Lifelines For Felines & PUNKS FOR PUSSIES rescue
Donation protected
Lifelines For Felines, Inc. - also known as Punks For Pussies - is a rescue mission formed in October 2017 which has grown significantly in 2021 alone thanks to your support and because we are now a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit rescue mission. This means that your donations are now tax-deductible! We are still a small operation but we are making a huge difference in the lives of the homeless cats and kittens and rescues who it is our sacred responsibility to protect, serve and to improve the lives of.
It is estimated that there are millions of homeless cats living on the streets and in the shadows of Los Angeles. Many wonderful rescue organizations in the city are doing what they can, but the need far outweighs the resources available to help all of the cats and kittens. I have accepted a sacred responsibility to care for colonies of cats and kittens in a rough neighborhood where many of them have been born under wrecked cars in an auto graveyard and others, even less fortunate, have tried to survive within the gates of a hellish apartment complex with a history of torture and killing of felines by sadistic human predators. It has now, as of this September 2019, been about two years since I first crossed paths with these cats and their struggles and saving them has become the focus of my life. I have witnessed suffering and death as well as miracles and beautiful things happening in the lives of the cats and kittens who have gotten off the streets and found good, loving permanent and foster homes, several with musicians who were in bands (such as The Cramps, TSOL, The Skulls, The Mau Maus and others) who played an important part in pioneering punk rock and others who are part of Los Angeles punk rock community. This is why I am now operating under the rescue name of "Punks for Pussies." Please read my story below and consider supporting my efforts to help find better lives for the felines. I have decided to work towards getting established as a registered 501c3 nonprofit, and, in the meantime, I will continue to get cats adopted whenever possible and fixed so that they will not continue to reproduce while I strive to open up a permanent sanctuary for these cats, including a special place for some FeLV cats (cats carrying the Feline Leukemia Virus). I want to do this work for the rest of my life. Please help me to do this.
My Story:
Sometime after starting work at a university in downtown L.A. in the summer of 2016, I began seeing countless homeless cats and kittens in the rough neighborhood where I parked my car and began the practice of trying to always have enough canned cat food in my possession to fed all those I came across. I had just moved from the East Coast and lost my two feline children, sassy 17-year-old Ouzo and angelic 16-year-old Bela Lugosi, to cancer and kidney failure. It was heartbreaking. On the way to work, I routinely visited two kittens, Gjeorgie and Balto, who slept in a barbecue together. I found Balto dead one afternoon, poisoned by a resident of the apartment complex. I adopted Gjeorgie immediately. Neighbors told me that cat-poisoning was common and that kittens had been tortured and maimed on the property. A police inquiry, which took me months to provoke, went nowhere.
Down the street from that courtyard, there was an old, ghastly-looking tomcat that neighbors told me had lived out on the streets for over 10 years. Everyone called him Patches and we spent hours in each other’s company. He was filthy, covered in fleas and sores, and obviously diseased. It was one of my life ambitions to get him at least cleaned up and seen by a vet even if he would not allow anyone to get him off the street permanently. He wandered off and died before I could ever get him the help he needed. To me, he represented what could become of any cat who was left out on the streets for too long.
A homeless woman, Linda, who was living in her car with her two dogs - Tippy and Bully - and her cat, Max, became a close friend and she showed me a property behind a fence in Downtown Los Angeles where there were wrecked cars and homeless cats living in them and having kittens in and under them. The Auto Graveyard became a place I went to every day and its tiny inhabitants became the primary focus of my life. I had no idea what an endless job feeding them would be, how much suffering I would witness, how much of my hours and earnings I would spend on the care of these homeless cats, and how they would become my family. I have known, loved, fed, fixed, and adopted out many of them. I have buried and sobbed goodbyes to some who have fallen victim to speeding cars, cat poisoners, and neglect and untreated diseases after living on the streets and in the shadows for years. To the best of my abilities, I claim personal responsibility for them. Linda helped me rescue them until she eventually found an apartment for her and the dogs. She left Max behind. I found him a magnificent home that was infinitely nicer than the car he had spent years living in and he now had not only two loving guardians but also a feline playmate in his forever home.
It has become my mission – some say obsession - to change the fates of the cats of the auto graveyard and surrounding neighborhood. A beautiful calico, Belle, gave birth to the first of her babies who I ever saw under a trashed vintage Packard and I caught and adopted all that I could of her family and am still caring for and trying to catch the rest. There is also Lemora, the queen mother of the stray cats who has had over 20 children and who I am determined to catch and have spayed. She is very intelligent, very paranoid of humans, and knows what cat traps look like and how they work. I have witnessed the vast majority of her children get adopted into good homes, and gotten medical attention for those who I caught that were in poor health, celebrating the recovery of many and shedding tears over some who did not survive.
