Frequently Asked Questions

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This is on a case-by-case basis. We prefer to try to assist in solving the individual situation or suggest ways you can find a new home for your cat on your own. If this is not an option, you must contact Lynea for approval at (559) 638-8696 before filling out our online surrender form.

The basic surrender fee is $45 per-cat per-month. The maximum total per-cat surrender fee is $3000 of which $500 is due when the cat is surrendered. We also charge an upfront fee of $80 for an un-neutered, un-vaccinated cat/kitten. Senior cats (8 years or older) are much more likely to incur medical expenses. Consequently the surrender fee for senior cats is $60 per-cat per-month to a maximum per-cat total of $3000 of which $1000 is due when the cat is surrendered. The fee obligation is terminated when the cat is either adopted or passes away.

No. The reason is that in exchange for the surrender fee we provide the service of lifetime care for the surrendered cat(s). Consequently, the surrender fee does not qualify as a tax-deductible donation.

Yes! If you submitted your surrender form online, simply click here and enter your e-mail address to look up your surrendered cat(s). Then you will get a convenient link to set up recurring payments through PayPal.

Changing your payment method with PayPal is straightforward:

  1. First, note when the last payment was made and calculate when the next payment is due to be taken by PayPal.
  2. Before the next payment is charged to the credit card by PayPal, cancel your "subscription", which is PayPal's term for the regular payments.
  3. Click here to set up a new PayPal payment schedule for surrenders. For a new sponsorship payment schedule, click here instead.

The cat's 4-in-1 (FVRCP&C), Rabies and Leukemia vaccinations are brought up to date. The cat is also wormed and treated with flea preventative. Watching Lynea do all this at lightning speed on a very unhappy feral cat is something to behold! (See "" below.)

Newcomers are initially quarantined while they get acclimated to their new environment. (See next question.)

We have quarantine areas to keep new animals closely supervised in the event of stress induced illness. Some interact after a few days, some take months, some never adjust. Take a tour to see for yourself where they will live.

Please read our adoption process.

Our hours are 1–4 pm daily, except major holidays, by appointment only. Please call (559) 638-8696 or (559) 638-0490 for an appointment. We also hold adoption fairs at various off-site locations. The next fair is always shown on our adoption page.

Absolutely! Any animal entering our sanctuary is spayed/neutered (and vaccinated) promptly as needed upon arrival.

We are able to board cats. Our basic rate is $8/day. Discounts may be available depending on the number of cats or length of their stay with us. Please contact us for further information.

The San Francisco SPCA provides a free Animal Behavior Help Line at (415) 554-3075, which is staffed by volunteer animal behaviorists. You can also visit their web site.

If you think you cat has been poisoned, call the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center at (888) 426-4435.

There is a $55 consultation fee for this service.

Be ready with the following information:

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Please note: If your animal is having seizures, losing consciousness, is unconscious or is having difficulty breathing, telephone ahead and bring your pet immediately to your local veterinarian or emergency veterinary clinic. If necessary, he or she may call the APCC.

See below for a list of .

The ASPCA has a list of over 300 plants poisonous to cats with pictures of most of them. There is a corresponding list of over 500 plants that are not poisonous to cats. Please make sure you are looking at the correct list!

The Cat Fancier's Association has a list of plants poisonous to cats.

We can always use and appreciate volunteers. There is a wide range of options from kennel maintenance to fostering to fundraising. Please fill out our online volunteer form to tell us about yourself and what areas you would like to help with. Even if you do not live in the Fresno area, you may still be able to help us with fundraising, our newsletters, web site and so on.

We always need financial help, so direct financial assistance or indirect assistance through fundraising is critical to our ability to provide a lifetime home for as many cats as necessary.

Please consult your estate-planning attorney to include a bequest to The Cat House on the Kings in your will.

Please visit 2nd Chance 4 Pets for advice on making arrangements for your pets to be cared for after you are no longer able to do so. Their advice addresses both arranging for a caretaker to assume responsibility for your pets and the necessary financial planning to ensure your pets are well cared for.

Lynea Lattanzia began taking in cats in 1992 (18 years ago).

The sanctuary is home to an average of 700 adult cats. The number of kittens fluctuates according to the season.

We rescue cats from local animal shelters where they would otherwise be euthanized. Individuals and other rescue groups also surrender unadoptable or otherwise unwanted cats to us so that they may have a life even if they don't have their own home.

Our dogs were also abandoned. The only dogs we can keep here are puppies who learn to respect the cats and show no aggression.

We have a 12 acre cat-proof fenced property.

The property is enclosed by cat fencing: 6' chain link and 4' overhang with chicken wire netting. Chicken wire is also buried on both sides of the fence to prevent cats or dogs from digging out and predators from digging in.

A number of cat fence alternatives for residential use are listed on the Humane Society of the United States web site. The Cats of Australia web site shows other enclosure alternatives.

Anywhere they want! There are at least 10 feeding and bedding facilities on the property. However, all are welcome in the 4,200 square-foot house.

No carpets! Floors are mopped daily with antibacterial detergent and bleach. Remember, if it smells like urine and feces, it is urine and feces. Enzymes are also used daily.

If we could afford it, we would use Scoop Away. Currently we use Scamp Scoop, which we purchase by the pallet.

We have about 50 inside litter pans and several outside litter boxes. We also we rake the yard (approx. 1½ acres) daily.

Like all other cats, ferals arrive either in carriers or traps. Lynea uses a small fishing net to capture the cat when the door of the carrier or trap is opened and they try to take off! This is enough to hold them still long enough to give the treatments. She then releases them back into the carrier or trap from the net to transfer them to the Pasture Project, our version of Ellis Island for newcomers.

Photos taken with a digital camera typically start out with several thousand pixels ('dots') in both width and height, so the whole picture consists of several million pixels. The corresponding data file for the picture can be several megabytes, even though the data has been compressed. The file size limit for a surrender photo is 100K bytes. To reduce the size of the file to meet this limit, you must reduce the number of pixels.

There are two steps to resizing a picture for the surrender form, both of which can be accomplished easily using a free online service called picresize.com if you don't have any photo editing tools on your computer:

  1. The first step is to crop the picture to remove unneeded parts. This means trimming the picture from each of the four sides to leave only the parts you want. For example, a picture of a cat sitting on a couch in the living room should be cropped to show just the cat, not the rest of the couch, the pictures on the wall behind the couch, or the rest of the living room.
  2. If the picture is still too large after cropping out the unneeded parts, a software tool can be used to scale the photo and reduce the number of pixels used to represent the image.

You want to end up with a picture which is about 400-600 pixels wide. The height of the picture will depend on the original width-to-height proportions of the picture after it has been cropped.