.
Dixie (34:12):
Yeah, exactly.
Erin (34:13):
She's a beautiful little calico.
Sweet little thing.
You can tell that she would not do wellinside, we can't get her adopted, but
she, yeah, she's just not healthy enough.
But she , gets around.
Really well.
Today she was actually notwhere I usually find her.
But yeah, she's the onlyone we know that we.
(34:34):
Literally cannot get fixed.
But we're not really worried about her.
'cause the babies just don't do well.
And then we had another Calicodumped recently, very recently,
probably a month ago, she had kittensand we don't think they survived.
Cori (34:50):
We are not really sure yet, and the reason we think that is every time
we go feed, she is never with the babies.
She's always away from them.
And we know where the babies are, or were.
But every time we see her,
Erin (35:07):
she's not with the babies or even in the area.
And I know, taking care of catsso long, mamas don't do that.
Dixie (35:15):
Yeah.
Usually the babies have to come withthem to learn how to eat and stuff too.
Erin (35:18):
Would be only two weeks old about, 'cause she was dumped pregnant.
And, but we heard 'em one time andthat's the only time we ever heard them.
And in the beginning she was staying inthis one area and she was very protective.
Cori (35:35):
She'd go after any cat that got into the area.
She's
Erin (35:38):
not like that anymore.
Yeah.
And she's never in the area anymore.
She'll come over there to eat, butas soon as she's done, she goes
away again, not where the babieswere and where we are seeing her,
there's no place to hide babies.
' Cause she's out in this big field open.
So we think that, the only realbaby we have now is the six month
(36:02):
old that we think was dumped.
That we saw two days ago.
No, yesterday.
We saw yesterday.
Yesterday was the first time we saw it.
And he was there again today.
So now we got him, get himtrapped and fixed because,
Cori (36:13):
like I said, and where he is, everybody's fixed.
I have no unfixed cats in that area.
Erin (36:18):
We think he's him and the little orange fluff ball they're the only two
and they're pretty, they're old enough toeat on their own and do things like that.
But yeah, that's it.
Everybody else is good.
Dixie (36:31):
I think it's impressive the way that you take care of the cats,
especially being able to look at 50plus cats and know when you have one
that is sick and needs to go to the vet.
'cause there's people that might owntwo cats and they can't even tell that
Erin (36:49):
We know our cats so well.
We know when something's wrong.
' Cause we pay attention toevery single one of them.
I have my brave ones.
I have my chickens, I havemy sort of friendly ones.
Screamers.
I have my screamers.
I have one.
He's my new super senior.
His name is Jack.
(37:10):
And when he sees you coming, you canbe across the parking lot and he's
going to walk to you screaming theentire way at you to come feed him.
He's gonna probably be my next onethat we're gonna have to really
spend money on and pay attentionto because he is our super senior
and his legs don't work very well.
(37:31):
We probably pass there two and threetimes a day just to check on Jack.
To make sure he is okay.
Not overheated 'cause of 110 degrees heat.
He just can't take it.
We bought him cooling pet pads.
Put 'em under the bushes for him.
He does use them, thank goodness.
But we also make surehe eats in the shade.
(37:53):
He's a tuxedo.
Long-haired tuxedo.
He's gonna be probably ournext big I don't wanna say
problem child, but he vet Bill.
Taking care of Jack in his senior years.
Cori (38:09):
And we don't even know where Jack came from.
I don't even remember when Jack showed up.
He just showed up one day.
Erin (38:15):
Yeah we know all of our cats.
Every single one of them.
Part of the problem is it's justher and I, we're the only ones
that trap, we're the only ones thatfeed it's getting appointments.
We
work full time.
We do not trap there after dark.
I know a lot of trappers do.
That's when the cats come out.
(38:35):
We don't, because thereare no lights there.
It is an abandoned area.
It's just not safe.
Which doesn't give us a lot of time.
We do have our tricks.
We have been very fortunate.
It doesn't usually takeus long because , the
cats know us so well.
That they come when we just call them.
Cori (38:54):
Yeah.
I think last time we trapped, I gotthree females in under 30 seconds.
Dixie (38:59):
Oh wow.
That's pretty good
Cori (39:01):
on drop trap.
Yeah.
Erin (39:03):
And they all got fixed the mama and two and her two babies.
We got Julius in under threeminutes because of the catnip.
The mama and the two little girls they'revery food motivated, so it was just easy
to put the food down and we got 'em.
Cori (39:19):
One night, eight were caught over by the juvie.
In a week we
had 14.
Dixie (39:25):
And that's a shame too, that there's that many being dumped constantly.
Erin (39:30):
Constantly.
It's just never ending.
People see cats and they'relike, oh, let me bring them here
because they're taken care of.
Dixie (39:37):
Yep.
And it's a shame.
It's hard to stop something like that too,
Erin (39:41):
we'll never
stop that.
Yeah.
We'll never stop it.
Dixie (39:45):
So all you can do is just trap 'em and get 'em spayed and neutered
so that at least they don't reproduce.
Erin (39:50):
The hotel was easier, the hotel, it did take a long time
to get them fixed, but we weren'thaving new cats dropped off.
We weren't having new cats dump.
But the mall, it's going tobe never ending because of the
dumps, because of the apartments.
Dixie (40:03):
And people know about it, so they think it's like an easy way out
when they wanna get rid of an animal.
Cori (40:09):
Yeah.
We had a man stop a couple of weeksago asking if we ever had dogs
dumped, which sort of made me worried.
I'm like, I don't needany dogs dumped here.
'cause I don't do fool with dogs.
But thank goodness, no, wehave not had dogs dumped.
