I can't say thank you enough to this mighty rescue. A neighbor abandoned 10 cats when they were evicted and I was able to catch them all. Young kittens to adults. I reached out to Feline Victory Rescue and they agreed to take all of them! It took a couple of trips but the cats were safe. They were all vetted with spay/neuters, shots, worming, flea treatment and medicine for the various icky eyes and sneezing. They also took two cats my son was fostering when he was unable to find them homes. They found every one of them loving homes. I get updates and pictures regularly. They support the entire Eastern Seaboard helping unwanted, abandoned, sick, injured cats. They provide medical treatment, safe housing and loving homes. For those cats a little on the wild side they find long term fosters and for those ailing or with terminal illnesses they have hospice fosters that provide the cats with love and good care in their final months. This rescue is worth supporting and their efforts make a difference to the cats that come across their path.
This rescue has an incredibly admirable purpose, and they rescue cats in dire straits, on kill lists at shelters or living on the street. Unfortunately, I found them to be very disorganized, the polar opposite of transparent, and irresponsible--even negligent--when it comes to finding homes for the cats they rescue.
In 2018, I stumbled upon an adoption event at a Renaissance fair in CT (a red flag, I realized later). I spent some time with a friendly cat there, and decided to fill out a multi-page, thorough adoption application for him, thinking that I could learn more about him in follow-up visits, such as the home visit mentioned in the application and the confirmation email I received the next day.
That was hilariously wrong. There were no home visits, no one-on-one follow up visits, no phone calls for more information, despite my living situation. I was renting a townhouse with three cats at the time, which I mentioned in the initial application, but when I attempted to ask if this cat is cat friendly, the response was essentially, "he was sharing a cage with other cats when you met him, so yes." (Spoiler alert: he got along with 1/3 cats and terrorized the other two off and on, including my other cat. It took 2 years for him and my cat to get along.)
Instead, I received a notice that the cat and his foster would be arriving at my house a few nights later, coming by car from 2 hours away, to drop him off. That night, I was handed his vet records, some wet cat food, and his medication for an abscess I was never told about. And, of course, a sick cat.
A sick cat with terrible periodontal disease, which I was also never told about. In the next 2 years, I spent over $4k on tooth extractions alone, on a graduate student stipend. I made things work financially, but there was no way for this rescue to know I would do that. They barely performed any follow up on my application. They could have adopted him out to someone who would have put this cat back in a shelter, or worse.
I love my cat, and I'm glad he was rescued and I found him. But this organization acted irresponsibly, even negligently, not only toward me, onto whom they foisted a sick cat, but also to this cat, who could have been dropped into equally irresponsible, negligent hands.
I have waffled on whether to share my experience over the years, since this rescue seems effective as a rescue for cats that are difficult to adopt--my cat was rescued from a kill shelter, where he was on the kill list. But, I recently adopted a kitten from a respectable, thorough, transparent shelter that puts time, effort, and money not only into rescuing cats, but also into ensuring their cats find the best possible homes, with support for illnesses that crop up in the first months of the adoption. A rescue is not a true rescue if they don't ensure their cats stay rescued and healthy in their new homes. This rescue is decentralized, which explains some of their disorganization. But that is no excuse for negligence when lives are on the line.