Several cat rescue organizations along the way have told me that their rooms are too full already. There is sometimes a long waiting list and vouchers needed for getting homeless cats fixed. By the time they can make free appointments for them, the cats may already have reproduced again. As I care deeply for these two families and homeless kittens who have been handed off to me, I have cumulatively spent thousands out of pocket for surgeries, boarding cats who had nowhere to go, food, toys that are useful in socializing them, traps, medications, vaccinations and other related expenses. I work in conjunction with a L.A. based agency that has lent me supplies and traps and administered medical care at very reasonable prices but it has added up and I am not able to survive financially and have had much trouble as a result. I can no longer privately fund my endeavors but I also cannot turn a blind eye to the suffering and homeless of cats and kittens.
Time is of the essence in getting them off the streets before they become too wild and of age to have countless babies themselves.
It is my vision to ultimately open a sanctuary for these families. Despite my poor financial situation, I believe that I will ultimately be able to secure a property that is contained, secured, fenced-in, and a home to these families of The Auto Graveyard who I would like to help move onto better lives. Some of the sibling belong together and it is heartbreaking to separate those cats. I have little time to update this page and to post as much as I would like to because this work keeps me incredibly busy. The amount I have set as a goal for this fundraiser is an amount that will change. If I can raise enough to begin an actual sanctuary, purchasing property to care for these families on permanent, safe grounds, I will do it and commit the rest of my life to it and to the care of these cats and kittens who deserve much better lives and living situations that are exactly what each cat requires. I believe that this is what I am destined to do for these poor animals. It is my higher calling and any loses I have experienced along the way, financial being the least important in the end, were necessary for putting me on a path towards a fate that will bring love, healing, hope, and homes to the cats who have touched my soul. I have known God’s love for me through being blessed enough to know all of them and the ones I haven’t met yet. I want to be an instrument of giving the same back to them. I am grateful for any help you can give me toward creating a better lives for them.
This mission became a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit in 2021 with the most wonderful board of co-managers. We are growing and will keep growing and will keep helping to get as many homeless cats and kittens into permanent homes as we can, feed and spay and neuter the feral cats, and will not ignore cats or kittens in need.
It is estimated that there are millions of homeless cats living on the streets and in the shadows of Los Angeles. Many wonderful rescue organizations in the city are doing what they can, but the need far outweighs the resources available to help all of the cats and kittens. I have accepted a sacred responsibility to care for colonies of cats and kittens in a rough neighborhood where many of them have been born under wrecked cars in an auto graveyard and others, even less fortunate, have tried to survive within the gates of a hellish apartment complex with a history of torture and killing of felines by sadistic human predators. It has now, as of this September 2019, been about two years since I first crossed paths with these cats and their struggles and saving them has become the focus of my life. I have witnessed suffering and death as well as miracles and beautiful things happening in the lives of the cats and kittens who have gotten off the streets and found good, loving permanent and foster homes, several with musicians who were in bands (such as The Cramps, TSOL, The Skulls, The Mau Maus and others) who played an important part in pioneering punk rock and others who are part of Los Angeles punk rock community. This is why I am now operating under the rescue name of "Punks for Pussies." Please read my story below and consider supporting my efforts to help find better lives for the felines. I have decided to work towards getting established as a registered 501c3 nonprofit, and, in the meantime, I will continue to get cats adopted whenever possible and fixed so that they will not continue to reproduce while I strive to open up a permanent sanctuary for these cats, including a special place for some FeLV cats (cats carrying the Feline Leukemia Virus). I want to do this work for the rest of my life. Please help me to do this.
My Story:
Sometime after starting work at a university in downtown L.A. in the summer of 2016, I began seeing countless homeless cats and kittens in the rough neighborhood where I parked my car and began the practice of trying to always have enough canned cat food in my possession to fed all those I came across. I had just moved from the East Coast and lost my two feline children, sassy 17-year-old Ouzo and angelic 16-year-old Bela Lugosi, to cancer and kidney failure. It was heartbreaking. On the way to work, I routinely visited two kittens, Gjeorgie and Balto, who slept in a barbecue together. I found Balto dead one afternoon, poisoned by a resident of the apartment complex. I adopted Gjeorgie immediately. Neighbors told me that cat-poisoning was common and that kittens had been tortured and maimed on the property. A police inquiry, which took me months to provoke, went nowhere.