We do have dogs that show upbecause they're lost and they have
pretty much left the cats alone.
Erin (40:30):
And I told her the other day, I told Cori yesterday, I said, the good
thing about our mall cats, they're veryaccepting when a new cat is dumped.
They immediately accepted into the colony.
Cori (40:42):
We never have any problems.
They're just, reallyaccepting easygoing cats.
Dixie (40:47):
Thank you both for joining me today and talking about the great
work you do with the mall cats.
Erin (40:53):
Thank you.
Dixie (40:54):
That's all the time that we have for today's episode.
If you are enjoying our show, pleaseconsider leaving us a donation.
A hundred percent goes to our animals.
Suno (41:07):
Paws in
the night Claws in thefight Whiskers twitch and
tails
take flight
They’re calling in Stories to spinFrom the wild to the heart within
(41:34):
Broken wings and hopeful springsWe’re the voices for these things
animal posse hear the call.
We stand together.
Big and small Rescue tales We’vegot it all Animal posse Saving
(42:02):
them
all
The vet’s got tips The rescuer’sgrit The foster homes where love
won’t quit From a pup in the rain toa bird in pain , Every soul’s worth
(42:30):
the
strain
Animal posse
Hear the call
We stand together Big
(42:55):
and small Rescue tales We’ve gotit all Animal posse Saving them all
Every caller tells a tale, everyhowl a whispered wail, we rise up.
We never
(43:16):
fail.
This
is
the
bond
The holy grail
(43:36):
Animal posse Hear the call We standtogether Big and small Rescue tales We’ve
got it all Animal posse Saving them all
(44:00):
Every caller tells a tale Every howla whispered wail We rise up We never
fail This is the bond The holy grail.
Song by Suno.ai
Welcome to Animal Posse, the podcast dedicated to the
people and rescues making adifference in the lives of animals.
Okay, so joining me today is Erinand Cori, and they are feral cat
colony caretakers, and TNR advocates.
(00:24):
So hi ladies, how are you?
We're good.
How are you?
I'm good.
I know y'all just got done feeding cats?
Erin (00:31):
Yes.
Dixie (00:31):
How long does it take you to go feed all the cats?
Before we get into discussingwhat exactly y'all do?
Erin (00:37):
I guess between an hour and 15 minutes to an hour and a half.
Dixie (00:41):
How did y'all get into feeding cats and doing TNR?
Cori (00:46):
They actually put out a call for help because they were losing their.
Colony caretaker.
Yeah,
Erin (00:54):
but start before that.
At the hotel.
At the hotel.
Oh yeah.
Both times.
Both places.
The same exact thing has happened.
Cori (01:03):
We started at a hotel
first , and they called for help.
So we said we'd do it, exceptthey didn't tell us how many cats
so we started feeding and trapping.
We have been doing it since 2011 andwe are down to three cats at the hotel.
(01:24):
Over that period of time.
Some have got adopted, we lost some,and then others have just wandered
off and found another colony.
Dixie (01:35):
Where was the call put out that y'all first saw it to
go apply to help these cats?
Cori (01:40):
Facebook.
Dixie (01:41):
Before that, were you ever involved in taking care of cat colonies?
Cori (01:44):
Nope.
Erin (01:45):
No, not really.
We just feeding at our house'cause we live in a subdivision
that borders an apartment complex.
And we have a lot ofabandoned cats from there.
And they just migrate into our yard.
So we feed 'em and trap 'em.
And we've been doing thatsince we moved there in 2003.
Dixie (02:05):
I know apartments can be a big problem.
I deal with that near my home too.
Erin (02:09):
Yeah.
And the apartments that we live by,they're not cat friendly , so we're
not allowed to go in there and trap.
So the apartment complexhas a huge cat problem.
Dixie (02:21):
I'm sure y'all are putting a dent in it though.
Cori (02:23):
We try.
We try.
Yeah.
We try.
We set traps in our yard.
Then we have a couple ofneighbors that do it too.
So they trap as well.
And then when we see them,like other places outside the
gate where we do feed outside the gate ofthe apartment complex, we trap 'em there.
(02:44):
So we'll sit and do a, mainly a drop.
Dixie (02:47):
Do you find the apartment is a problem in general, just like you
can never catch up almost with theapartments because of people moving in
and just abandoning animals when theymove out and not spaying and neutering?
Erin (02:59):
Yes.
, Our biggest area we feed is anabandoned mall and there are restaurants
along the road into the mall.
We caught all the cats at this restaurant.
They had three mamas with all kind ofbabies, caught them all, got 'em fixed
and into a rescue, and now we havetwo more mamas there with five babies
(03:26):
that we're basically starting over
Cori (03:28):
and it's right next to the apartment complex.
Dixie (03:31):
I don't find a lot of people bring up apartment complexes.
I find personally that theapartment complexes seem to
be like the biggest problem.
Erin (03:43):
They are.
And part of the huge problemis these management companies
do not want you trapping.
They don't want you feeding,they don't want you trapping.
But the residents of the apartmentcomplex, they wanna feed the cats.
Because they have all ofthese cats in their area and.
They just feel bad for them.
Dixie (04:02):
I wish that there was some kind of way to get them on board, because I
wanna have a place for people to move in.
That's, of course, pet friendlyso they can go move in pets to an
apartment, but at the same time,they just get out of control so fast
at these apartments, like you said,because of the management companies.
And them allowing pets, but notenforcing, spay, neutering of
(04:26):
the pets that the people have.
Erin (04:28):
And some of these apartments are short term apartments and
when they leave their cats.
And we have that huge problem.
We've noticed that problemsince we moved in, in 2003.
Most of our cats that we do see in ourstreet all come from the apartment.
