No Paws Left Behind:

Behind every kitten curled up in a PetSmart adoption center, every feral cat returned safely to its neighborhood after being spayed or neutered, and every foster family bottle-feeding an orphaned litter, there is an enormous amount of unseen work.

For No Paws Left Behind Kitty Rescue, a small team carries out that work with a deep devotion to the cats in our community.

President Robin Ryder and Vice President Julie Cook spend their days fielding calls, coordinating foster families, arranging veterinary care, trapping community cats, managing adoptions, fundraising, completing paperwork, and sometimes stretching limited resources far enough to save one more litter. At certain times of the year, they receive 15 to 20 calls, texts, and emails every day from people looking for help.

No Paws Left Behind is not a shelter, and it does not receive the government funding many people assume comes with the word “rescue.” It is a foster-based nonprofit that depends primarily on donations, adoption fees, fundraising, volunteers, and community assistance.

We sat down with Robin and Julie to talk about the realities of cat rescue, the growing community cat crisis, and what ordinary people can do to help solve it.

For someone hearing about No Paws Left Behind for the first time, what exactly does your organization do?

Robin: We rescue cats, but there is a lot that goes into that. One of the biggest things we do is help the community get cats spayed and neutered through TNR: Trap, Neuter, Return.

We also try to keep cats and kittens from entering already overwhelmed shelter systems. That may mean taking in kittens or mothers with babies from the community, placing them into foster homes, getting them healthy, vaccinated, spayed or neutered, socialized, and eventually adopted.

How many requests for help are you receiving?

Julie: Right now, we are getting anywhere from 15 to 20 calls, texts, or emails a day.

It can be everything imaginable. Someone has a feral cat who gave birth in their yard. Someone finds a friendly cat and then realizes she’s pregnant. Someone suddenly has kittens and cannot keep them. Every scenario you can imagine comes through, and each one adds to the pressure on the rescue. People find us through social media, Google, recommendations, and word of mouth.

Your organization is doing a tremendous amount of work. How large is the team behind it?

Robin: We are definitely small. I am president, Julie is vice president, and our treasurer, JR, plays an important role. Then we have foster families and volunteers who help with different aspects of the rescue.

Julie: I work closely with our fosters as foster coordinator, while Robin handles the administrative side, paperwork, finances, working with our treasurer, and verifying everything required to keep the nonprofit functioning. There are nights she’s lying awake thinking, “I have to get that paperwork finished.”

People see kittens and adoption events, but they don’t necessarily see everything that makes those things possible.

Where can people meet the cats and kittens available for adoption?

Robin: We partner with PetSmart Charities and currently do adoptions at PetSmart locations in Antioch and Pittsburg. We can also hold events in Tracy.

We also work with Pet Food Express. We’re currently there about once a month, and they also support us with donations.

Julie: We’re at least at one of those locations every weekend. Sometimes we’re doing events at two different locations. People can follow us on social media to find out where we’ll be, and our adoptable cats are also on Petfinder.

How did the two of you end up creating a rescue together?

Julie: Robin and I met completely by chance about 10 or 12 years ago.

I was adopting a kitten and decided I would try fostering. Robin and another woman showed up at my house with two kittens for me to foster.

Then I ran into her again at a yard sale. We started talking, I began working with the rescue she was involved with, and we became friends.

About five years ago, we realized certain things about rescue mattered deeply to both of us. We shared similar morals and ideas about what we believed a rescue should look like.

Then Robin had this great idea: “Let’s start our own rescue.” And here we are.

Robin, where did your passion for animals begin?

Robin: When I was a little girl, my parents told me I couldn’t have all the animals I wanted while I lived at home, but when I grew up, I could. I remember telling my dad, “I’m going to have my own animal sanctuary someday.” As a child, that’s what I called it. Looking back, what I was imagining was really a rescue. That’s where all of this started.

How does a small rescue like yours pay for everything?

Robin: We rely on donations, fundraisers, adoption fees, and grants.

We’ve only received one grant so far. Being a smaller foster-based rescue rather than a brick-and-mortar organization can make getting grants difficult.

Our adoption fees pay for medical expenses. Then that money gets rolled right back into the next kitten, the next litter, another bag of food, another carrier, another veterinary bill, and the next rescue need. There really isn’t extra money sitting there.

Julie: And donations are down. Everything is down right now, which makes every decision harder. One of our biggest fundraisers has traditionally been our yard sales.

We collect items donated by the community and hold a huge yard sale at my house. It takes almost every ounce of energy Robin and I have because we do most of the preparation ourselves, while volunteers help on the actual sale days. The community has been incredibly supportive.

And when the sale is over, we pack up the remaining donations and have the Disabled American Veterans organization pick them up. Something donated to one nonprofit gets passed along to another organization that can benefit from it too.

One of those yard sales received an unexpected boost from social media. What happened?

Julie: I had gone to pick up some kittens that were found near the post office in Oakley. While I was there, the veterinarian asked if she could make a quick video about the kittens before I left.

We started talking, and I mentioned that we had a fundraiser coming up that weekend. She asked me to send her the flyer because they had a parrot with a TikTok profile page and tens of thousands of followers, and she wanted to share it. 

That Saturday was unbelievable. People were parked all the way down the street, double-parked, and waiting for spaces. It was standing room only. We believe a lot of those people came because of that TikTok exposure. Things like that make such a difference for a small organization like ours because they help keep the rescue moving.

What is one of the biggest misconceptions people have about animal rescues?