Down the street from that courtyard, there was an old, ghastly-looking tomcat that neighbors told me had lived out on the streets for over 10 years. Everyone called him Patches and we spent hours in each other’s company. He was filthy, covered in fleas and sores, and obviously diseased. It was one of my life ambitions to get him at least cleaned up and seen by a vet even if he would not allow anyone to get him off the street permanently. He wandered off and died before I could ever get him the help he needed. To me, he represented what could become of any cat who was left out on the streets for too long.
A homeless woman, Linda, who was living in her car with her two dogs - Tippy and Bully - and her cat, Max, became a close friend and she showed me a property behind a fence in Downtown Los Angeles where there were wrecked cars and homeless cats living in them and having kittens in and under them. The Auto Graveyard became a place I went to every day and its tiny inhabitants became the primary focus of my life. I had no idea what an endless job feeding them would be, how much suffering I would witness, how much of my hours and earnings I would spend on the care of these homeless cats, and how they would become my family. I have known, loved, fed, fixed, and adopted out many of them. I have buried and sobbed goodbyes to some who have fallen victim to speeding cars, cat poisoners, and neglect and untreated diseases after living on the streets and in the shadows for years. To the best of my abilities, I claim personal responsibility for them. Linda helped me rescue them until she eventually found an apartment for her and the dogs. She left Max behind. I found him a magnificent home that was infinitely nicer than the car he had spent years living in and he now had not only two loving guardians but also a feline playmate in his forever home.
It has become my mission – some say obsession - to change the fates of the cats of the auto graveyard and surrounding neighborhood. A beautiful calico, Belle, gave birth to the first of her babies who I ever saw under a trashed vintage Packard and I caught and adopted all that I could of her family and am still caring for and trying to catch the rest. There is also Lemora, the queen mother of the stray cats who has had over 20 children and who I am determined to catch and have spayed. She is very intelligent, very paranoid of humans, and knows what cat traps look like and how they work. I have witnessed the vast majority of her children get adopted into good homes, and gotten medical attention for those who I caught that were in poor health, celebrating the recovery of many and shedding tears over some who did not survive.
Several cat rescue organizations along the way have told me that their rooms are too full already. There is sometimes a long waiting list and vouchers needed for getting homeless cats fixed. By the time they can make free appointments for them, the cats may already have reproduced again. As I care deeply for these two families and homeless kittens who have been handed off to me, I have cumulatively spent thousands out of pocket for surgeries, boarding cats who had nowhere to go, food, toys that are useful in socializing them, traps, medications, vaccinations and other related expenses. I work in conjunction with a L.A. based agency that has lent me supplies and traps and administered medical care at very reasonable prices but it has added up and I am not able to survive financially and have had much trouble as a result. I can no longer privately fund my endeavors but I also cannot turn a blind eye to the suffering and homeless of cats and kittens.
Time is of the essence in getting them off the streets before they become too wild and of age to have countless babies themselves.
It is my vision to ultimately open a sanctuary for these families. Despite my poor financial situation, I believe that I will ultimately be able to secure a property that is contained, secured, fenced-in, and a home to these families of The Auto Graveyard who I would like to help move onto better lives. Some of the sibling belong together and it is heartbreaking to separate those cats. I have little time to update this page and to post as much as I would like to because this work keeps me incredibly busy. The amount I have set as a goal for this fundraiser is an amount that will change. If I can raise enough to begin an actual sanctuary, purchasing property to care for these families on permanent, safe grounds, I will do it and commit the rest of my life to it and to the care of these cats and kittens who deserve much better lives and living situations that are exactly what each cat requires. I believe that this is what I am destined to do for these poor animals. It is my higher calling and any loses I have experienced along the way, financial being the least important in the end, were necessary for putting me on a path towards a fate that will bring love, healing, hope, and homes to the cats who have touched my soul. I have known God’s love for me through being blessed enough to know all of them and the ones I haven’t met yet. I want to be an instrument of giving the same back to them. I am grateful for any help you can give me toward creating a better lives for them.
This mission became a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit in 2021 with the most wonderful board of co-managers. We are growing and will keep growing and will keep helping to get as many homeless cats and kittens into permanent homes as we can, feed and spay and neuter the feral cats, and will not ignore cats or kittens in need.
Fundraising team (2)
John Nikolai
Organizer
Los Angeles, CA
Lynne Sherer
Team member