Yeah.
And I wanna say 99% of them are not fixed.
Dixie (04:50):
Yeah.
See that's the same thing by me.
Like I try to catch up.
If I see 'em, I go out, Istart trapping right away.
But, it's never ending.
You can never catch up.
'cause as soon as somebodyelse moves in, that's it.
Then you see kittens again.
Erin (05:03):
And then they come from the apartments.
They either come to my house,'cause my house is between
the apartments and the mall.
So the apartment's right in themiddle of us, so if they don't come
to my house, they come to the mall.
And
Cori (05:17):
we started with two cats at the mall.
We are now over 50.
Dixie (05:23):
Wow.
Erin (05:24):
And the majority of 'em are fixed, but it's just never ending
because we always have more cats.
We have a brand new, what,five, six month old baby.
We saw yesterday.
No clue where this baby came from.
And
Cori (05:39):
all the cats in that one area are fixed.
Every
single one
of 'em.
Don't know where this baby came from.
Erin (05:45):
He's probably a dump.
Majority of our cats are dumps.
We have one, his name is Julius.
Beautiful Young Orange Tabby.
We grabbed him to get him fixed andhave his mouth looked at 'cause he
was having a problem dropping food.
So we brought him to the vet.
The vet got him ready to fixand he was already fixed, but
(06:09):
he did not have an ear tip.
And the vet said he was such a sweet,friendly cat that he belonged to someone,
but they just dumped him at the mall.
Dixie (06:18):
I know y'all were trying to get him checked for a chip.
Were y'all able to check?
Erin (06:21):
He is not chipped.
No.
And.
It's just, he's a wonderful,beautiful little cat,
but , they're always showing up.
Cori (06:29):
We had one man stopped her in the middle of feeding one day and
asked if he could bring his three cats.
The next day we had three new cats, caught'em all beautiful orange, fluffy cat.
Leo is just beautiful.
He's got that medium long hair.
Big, fluffy tail.
He talks up his arm to you.
(06:51):
He was one of the ones.
Him.
Mr.
Gray.
And Gail.
And Gail.
Now Gail is a very odd looking cat.
I don't know why these peoplewanna get rid of these cats 'cause
they're absolutely gorgeous.
Gail looks like a Russian blue with
silver eyes.
He is
beautiful.
Erin (07:10):
I have never seen a cat that looks like Gail.
Ever.
He's just so odd looking you whenhe's sitting there looking at you,
you cannot see his eyes because theyare the exact same color as him.
Cori (07:25):
He's beautiful.
Got 'em all trapped and fixed andbrought 'em right back to the mall.
Dixie (07:31):
Okay, so let's get to the mall then.
So y'all started at a hotel?
How is it that you gothooked up with the mall?
Erin (07:39):
Same story.
They put a call out on Facebook tofeed these two cats at the mall.
'Cause their caretaker was moving toAtlanta to take care of her mother.
So we were like, yeah, we can takecare of these two that's right
around the corner from my house.
And that was Beauty and Tiger.
Who we just recently found out Tiger was alittle girl 'cause they were already both
(08:02):
fixed by the time we were feeding them.
And that was in 2016 maybe.
And then we had a third one show up.
She just showed up.
We don't know where she came from.
We called her Smelly.
Smelly was a pain.
(08:22):
No matter what we did to try and trapher, she would get on top of the trap
and just lay there the entire time.
We'd trap her every single time.
She'd get on top of thetrap and just lay there.
Cori (08:32):
Didn't matter if it was a regular trap or a drop trap.
Erin (08:36):
Smelly was on top.
We called her smellybecause she couldn't smell.
We'd put her food down and have toliterally show her where her food was
'cause she couldn't find it by smelling.
It was the funniest thing.
Biggest talker in the world and.
We tried for yearscatching her, never did.
And she had a litter of three andthen a, another litter of four.
(09:03):
And we trapped all them.
They're all fixed now.
We call 'em the juvie.
And people just then started seeing thecats there, and then they started dumping.
Dixie (09:16):
Was the mall open and operational when y'all first started?
Erin (09:21):
Oh yes.
The mall didn't close until2021 after Hurricane Ida.
One time we have a littleone there named Crooky.
She has a crooked tail,so her name's Crooky.
She got into the mall while itwas still open and one, and thank
goodness she comes when we call her.
Because we just opened the doorsone night when the mall had closed,
(09:41):
the manager had let us in and wejust called her and here she came.
So we got her out pretty quick'cause she was ready to eat.
Cori (09:49):
When the fire marshal would come check the building, crooky
would go with the manager in thefire marshal and walk around the
building for him to check all the fireextinguishers or the sprinkler systems.
She'd go for a walk with him.
Dixie (10:04):
She was his assistant.
Sometimes you needthose feline assistance.
Erin (10:07):
That's
right.
Right now the police department, whenpeople break into the mall, they call 'em
the guard cats because most of the timewhen somebody breaks in, the cats get
in and by the cameras in the mall thatwe watch we can tell where the door is.
The door that's open becauseof the cat that's in the mall.
(10:28):
We know where that cat's from'cause we know all of our cats.
Dixie (10:32):
That's what I was gonna ask.
So you have over 50 now?
Yes.
Okay.
And they all have names?
Erin (10:38):
Pretty much.
Cori (10:39):
The majority do,
yes.
Dixie (10:43):
And as far as getting involved, when you first got involved, even
with the hotel, like who taughtyou how to trap, was that something
that You'all learned on your own?
Erin (10:51):
YouTube.
Cori (10:54):
Yeah, we taught ourselves.
'cause there was really nobodyto show us how to trap back then.
