Project Feline Freedom

Putting and end to unnecessary euthanasia and giving even more cats the lives they deserve.

At Tenth Life, our mission is to give all cats the lives they deserve. We believe that every cat, regardless of emotional or physical limitations, deserves the chance at a fulfilling and happy life. We provide veterinary care, foster homes, and adoptive placement to stray cats and kittens, prioritizing those with special needs.

We also work to end unnecessary euthanasia and cat homelessness through educational outreach, community programs, behavior help, and collaborative partnerships.

Project Feline Freedom was created in 2018 to help us work more intentionally toward a world in which euthanasia is only necessary in order to relieve incurable suffering. Through this program, we have increased our intake by nearly 50% and nearly 900 felines have been saved, many of which we wouldn't have had the resources to help for before we began this journey.

Cats like Mama Love and her newborn babies.  

Mama Love came to us from an animal control facility near Valentine's Day 2022. Soon after her arrival there, she gave birth to three healthy kittens - Cupid, Bubbly, and Valentine. A day later, she was living with one of our foster parents and on the road to the life she deserves. Neonatal kittens with moms still require plenty of tending to by loving caregivers to ensure that they're happy and healthy and will require veterinary care in order to become adoptable. They may have gotten sick or worse and we're so thankful that they're safe and will live the lives they deserve. 

Their story is not unique. In fact, millions of cats and kittens enter shelters and animal control facilities every year and the sad reality is that, according to The National Kitten Coalition, around 1.4 MILLION of them will be euthanized.

Unfortunately, many animal control facilities and open-admission shelters simply do not have the resources to care for neonatal kittens, with or without moms and many are forced to make difficult decisions to manage the influx of kittens and cats each spring. 

Putting an end to unnecessary euthanasia has always been a key tenet of our mission and in 2018, we began creating Project Feline Freedom so that we could build better strategies to help decrease the number of shelter deaths and make a difference in the lives of the neediest of cats. 

We're not just helping kittens and moms through Project Feline Freedom.  We're prioritizing those with special needs, injuries, and illnesses as well as those most vulnerable to the elements, disease, or euthanasia. 

Ironically, our ability to break down barriers and forge collaborative relationships with organizations seeking creative solutions to this problem began when we built four walls in our humble adoption lounge. With that initial investment, our isolation room, which currently houses more than a dozen cats, was born.

While we’ve always relied upon foster caretakers, this new addition allowed us to act more quickly and strategically to pull cats from open-admission shelters and high-risk situations before we have a foster home available. We’ve also been able to hire more help and grow our foster program so that we can place the neediest cats into foster homes more frequently. In addition, we field behavior calls from the public and provide our community resources to help keep cats out of shelters. 

In 2021, we were elated to be chosen as the proud recipients of a substantial grant from Best Friends Animal Society that allowed us to focus more intentionally on the vision of Project Feline Freedom which is simply to put an end to unnecessary euthanasia by freeing up space and resources in local shelters and animal control facilities. 

Thanks to that grant and your continued support, we are pleased to report that we have been able to increase our overall intake by nearly 50% since 2019! 

While they are invaluable to our success, grants like the one we received in 2021 are not available annually and it is very much thanks to your support that we are able to continue the work,  taking in more cats like Mama Love, her babies, and the nearly 900 cats who've been rescued by Tenth Life since this project was born in 2018. 

Thank you for believing along with us that every cat deserves the chance at a happy, healthy life. The Loves are so grateful that you do. Of course, there's still so much work to be done and we're still hard at work but we cannot do it alone.

YOU are what FREEDOM looks like to so many scared, vulnerable, and needy cats. Your support at any level means we can provide more cats with veterinary care, behavior help, and foster homes while they await their forever homes. 

It's kitten season and during the entire month of May, we are raising lifesaving funds via Project Feline Freedom so that we can save more lives this year. 

Will you give the gift of FREEDOM to cats and kittens like the Mama Love and her kittens, Cupid, Bubbly, and Valentine this May? 

Join us on #GiveSTLDAY , MAY 5th or donate now to help us meet our goal.