Julie: That we’re a shelter. People hear the word “rescue” and assume we have government funding or that everything is provided to us for free, but that isn’t the case. It isn’t. We’re volunteers. We’ve had people get upset because it took us several days to return a call and say, “Isn’t this your job?” No. This isn’t our job. We’re volunteering our time.

Robin: Shelters can receive government funding. We don’t. Even veterinary services aren’t free because we’re a rescue.

If we’re getting a female cat spayed, that might cost us $100 to $150, depending on the resources available to us. That may be much less than what someone would pay at a traditional veterinary hospital, but the rescue still has to pay it. Multiply that by dozens or hundreds of cats, and it becomes a tremendous expense.

What would you most like people in the community to understand?

Julie: First, please spay and neuter your cats. And stop giving away unfixed kittens. That’s a huge part of why this cycle continues.

We also need people to understand that if they find cats or kittens, we’re happy to help when we can, but sometimes helping means working together rather than having the rescue take the problem away. 

We hear, “These aren’t my cats.” But they’re nobody’s cats. They’re community cats. They didn’t ask to be born outside. The hardest thing Robin and I have to do is say no, especially when we know an animal needs help. But sometimes we don’t have the funding or foster space, and that limit shapes every decision.

What does fostering through No Paws Left Behind look like?

Julie: One thing we’re very proud of is that we provide our fosters with what they need. We provide food, litter, pop-up enclosures, toys, and other necessary supplies. The foster provides the home, love, care, and socialization.

That’s why funding directly affects how many kittens we can save. If we don’t have money to purchase supplies or cover veterinary expenses, we can’t continue bringing in more animals, even if someone has offered to foster, and the rescue stalls. During kitten season, especially when we’re into the third or fourth round of litters, it becomes extremely difficult.

Explain TNR and why it is so important.

Robin: TNR stands for Trap, Neuter, Return. Community cats are humanely trapped, spayed or neutered, and then returned to the area they came from. While they’re under anesthesia, one ear is tipped, so there is a visible sign that the cat has already been altered. That prevents people from repeatedly trapping the same animals and lets the community know that cat can no longer reproduce.

Julie: TNR is one of the biggest tools we must solve the problem and stop the cycle. For example, if we get eight appointments, we may spend an entire day trapping eight cats, transport them the next morning, and afterward those cats need recovery and monitoring. That’s a significant amount of work.

Feral cats are not always easy to handle. We’ve had volunteers scratched or bitten. We have to take precautions to keep the animals and the people helping them safe. That’s why community support matters so much. Every donation, foster home, and volunteer effort helps us keep going and gives more cats a chance.

When you take kittens into the rescue, do you also help their mother?

Robin: That’s extremely important to us. We don’t want to take the cute kittens and leave the mother outside to become pregnant again. Anytime we’re helping kittens from the community, we want the mama fixed too. Otherwise, we’re not solving anything. If you take one litter and leave mom unfixed, another litter is coming. To us, rescue means addressing the cycle. On another note, sometimes we rescue babies with no momma, and as a result, I am the primary bottle baby foster as well. This year I had 17 bottle babies at the same time. All but one survived. We designed our rescue based on quality care not by volume. By remaining small we want to give every kitty the care they need and deserve. We don’t take euthanasia lightly.

You also encourage people to adopt kittens in pairs. Why?

Robin: Kittens need other cats. When they’re very young, we don’t always know immediately which kittens are bonded. They may move between littermates when they’re little and then begin showing stronger bonds as they grow.

We had two kittens, Noah and Novak, who came from a litter of four. As they got older, it became obvious those two were inseparable. If we had adopted them separately too early, we might never have realized how bonded they were. That’s why we keep litters together in foster homes whenever possible and ask our fosters to watch those relationships.

Julie: And kittens benefit tremendously from having another kitten to play, learn, and socialize with. People sometimes think two kittens will be twice the work, but in many ways having that companion can actually make life easier. They entertain each other, especially at night when kittens suddenly decide it’s time to play.

What is happening right now with community cats in our area?

Robin: County and community shelter services have been considerably cut back, and we are dealing with what I would describe as an animal pandemic. This isn’t something that’s simply going to disappear. There is help available, but everybody must participate.

Rescues can’t carry the entire burden. If businesses or individuals reading this article want to help, what would make the biggest difference?

Robin: Donations are enormous because funding determines how many animals we can help. Corporations and businesses can donate to nonprofit organizations or offer employee donation-matching programs. Even a few businesses choosing to support smaller rescues like ours could save so many lives.

Julie: Foster homes are also incredibly valuable, along with volunteers and people willing to participate in TNR. And education matters. Tell people to spay and neuter their pets. Don’t give away unfixed kittens. Learn what an ear tip means. If cats show up in your yard, contact someone and ask what you can do to become part of the solution. No single rescue organization can fix this alone. It takes a community.

No Paws Left Behind Kitty Rescue may intentionally remain small, but its impact is anything but. Behind every adoption are countless unseen hours—trapping, transporting, fostering, feeding, cleaning, scheduling veterinary appointments, answering messages, completing paperwork, raising money, and, inevitably, worrying about the cats they don’t have the resources to take. And still, Robin, Julie, JR, their foster families, and their volunteers continue. Because for them, rescue isn’t simply about finding homes for adorable kittens.

It’s about changing what happens to the next generation of cats before they’re ever born. It’s about education. It’s about responsibility. And, perhaps most importantly, it’s about reminding a community that these animals are not someone else’s problem.

They are community cats. And solving the crisis will require a community willing to stand behind them.

www.nopawsleftbehindkittyrescue.com