'cause TNR was not popularwhen we started at the mall.
Uhhuh or at the, actually at the hotel.
TNR wasn't popular then back then.
Now that it's gotten to be known now.
Quite a few people
do it but when we first started in 2011.
There wasn't a lot of peopletrapping at that point.
Erin (11:16):
And today we do have more trappers, but they're so overwhelmed.
It's unbelievable how many trappersare, I'm on this Facebook group the
community cat page, and every day theyare trapping cats and they're talking 30
cats a day, 40 cats a day, and they'rejust bringing them in to get fixed.
Thank goodness we have the.
(11:38):
TNR program, where in our area it's free.
It's just, the trappers are sooverwhelmed and there's not enough of us.
Dixie (11:47):
And then it seems too, like we said earlier, no matter how much you
trap, it's hard to even see a dent in it.
Erin (11:54):
We actually had one entire, now the mall we feed at is 700,000 square feet.
Just the mall, not the outbuildings.
The outbuilding stores that arestill open, that's not included in
the 700,000 square feet, but themall itself is 700,000 square feet.
We had one entire side totally fixed.
(12:17):
Everybody had been TNR andwe can't say that anymore.
Because that's the sidethe apartments are on.
And every summer we see these certaincats that are coming to the mall and then
they go right back to the apartments.
I'll tell her, I'll tell Cori.
I'll be like, Hey, look, there'sa little tribal orange one.
And we know where he's from.
(12:38):
He's from the apartments.
and 'cause we'll see him over there.
And then every now and then we'llsee him over by us and then all of
a sudden we have Siamese kitten.
We don't have a Siamese cat at the mallat all, but we have Siamese kittens now.
, Thank goodness we wereable to catch all of them.
(12:59):
And they went to rescue
the Siamese went to one rescue,the black one got adopted from us.
'cause we work with our vet.
When we get kittens, they actuallygo into the cages at the vet and
they get adopted through the vet.
They work very well with us.
It's VCA.
And they also work with us when we needa vet emergency, all I have to do is call
(13:24):
and say I'm coming and they're waiting forme, which they work really well with us.
But we got, I have two ofcookies, babies at my house.
Because no matter what we did the twograys, we could not get them adopted.
Nobody wanted gray tabby's.
So now I have Humphrey and Dexterwho turned three last month.
(13:47):
Yeah.
Last month they turned three.
So no four.
They turned four.
'cause they were born in 2021right before Hurricane Ida.
But yeah,
Cori (13:56):
it's just everybody wants exotic looking cats now.
Yes.
They don't want regulargray tabbies anymore.
An orange or a
tuxedo or a calico or a torty.
Yeah.
They don't want regular gray tabbies.
Dixie (14:14):
Yeah, no, it's absolutely true.
And it's sad too because yourplain average looking cats
are usually your best cats.
Erin (14:21):
They are, Dexter and Humphrey are a blast and a half, and Dexter is probably
one of the sweetest cats I have ever seen.
I call him, I have a, an oldergentleman at my house named
Tips, who's an orange and white.
And then I have my littlegentleman who is Dexter.
Dexter is just, he'll come up, he'llcuddle, he wants to lay on you.
(14:45):
You go to the window and he's coming toclimb up you to, for you to hold him.
'cause he wants you to hold him bythe window so he can look for lizards.
They are the best cats.
And Dexter has the prettiestteal eyes I have ever seen.
He has his mama's eyes.
Cookie is still at the mall,but but they're beautiful
and they're the best cats.
Dixie (15:06):
Yeah.
It's a shame.
And I've been on a runof simes mixes lately.
I don't understand what's going on.
It just seems every time I geta kitten, it's a Siamese mix and
Erin (15:17):
we actually have a new Siamese at the mall.
We named him Sammy.
We have no idea where he came from.
Dixie (15:22):
Yeah and usually those are the easiest ones to get
adopted, , but you also get a lot ofpeople that want 'em just because,
oh, I'm looking for a Siamese.
They don't think about the temperament,they don't think about any of that.
All they think about are the looks,and I've had people inquire on
mine and they're like, oh, whatdoes the mom and dad look like?
(15:43):
And I'm like, I have no idea.
I'm like, the mom might have beena tabby, she was t and r, but I'm
like, I have no idea who the dad was.
I'm like, this isn't a breeder.
Erin (15:54):
It's so funny 'cause.
The, when we first caught cookies,baby, she had two Siamese and we
called a friend of ours who runs akitten rescue and the first thing
she says is, bring me to Siamese.
I have a waiting list.
Yep.
And they got adopted super fast,but the other three, not so much.
Dixie (16:15):
Feeding all these cats at the mall, what are some of the challenges, aside
from people dumping animals that you face?
Erin (16:24):
The cost,
it comes out of our
own
pockets.
Dixie (16:28):
So you're not a 5 0 1 C3?
Erin (16:30):
No.
Everything that we feed them,comes out of our paychecks.
They have to go to the vet,comes out of our paychecks.
And we are very big on ifthere is a cat hurt or a cat
sick, they're going to the vet.
When we first noticed Julius droppinghis food, the little orange one at
the mall, two days, we grabbed him.
(16:50):
And got him to the vet.
Now we thought he still hadto be fixed, but he had only
been there a couple of weeks.
So we were like, okay, Julius hasto be fixed and he's dropping food.
He can't eat, he's in pain.
We had Julius, what, five minutes We putthe drop trap there and five minutes we
had him come to find out he is fixed.
(17:11):
But they gave him an antibiotic shot.
We had his teeth cleaned and.
That day and a pain shotand brought him back.
But all of that comesout of our own pocket.
Dixie (17:23):
And how much food do you go through?
