Over the last few years Friends of Roman Cats has discovered and is now helping a number of cat rescue groups around Italy. These groups are made up of private individuals dedicated to helping street and abandoned cats. Some of them work with their local municipalities and Public Health veterinarians of those municipalities. The groups all believe in spay-neuter. They know it the only way to get control of the homeless cat populations in their midst. Some of these groups have sanctuaries where they take in cats that for one reason or another cannot care for themselves on the streets. If they have the space they also take in the cats of elderly people who can no longer care for them. All these groups have limited resources and need all the help they can get. If the story of a particular group moves you please consider sending them a donation through us. Simply write the name of the group or shelter on the subject line of your check. We will get the money to them either directly or in the form of a humane trap or other goods. We sometimes send bulk items such a flea medication or sutures when we can find good prices.

You may have read about the well known groups Torre Argentina shelter in Rome: www.romancats.com and Lega Pro Animale run by the veterinarian, Dorothea Friz near Naples: www.legaproanimale.org. Both groups do amazing work in spaying and neutering cats.

Rome

Just in the last two years, Torre Argentina facilitated the spay- neuter of over 3,000 cats each year and just for good measure, over 500 dogs. In 2008 before the recession hit so badly, they themselves spayed-neutered or paid to have the surgery performed on over 4,000 cats! Torre Argentina is the Sanctuary that first inspired Friends of Roman Cats. (PICTURES)

There is another terrific cat shelter in Rome located in the ruins surrounding the pyramid of Gaius Cestius. It is run by the great friend of animals Matilda Talli. She is also in charge of Rome’s Municipal ‘Gattile’ or cat shelter in the Porta Portese section of the city. (pictures).
If you go to the Protestant Cemetery behind the Pyramid, you will see some of the cats Matilda cares for wandering among the gravestones. Those cats are known there as the Guardians of the Dead.

Rome also has an organization called Animal Welfare that helps spay-neuter and feed the 600 or more cats in the huge Verano Cemetery. A former volunteer at Torre Argentina, Luana Stefani, runs this nonprofit. The website is: www.animalwelfare-roma.org. Luana has recently found a space in an unused area near the cemetery to house healthy Felv cats who should not be around cats in a normal shelter.

Naples

(Picture) In Naples at Lega Pro Animale, Veterinarian Dorothea Friz has been trying to educate the South of Italy about the importance of spay-neuter for many years; that it is the only way to metaphorically “turn off the spigot” of unwanted dogs and cats. Dorothea has a veterinary clinic and animal sanctuary near Castel Volturno. She holds monthly spay days and also goes out to areas throughout Italy that request her help to perform mass spay-neuter weeks. She has gone twice to the Abruzzo where there was a dreadful earthquake in 2008. We post her regular spay day updates on our website. Wonderful FORC supporters like you have donated funds to pay for humane traps that have been used all all over Italy: in the Abruzzo, around Naples and Rome, in Fano, in the Adriatic and as far away as some islands off Sicily. Dr Friz sometimes leaves a trap or two with any cat rescue group where she is invited to help.

Venice and surrounding area

(Several pictures) DINGO is the group helping the street cats in Venice and its surrounding area. They are one of the oldest groups dedicated to spay-neuter and care for street cats on the islands that make up Venice as well as the mainland that is adjacent to Venice. An amazing longtime volunteer, Maria Grazia Macaluso, runs their shelter on the Lido Island (Picture). Friends of Roman Cats would like people who go to Venice to consider giving Maria Grazia some much needed help by volunteering at the shelter. In exchange, FORC can recommend inexpensive housing on the Lido. (Picture of Apt on Lido.)

To the east of Venice we have found a terrific group helping cats in Trieste. It is simply called ‘Il Gattile’ and is run by an amazing man, Giorgio Cociani. He has built both a city shelter for cats likely to be adopted and those needing medical attention, and an outdoor space for the more feral cats. When she visited the shelters, Dorothea Friz of Lega Pro Animale, said she had never seen so many happy cats.

Arezzo

Malcolm Holliday, an Anglo-Italian veterinarian in the city of Arezzo, runs a very impressive 21st century cat sanctuary on a hillside just outside the city. Our FORC ‘Cats and Culture’ tours have visited his ‘Cini’ shelter. It was one of the tour highlights. Malcolm worked for years to build his shelter and it is everything a 21st century shelter should be.

Florence

Amici del Mondo Animale is a cat welfare group with a shelter/sanctuary outside of Florence. (pictures) They keep up to 200 cats, many hoping to be adopted. During the first Cats and Culture tour, two sisters on the tour fell under the spell of a little cat named Mugolina (link to story). Mugolina then became a world traveler, moving to San Francisco. Amici del Mondo Animale is responsible for helping a number of feral colonies and their caretakers in the vicinity of Florence. (pictures) An very dedicated woman, Bianca Russo is their president.

Brescia

Brescia has a great group called Telefono Difesa Animali that helps spay and neuter and re-home the stray and abandoned cats in that northern Italian city. Their website is www.TELEFONODIFESAANIMALI.IT. Their current shelter is in an abandoned railway station in Poncarale, a suburb of Brescia. It is an active shelter run by a very dedicated group and they work with the public health veterinarians of the area as well as with private veterinarians. Unfortunately they are being forced to leave their current shelter but have found land farther outside the city where a new shelter will rise within the next few years. Susan has worked with several of their members who even came all the way to Venice to help trap feral cats for spay-neuter.
Siena

In the beautiful hill town of Siena we have found a cat organization called A Mici Miei that works closely with the local public health veterinarians to spay and neuter their street cats. The city is so impressed with what they do they have given them a small house to keep cats before and after surgery for recovery. There is even a place to keep a dog or two. This group is run by Gigi Favara, a man who used to be a hunter but who is now caring for the city’s homeless cats and works to stop illegal hunting.

Milan

There is a small, very well run shelter for street cats in downtown Milan. It is lodged in the basement of a condominium and supports up to 35 cats at any one time. FORC has sent them traps so they can catch more street cats for spay-neuter.

Our Cats and Culture Tour page has information about some of these groups as well.

Grazie!