Main Street News

Since she was a child, Beverly Ditto always knew that she wanted to start an animal rescue. It was one of several interests she had and one of the goals she intended to accomplish, so nearly 20 years ago, she made it so. Beverly founded Collaborative Cats, a foster-based feline organization located in Ancramdale, NY, in 2016. 

“I worked with other organizations such as Animal Kind first and when they had their fire years ago, they didn’t have enough space to continue taking in cats,” Beverly explained. “People knew I was doing this, so it was around that point where I began to think that maybe I could just do it myself. It slowly emerged over time.” 

Collaborative Cats serves southern Columbia and northern Dutchess counties in New York, and is made up of a network of private foster homes as well as the “cat cottage” at Beverly’s house. Collaborative Cats is technically not a shelter, so they cannot accept intake from people surrendering their pets. Instead, they rescue stray, abandoned, injured, and homeless felines, as well as rehome adoptable cats and kittens from local trap, neuter, and return (TNR) colony sites. 

A day in the life at Collaborative Cats

At Collaborative Cats, Beverly spends each day caring for the cats and kittens in what she calls the “cat cottage,” a two-bedroom cottage next door to her house. She feeds the cats and cleans litter boxes before making her way back to her own home, but the work doesn’t stop there. Back at home, she spends hours answering emails, updating the Facebook page with the adoptable cats and kittens, making calls, and reviewing adoption applications. 

Beverly has a handful of volunteers that work with her on a regular basis, and a handful of others who volunteer occasionally. She has one regular volunteer who comes to the cat cottage every day to help with the daily requirements of taking care of the cats, as well as another who helps with the paperwork. Beverly is always in need of more volunteers and more foster homes: “The more volunteers we have, the more animals we can rescue. Right now, we’re limited by the number of fosters and volunteers.” 

She also notes that they are flexible with fosters, and will work with them to find the right fit for them. “The kinds of foster homes that are needed vary from people who are willing to take in a mom and kittens to someone who is willing to foster adult cats and older kittens.” 

Sometimes, certain cats take longer to be adopted. Beverly has had some particularly shy or “difficult” cats and kittens take over a year to be adopted, and she has even kept some of the feral cats who are deemed “unadoptable.” 

“I never euthanize. If I have space, they end up just becoming part of the permanent crowd,” she said. “Early on I did more of that, but now I’m running out of room.” 

An extension to the kitten season 

Beverly noted that their year has been particularly difficult in terms of the number of kittens she’s taken in. She’s already rescued 130 cats this year – up over 30 cats from the previous year – and the year isn’t over yet. Currently, she has about 30 kittens and cats available for adoption in the foster network. 

Kitten season is the time of the year when cats are most likely to mate and give birth, and typically lasts from April through October. During this time, the weather is warmer and provides easier access to food for feral cats. However, the mild winters that the Northeast has encountered in the past few years has led to an increase in kittens being born earlier in the year. 

“With the milder winters, I’ve encountered more cases of cats giving birth in the middle of the winter,” Beverly said. “This year, we rescued a feral cat who gave birth in our cat cottage on January 1st, which kicked off the season very quickly. It’s very unusual.”

Another ongoing issue that is a pivotal part of what Beverly does at Collaborative Cats is spaying and neutering the cats and kittens they take in. Some of the reasons that people aren’t able to spay and neuter their cats are that there’s low access to the procedure and it often comes with a high price tag. 

“This has been an ongoing, serious problem. People need to be educated about how cats can and will become pregnant at a very early age. By the time it’s four or five months old, it can give birth. Kittens are having kittens.”

Registering as a nonprofit and continuing humanitarian efforts 

While Collaborative Cats is not yet registered as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, it will be soon. Beverly is working on completing the final steps of registering and is hoping to have everything done by the end of the year. 

Currently, Collaborative Cats is mainly funded through private donors. Once registered as a nonprofit, however, the organization will be eligible to apply for an array of grants to receive additional funding. 

Beverly doesn’t have grand plans to expand Collaborative Cats into a giant organization, but rather hopes to continue operating at the scale that they’re at, only with more volunteers and foster homes. 

“I don’t expect to be a giant organization – that’s not my goal. I think that being a foster-based organization is the way to go. It does mean that we have a limit on the number of animals that we can take in at one time, but it’s better for the animals to be in a foster home than in a giant shelter. It’s a healthier situation all around.”

Beverly explains her work not only as an animal-welfare activity, but as a humanitarian effort, too. “I certainly love helping cats, but it’s about the people too. One of the most exciting things is matching cats with the right owners,” she said. 

She shared a story of two elderly cats that she took in after their owner went into a nursing home. Beverly was sure she was going to have both cats for the rest of their lives, but out of the blue, a woman contacted her in search of an elderly cat. When she came to meet the cat for the first time, she discovered that she knew the family who had owned the cat previously. 

“She was thrilled that she had adopted a cat from a family who needed help. What are the odds of that? I have so many more stories that will give you goosebumps. It’s all about that connection with cats and the people who love them that keeps me going.” 

If you’d like to adopt a cat or volunteer with Collaborative Cats, visit their website or their Facebook page, and if you’d like to donate to Collaborative Cats, visit this link.