Cori (17:26):
About five 30 pound bags a week.
And about 120 cans of cat food.
Wet food.
Dixie (17:33):
Wow.
So how much money on food alone?
Monthly.
Erin (17:37):
Monthly.
Oh, I gotta think about that.
You're talking a 30pound bag is usually $27,
a 60 can box of canned food is $43.
$43.
So we're talking 150 in cat food aweek and almost $90 in wet food a week.
Cori (17:59):
Wow.
That's not including
Erin (18:01):
vet bills.
Dixie (18:02):
Yeah, I can imagine With the vet bills added on top of that.
Erin (18:05):
Yeah.
Julius was 300,
Cori (18:08):
$261.
Yeah.
Dixie (18:11):
What other kind of veterinary emergencies have y'all had with these?
Cori (18:15):
We had one, we actually just had to recently put down she was
the original mall cat.
Her name was Beauty.
She was my super senior.
We
went on a Tuesday and fed her.
She was still eating, stillgetting around, but I noticed
flies and she was longhaired.
(18:38):
So I'm like, okay, maybe she got something
in her
hair,
went back on Wednesday, couldn't find her,and then I saw Leo my longhaired fluffy
orange cat looking down at something.
So I pulled over by Leo and I'mlike, what are you looking at?
And there was beauty.
I'm like, oh, I found beauty.
And I said, I'm gonnago down and feed her.
(18:59):
Erin goes, please tell me she's alive.
I said, yeah, she's alive.
She's looking at me.
So I went down to feed her and Inoticed more flies and I fed her and
she just turned her nose up at it.
So we grabbed her.
I called the vet right then and there,and my vet's bring her, just bring her.
Put her in a trap.
(19:20):
I'd never been able to touch beauty ever.
I just picked her up and put herin the trap, got her to the vet the
doctor's okay, let's just take a look.
We may not have to put her down.
Maybe she just has a woundsomewhere that's infected.
When we turned her over, she hadholes in her stomach full of maggots.
Erin (19:40):
She had cancer.
Cori (19:41):
The tumors burst.
Erin (19:43):
So you're talking, wait, that was 230.
That was $200.
And then another one big boyhad a cat bite on his foot.
So we had to trap him, get himfixed, and have his foot cleaned.
Antibiotics.
Romeo was probably our biggest,Romeo, was at the hotel.
(20:03):
Beautiful.
Flame Point, Siamese blind as a bat.
Romeo couldn't see nothing, but hewas the alpha cat over at the hotel.
He ruled everybody.
We took care of Romeo from thevery beginning, at the hotel 2011.
And two years ago we went to feedhim and he was wobbly and Romeo
(20:27):
was prone to ear infections.
So we're like, okay, maybeit's an ear infection.
We did everything for a monthand a half to get him better.
Even hospitalizing him at thevet for what, four or five days.
And no matter what Dr.
(20:48):
G did, he wasn't getting better.
He cost us probably couple of thousand.
Couple of thousand dollars.
Cori (20:56):
We wound up having to put him down.
Erin (20:58):
Yeah.
Dr.
G thinks he had brain cancer.
Most of our hotel cats.
That's what they die of.
Cancer.
Yes.
Majority of them died of cancer and
Dixie (21:11):
nobody can figure out why.
That's crazy.
See, I just lost one of myboys and they are speculating.
He had a heart tumor.
Yeah.
So it was like superfast, super unexpected.
Erin (21:22):
And that's how the cats at the hotel were.
You're talking super fast.
We wouldn't even know they were sick.
One day we went over and we called hermama Cat, and then we had a grandma.
We had grandma cat, andwe had red mama cat.
We saw blood on her.
We grabbed her, threw her inthe car, took her to the vet.
(21:42):
It was cancer.
Her tumor had burst.
Dixie (21:44):
Wow.
That is crazy.
Erin (21:46):
Grandma had cancer on her spine.
Cori (21:49):
Now this is all one family.
Uhhuh, this is grandma, mama, son,
Erin (21:53):
red.
They took his leg off becausehe had cancer in his leg and
he didn't survive recovery.
Cori (22:00):
And they all lived in.
One area of the hotel,
Dixie (22:03):
is this like an industrial area that it was in?
Erin (22:06):
No.
It's right next to the interstate betweena canal and, a major highway, but it's
restaurants, hotels, there's nothing.
Dixie (22:17):
Oh, that's
crazy because usually you don't see thattoo as much in like an outdoor cat, yeah.
It's usually other things, likerespiratory, those types of things.
That's just insane.
Erin (22:27):
Out of our 50 cats, we only had to put one down that had respiratory issues.
Her lungs filled with fluid.
We think she had FIP.
She was the only one.
The only one out of all the 50 cats, butthe majority of them that did die on us.
The majority were cancer.
Of course, you know thevet bills added up there.
(22:47):
Oh yeah, definitely.
One cat at the hotel he wasabandoned in his carrier.
His name is Polar.
He was a he's
Cori (22:56):
a Himalayan.
That looks like a siamese
Erin (22:59):
He's a him.
Yeah.
Manx.
No tail.
He's beautiful.
He was abandoned in hiskennel at the hotel.
We grabbed him, took him to the vet.
He had the worst UTI Dr.
G had ever seen.
He was matted, he wasin horrible condition.
Polar was over a thousand dollars.
(23:22):
So yeah, the cats take a hugechunk out of our paychecks.
Dixie (23:27):
So have you ever thought about doing a 5 0 1 C3?
Erin (23:32):
We have.
We just don't know.
Much about it.
When we have talked to otherrescues that are 5 0 1 c threes,
they tell us it's not worth it.
'Cause we are not a rescue.
