Help Mink Live Pain-Free (and help more cats, too)

Hi, my name is Laura. This is my cat, Mink. Mink makes me very happy, but Mink’s teeth make her very sad.

I adopted Mink last fall directly from an acquaintance who is sheltering more cats than she can care for, and is reluctant to surrender them to a shelter. It took some convincing to get her to give one of them up to me. I wanted to choose the best cat for me, and at the same time, improve the situation of the remaining cats by reducing their crowding.

I definitely found the sweetest, cuddliest cat I could ask for. She was rather shy in the crowded room she lived in before, and her siblings seemed to push her around; but she has been thriving as a solo cat, and she’s been a huge help to my mental health since day one.

Unfortunately, Mink’s elderly former owner is not able to provide much vet care to the semi-feral colony she shelters, beyond having the males neutered. She could not remember when Mink was born or even whether she was spayed. I have taken Mink to the vet several times now for tests and vaccinations and have established that she must have been spayed, and is a fairly healthy adult or perhaps senior cat; however her teeth are badly decayed from a lifetime of too much wet food and very little dry food. Mink is suffering from inflammation around her upper teeth that leads her to leave her mouth hanging open, drool, sneeze excessively, and wheeze when running and playing.

It’s hard to say right now how many teeth need to come out or how complex those extractions might be, as Mink isn’t a big fan of having her mouth pried open, but the vet estimates that her dental work will cost around $2,000.

If I have any additional funds from this drive, they will go towards the welfare of the other 8 cats in Mink’s old colony: a friend has been gradually taking over responsibility for their care, and plans to surrender most of them one by one to the local Humane Society, who charge a $50 fee per surrender.