KD Sunday Spotlight: Cats get another chance at life at Frankie's Friends
NEW KENSINGTON (KDKA) - In this week's Sunday Spotlight, we're highlighting an organization that saves cats who are running out of lives.
Frankie's Friends is a unique cat rescue in New Kensington that helps abused, neglected, sick, injured, disabled, and homeless kitties. The organization provides affordable and free veterinary care to decrease the community cat population, and, in many cases, they nurse them back to health and find their fur-ever homes.
No matter how sick or injured they are, felines get a second chance at life at Frankie's Friends Cat Rescue.
Dr. Becky Morrow is the founder, president, and medical director of the nonprofit organization.
She started it after a 2008 animal cruelty and hoarding case where hundreds of sick kitties were rescued from the Tiger Ranch cat sanctuary in Frazer Township.
"After the case was adjudicated, we were able to get the cats placed into loving homes, there were still 150 left... and the Pennsylvania ASPCA was not able to house them anymore, so I bought a house for them and found out I now have to pay for all these cats!" said Morrow.
Dr. Morrow named her rescue after one of the cats she cared for, Frankie.
"Frankie! There were so many special cats and we loved them all. He was one that I ended up having to do multiple surgeries on and had to have a tracheostomy and I managed that despite all our efforts he didn't make it and broke our hearts, but this is our way of honoring him and those that didn't make it," Morrow said.
Today, the organization provides low-cost veterinary care.
"Our mission is to stop suffering in cats and other animals that we can help. We're focusing on cats because they're really the neglected species, we provide affordable care and even free care to community cats. So those are the cats that don't have homes. And we're here to help other animals as well," Morrow said.
Her team is made up of about 10 people. They preach about targeted trap-neuter-return of community kitties and even provide high quality, high volume spay/neuter training for people in the veterinary field.
Dr. Morrow said they do about 8,000 spay/neuter surgeries a year. Other rescue organizations trap cats and bring them to their clinic on fifth avenue and mobile clinics. They just added a third mobile unit to their fleet!
"That ultimately helps us decrease the number of communities cats and also helps decrease the number of cats coming into shelters that are unable to have homes because there just aren't enough for them," she said.
Every year, the rescue rehabilitates and rehomes around 500 cats, young and old.
"We definitely are unusual in that we try to help the other rescues and shelters with the cases they wouldn't have the resources to help so we are what we call a medical rescue," Morrow said. "We take in the cats that they need a chance; we can give them that chance, more often than not, even with the odds stacked against them, we can get them better," she added.
Some of them used up a few of their nine lives.
"I've had to reconstruct faces, I've had fracture repairs, we've had gunshot wounds," Morrow said.
An old, pretty kitty is one of their recent rescues.
"She had two legs broken and she's a little old kitty. She was being fed by the neighborhood, thankfully they brought her in right away and we got her all fixed up here," Morrow said.
Dr. Morrow can also provide her expertise as a forensic veterinarian; the nonprofit helps law enforcement with animal cruelty cases.
"It's really hard to look at these animals and know what they've gone through but I feel like at least we are in a position to help both medically and hopefully if people come forward with information and so forth we can gather the evidence and get those people prosecuted so they can't do it again to another animal," she said.
If you're a cat person like I am, you can't resist their cute meows.
One of Frankie's Friends may be the pur-fect companion for your family. About 50 cats are available for adoption.
It is all paw-ssible because of support from donors and a hard-working group of cat lovers.
"We have the best people that came together and it's in their heart, and this is what they really help the mission, keep us going forward and helping all these animals, without the team i couldn't be doing what I do," Morrow said.
You can check out Frankie's Friends' adoptable cats at the Black Cat Market in Garfield and on PetFinder.
Reach out to Frankie's Friends if you're interested in fostering.
Donations can be made on their website.
You can also sign up for their upcoming spay/neuter training workshop on July 15th and 16th if you're in the veterinary field.
If you want to see an organization highlighted, tell KDKA-TV about it! Just send Jessica Guay an e-mail at jguay@kdka.com or spotlight@kdka.com.