We're just feeders and trappersof our own little colony.
A lot of them are like, it's not worth it.
To spend all the money to get a 5 0 1 C3.
(23:54):
And, so we never really pursued it.
So we just take careof our cats every day.
We are out there every singleday feeding our cats, checking
our cats, and thank goodness theowners of the mall are wonderful.
They, they let us dowhatever we need to do.
We have a key to the mall, soif there is a cat in there.
(24:18):
We can go in and get it.
Cori (24:19):
We have two cats in there at the moment.
Two cats a possum, two cats a anadult possum and a baby possum.
'cause we can see them on the cameras.
Dixie (24:29):
Do y'all ever have to go in the mall to go rescue the cats
or do any kind of rescue missionsfor cats that are in the mall?
Erin (24:35):
Oh yes.
We've had two on the roof takingcare of these cats since 2016.
We never, ever had a problem.
Then in January of this year, wehad our first cat get on the roof.
No clue how she got up there.
Cori (24:51):
There's no tree, there's
Erin (24:53):
nothing by her to get her on this three story building roof.
But up she went.
She found her way down and.
Hurt herself in theprocess, but she's fine now.
Took her to the vet.
Had her checked.
When we got her fixed, 'cause she wasa baby, she was still only about five,
(25:16):
six months when she got up there.
And then a couple of months
ago, another cat on the roof.
We go feed and we hear screaming.
We look up and they'releaning over, screaming at us.
Great.
Up on the roof, we go settingtraps, putting cameras and him,
(25:38):
we caught within a week, right?
Yeah.
Cori (25:41):
The other little, when she showed up down probably what, four or five
days later from getting up on the roof.
But we think she either fell or she
jumped.
Because she messed up her legs pretty bad.
Now she still walks funny,and still runs funny.
(26:02):
But the vet that said,she's perfectly fine.
And then the new, the other onewho got on the roof a couple
times, I call him roofie.
We call him roofie.
He's perfectly fine.
He had a busted up nose from hittingthe trap constantly, but now he just
comes and screams at me to feed him.
Dixie (26:19):
So now I did hear about an elevator incident.
Cori (26:24):
Yes.
Oh, we've had more than that.
We had a kitten in the drain.
The fire department came out andhelped us get that little one out,
and a fireman actually adopted her.
Dixie (26:37):
Oh, awesome.
Cori (26:38):
Her name is now Espy.
And then we had another baby fallinto an elevator shaft, an outside
elevator shaft, and the elevatorcompany came out and helped us get.
Her out.
Erin (26:53):
Yeah.
The mall has no electricity.
So they literally had to come and hookup riggings and manually pull this
elevator up so that someone could getin the shaft to get this baby out.
Wow.
His name is Max.
Dixie (27:11):
Is he still a mall cat?
Erin (27:13):
Yes, he is.
He is.
We always are fussing at himand telling him to quit being a
bully 'cause he can be a bully.
He lives with Leo.
Leo is his best friend, Leo and Baldy.
We have Leo, Baldy, and Max who arethe bachelors, our bachelors and
they all live in one little area.
Max is the bully.
Baldy is the, I guess you could saythe introvert and Leo is the talker.
Dixie (27:41):
When y'all are feeding, do you ever get harassed by people?
Erin (27:45):
Yes.
Oh yes.
Oh yeah.
More though.
People stop and ask questions.
We've had a couple that, tellus we shouldn't be doing this.
We have to explain.
We do have permission.
The owners allow us to do this 'cause, they allow us to take care of the cats.
We watch them all for them.
(28:07):
We watch the cameras.
We know when there's people in there.
We know when there's break-ins.
We know when there's somethingwrong or broken or something.
Just because we've been thereso long, we can spot something
out of place immediately.
We know every single square inchof that mall inside and out.
(28:28):
So we take care of the cats andwe take care of the mall for them.
But we have had some people stop andscream at us and yell at us for doing it.
And a lot of times we just ignore 'em.
But the majority of thepeople are very friendly.
Stop and ask questions.
They love the cat.
(28:48):
They'll bring us food everynow and then they'll give us
some money for the cat food.
Not much, and it doesn't happenoften, but the majority of the people
that do stop are very friendly.
Dixie (28:59):
The ones that stop and will tell you something, are those just
like animal haters, cat haters?
Erin (29:06):
I don't know.
, There are some probablythat are cat haters.
They don't tell us why they'remad at us feeding the cat.
Just that they don't want us doing it.
Okay.
And most of them stay intheir car and just, pull off,
once we totally ignore them.
Dixie (29:27):
When you feed, do you have problems with other people trying to say, oh,
I'm gonna go feed the cats at the mall?
Cori (29:35):
We do have a problem with that, especially when we're trying to trap them.
One of our trapper friendswas actually trapping for us.
He was trapping the juvie forceand he got into an argument with a
woman because he was trying totrap them to get them fixed.
And she was determined to feed.
Erin (29:52):
Yeah, she was gonna feed him whether he liked it or not.
And he got into an argument with her, but.
Cori (29:59):
I don't mind if they feed.
What gets me is theyleave their trash behind.
We try
and leave
no trash.
So they all have feedingstations, they all have water
bowls, they have food bowls.
They have cat housesthat the food goes in.
We try and make their footprint as smallas possible, where when other people
feed, they leave their plates, theyleave their cat food bags all over the
(30:22):
place and we wind up picking it up.
That drives me nuts.
We try and keep it as clean as possible
Erin (30:29):
because a lot of people in our area, they do complain about the mall, the grass
being high or the trash around the mall.
It's not nice looking.
You can tell it's abandoned'cause of all this stuff, and.
Of course it, , in the same parkinglot is a movie theater where when
people come out, they just throw theirtrash on the mo grounds and we have
(30:51):
cups and popcorn things all over.
So when we feed, we feed in actual foodbowls, they're hard bowls in their little
houses, you cannot see them really.
And they're behind things.
You're not gonna see them out in the open.
We don't want the cats eatingand feeding out in the open.
(31:13):
We don't want peoplecomplaining about them.
Cori (31:15):
There's only one area, mainly that is out in the open, and that's
because we don't have any other choice.
That's where we have to feed them.
But the other ones is eitherbehind trees or behind a wall.
So that you cannot see them.
Erin (31:28):
But people will pass and will see like these huge piles
of food in dirt, different areas.
Which, we're fine with feed the cats.
It helps us out a bit.
But just, don't make a mess.
And that's our biggest problemis people just make a mess.
Dixie (31:44):
And how many feeding stations do you have?
Cori (31:47):
I gotta count.
12.
12.
12?
Yeah.
12 areas around the mall.
Dixie (31:53):
That's a lot.
Erin (31:54):
Yeah.
They're all spread out.
They are literally around the entire mall.
They're on the sides.
They're in the front.
They're basically everywhere.
They are totally spread out overthe 700,000 square foot place.
We have to have thatmany feeding stations.
And then the juvie are probablyour largest colony at the mall.
(32:16):
Last time I counted there was 18 there.
Cori (32:20):
Now we did have
kittens this year.
We only had one set of kittens this year.
That's a good thing.
And all those kittens one wentto rescue two got adopted.
Dixie (32:32):
That's awesome.
Cori (32:34):
Haven't had any kittens since,
fingers crossed we're finished here.
Erin (32:39):
We have had some mamas that had kittens that didn't make it.
We do have a cat right
now that we cannot get fixed.
The vet does not think she would make it.
Cori (32:52):
She is a mama.
She does have one baby,little orange fluffy baby.
I did talk to my vet about getting herfixed, and he's I would wait because
he doesn't think she's healthy enough.
Dixie (33:05):
What's going on with her?
Cori (33:07):
When
she
breathes, you can
literally see her tryingto take a breath in.
Dixie (33:12):
Oh, like abdominal breathing?
Erin (33:14):
Yes.
She has been onantibiotics multiple times.
The antibiotics work for awhile and then she's back to.
The heavy breathing, she is very thin.
No matter what we do, we dewormher, we give her high calorie
supplements, she will not gain weight.
And he basically said shewould not make the surgery.
(33:34):
So there's not much wecan really do with her.
Except feed and take care of her.
Her babies do notusually survive actually.
I've only ever seen one survive.
Cori (33:45):
And that's this one.
That's this one little orange
fluff ball.
She did have kittens last season.
None of them survived.
She had two
Dixie (33:56):
and that's crazy.
Cori (33:58):
Yeah.
Dixie (33:58):
Does she take care of 'em?
Cori (33:59):
Yes.
Oh
yeah.
Yes.
She takes care of his littleorange one, this little one.
She's always by him.
She nurses him.
She's taken
really good care of him.
Erin (34:09):
It's just, I don't think they're healthy enough.
Because she's not healthy enough.
Dixie (34:12):
Yeah, exactly.
Erin (34:13):
She's a beautiful little calico.
Sweet little thing.
You can tell that she would not do wellinside, we can't get her adopted, but
she, yeah, she's just not healthy enough.
But she , gets around.
Really well.
Today she was actually notwhere I usually find her.
But yeah, she's the onlyone we know that we.
(34:34):
Literally cannot get fixed.
But we're not really worried about her.
'cause the babies just don't do well.
And then we had another Calicodumped recently, very recently,
probably a month ago, she had kittensand we don't think they survived.
Cori (34:50):
We are not really sure yet, and the reason we think that is every time
we go feed, she is never with the babies.
She's always away from them.
And we know where the babies are, or were.
But every time we see her,
Erin (35:07):
she's not with the babies or even in the area.
And I know, taking care of catsso long, mamas don't do that.
Dixie (35:15):
Yeah.
Usually the babies have to come withthem to learn how to eat and stuff too.
Erin (35:18):
Would be only two weeks old about, 'cause she was dumped pregnant.
And, but we heard 'em one time andthat's the only time we ever heard them.
And in the beginning she was staying inthis one area and she was very protective.
Cori (35:35):
She'd go after any cat that got into the area.
She's
Erin (35:38):
not like that anymore.
Yeah.
And she's never in the area anymore.
She'll come over there to eat, butas soon as she's done, she goes
away again, not where the babieswere and where we are seeing her,
there's no place to hide babies.
' Cause she's out in this big field open.
So we think that, the only realbaby we have now is the six month
(36:02):
old that we think was dumped.
That we saw two days ago.
No, yesterday.
We saw yesterday.
Yesterday was the first time we saw it.
And he was there again today.
So now we got him, get himtrapped and fixed because,
Cori (36:13):
like I said, and where he is, everybody's fixed.
I have no unfixed cats in that area.
Erin (36:18):
We think he's him and the little orange fluff ball they're the only two
and they're pretty, they're old enough toeat on their own and do things like that.
But yeah, that's it.
Everybody else is good.
Dixie (36:31):
I think it's impressive the way that you take care of the cats,
especially being able to look at 50plus cats and know when you have one
that is sick and needs to go to the vet.
'cause there's people that might owntwo cats and they can't even tell that
Erin (36:49):
We know our cats so well.
We know when something's wrong.
' Cause we pay attention toevery single one of them.
I have my brave ones.
I have my chickens, I havemy sort of friendly ones.
Screamers.
I have my screamers.
I have one.
He's my new super senior.
His name is Jack.
(37:10):
And when he sees you coming, you canbe across the parking lot and he's
going to walk to you screaming theentire way at you to come feed him.
He's gonna probably be my next onethat we're gonna have to really
spend money on and pay attentionto because he is our super senior
and his legs don't work very well.
(37:31):
We probably pass there two and threetimes a day just to check on Jack.
To make sure he is okay.
Not overheated 'cause of 110 degrees heat.
He just can't take it.
We bought him cooling pet pads.
Put 'em under the bushes for him.
He does use them, thank goodness.
But we also make surehe eats in the shade.
(37:53):
He's a tuxedo.
Long-haired tuxedo.
He's gonna be probably ournext big I don't wanna say
problem child, but he vet Bill.
Taking care of Jack in his senior years.
Cori (38:09):
And we don't even know where Jack came from.
I don't even remember when Jack showed up.
He just showed up one day.
Erin (38:15):
Yeah we know all of our cats.
Every single one of them.
Part of the problem is it's justher and I, we're the only ones
that trap, we're the only ones thatfeed it's getting appointments.
We
work full time.
We do not trap there after dark.
I know a lot of trappers do.
That's when the cats come out.
(38:35):
We don't, because thereare no lights there.
It is an abandoned area.
It's just not safe.
Which doesn't give us a lot of time.
We do have our tricks.
We have been very fortunate.
It doesn't usually takeus long because , the
cats know us so well.
That they come when we just call them.
Cori (38:54):
Yeah.
I think last time we trapped, I gotthree females in under 30 seconds.
Dixie (38:59):
Oh wow.
That's pretty good
Cori (39:01):
on drop trap.
Yeah.
Erin (39:03):
And they all got fixed the mama and two and her two babies.
We got Julius in under threeminutes because of the catnip.
The mama and the two little girls they'revery food motivated, so it was just easy
to put the food down and we got 'em.
Cori (39:19):
One night, eight were caught over by the juvie.
In a week we
had 14.
Dixie (39:25):
And that's a shame too, that there's that many being dumped constantly.
Erin (39:30):
Constantly.
It's just never ending.
People see cats and they'relike, oh, let me bring them here
because they're taken care of.
Dixie (39:37):
Yep.
And it's a shame.
It's hard to stop something like that too,
Erin (39:41):
we'll never
stop that.
Yeah.
We'll never stop it.
Dixie (39:45):
So all you can do is just trap 'em and get 'em spayed and neutered
so that at least they don't reproduce.
Erin (39:50):
The hotel was easier, the hotel, it did take a long time
to get them fixed, but we weren'thaving new cats dropped off.
We weren't having new cats dump.
But the mall, it's going tobe never ending because of the
dumps, because of the apartments.
Dixie (40:03):
And people know about it, so they think it's like an easy way out
when they wanna get rid of an animal.
Cori (40:09):
Yeah.
We had a man stop a couple of weeksago asking if we ever had dogs
dumped, which sort of made me worried.
I'm like, I don't needany dogs dumped here.
'cause I don't do fool with dogs.
But thank goodness, no, wehave not had dogs dumped.
We do have dogs that show upbecause they're lost and they have
pretty much left the cats alone.
Erin (40:30):
And I told her the other day, I told Cori yesterday, I said, the good
thing about our mall cats, they're veryaccepting when a new cat is dumped.
They immediately accepted into the colony.
Cori (40:42):
We never have any problems.
They're just, reallyaccepting easygoing cats.
Dixie (40:47):
Thank you both for joining me today and talking about the great
work you do with the mall cats.
Erin (40:53):
Thank you.
Dixie (40:54):
That's all the time that we have for today's episode.
If you are enjoying our show, pleaseconsider leaving us a donation.
A hundred percent goes to our animals.
Suno (41:07):
Paws in
the night Claws in thefight Whiskers twitch and
tails
take flight
They’re calling in Stories to spinFrom the wild to the heart within
(41:34):
Broken wings and hopeful springsWe’re the voices for these things
animal posse hear the call.
We stand together.
Big and small Rescue tales We’vegot it all Animal posse Saving
(42:02):
them
all
The vet’s got tips The rescuer’sgrit The foster homes where love
won’t quit From a pup in the rain toa bird in pain , Every soul’s worth
(42:30):
the
strain
Animal posse
Hear the call
We stand together Big
(42:55):
and small Rescue tales We’ve gotit all Animal posse Saving them all
Every caller tells a tale, everyhowl a whispered wail, we rise up.
We never
(43:16):
fail.
This
is
the
bond
The holy grail
(43:36):
Animal posse Hear the call We standtogether Big and small Rescue tales We’ve
got it all Animal posse Saving them all
(44:00):
Every caller tells a tale Every howla whispered wail We rise up We never
fail This is the bond The holy grail.
Song by Suno.ai
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Cardiac Cowboys
The heart was always off-limits to surgeons. Cutting into it spelled instant death for the patient. That is, until a ragtag group of doctors scattered across the Midwest and Texas decided to throw out the rule book. Working in makeshift laboratories and home garages, using medical devices made from scavenged machine parts and beer tubes, these men and women invented the field of open heart surgery. Odds are, someone you know is alive because of them. So why has history left them behind? Presented by Chris Pine, CARDIAC COWBOYS tells the gripping true story behind the birth of heart surgery, and the young, Greatest Generation doctors who made it happen. For years, they competed and feuded, racing to be the first, the best, and the most prolific. Some appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, operated on kings and advised presidents. Others ended up disgraced, penniless, and convicted of felonies. Together, they ignited a revolution in medicine, and changed the world.