Five Sundays to fix the cat — and one Friday night to dress like one

If your household includes a cat who has, let’s say, not yet had the appointment — the one you keep meaning to book and the barn keeps making more urgent — the fall calendar just did you a favor. Kitten Angels has posted five low-cost spay/neuter clinic dates for owned cats between now and December, and while they’ve got your attention, they’d also like to sell you a ticket to the best-dressed fundraiser in Troy.

Two very different errands, one organization. Take them in order.

Part one: the sensible errand

The clinic dates, all Sundays: August 30, September 27, October 25, November 15, and December 6.

This one is not a show-up-and-wait deal like next month’s Operation Snip shot clinic — you register first, through Kitten Angels’ online form, and the details for your date come back by email. Which brings us to the instruction Kitten Angels printed in capital letters, so we will too: CHECK YOUR SPAM FOLDER. The confirmation email has a habit of hiding there, and an unclaimed confirmation is how a cat misses her appointment.

Why bother? Because a spay or neuter is the single cheapest thing you can do about the county’s cat math. One unfixed female and her descendants can fill a neighborhood in a couple of seasons — that’s the “overpopulation crisis” on the flyer, and it’s not an abstraction to anyone who’s watched a barn colony happen. A fixed cat also tends to roam less, spray less, fight less, and skip a few expensive medical storylines entirely. The clinic makes the good decision the affordable one.

Part two: the fun errand

Now, the other side of the ledger. Rescue work runs on donations, and once a year Kitten Angels throws its donors a party: the Annual Black Cat Gala, this year marking the organization’s fifteenth anniversary — on Friday, October 30, from 5:30 to 10 p.m. at the Franklin Terrace Ballroom, 126 Campbell Avenue in Troy.

The theme is old Hollywood — the poster alone is worth the click — and the evening runs to dinner with a champagne toast, auctions, raffle tables, a wine pull, and a Walk of Fame where the stars have whiskers. The special guest is Casey DeMarse, psychic medium and award-winning artist, so if you’ve ever wanted to know what the cat is really thinking, this may be your one chance at an authoritative answer.

Tickets are $90 a person (the $75 early-bird rate ended August 1), through the form on kittenangels.org/blackcatgala. Last year’s gala drew more than 150 guests, and businesses that would rather sponsor than dress up — tables, seats, auction items, a line in the program — can write to catpost@kittenangels.org.

The folks behind both

Kitten Angels is a volunteer-run rescue that’s spent fifteen years doing the quiet end of cat welfare: taking in abandoned and orphaned kittens and pregnant mama cats, raising them in foster homes, and adopting them out — along with running the low-cost spay/neuter program above. They’re headquartered up in Mayfield but work events across the Capital District, Troy included. Find them at kittenangels.org and on Facebook.

Between this and Operation Snip’s $20 shot clinic on September 19, a Speigletown cat can get vaccinated and fixed this fall for less than one ordinary vet visit — which is about the best deal going for an animal that will thank you for none of it.

Clip and save

• Spay/neuter clinics (owned cats): Sundays — Aug. 30, Sept. 27, Oct. 25, Nov. 15, Dec. 6. Register first at the online form; details arrive by email. Check your spam folder.
• Black Cat Gala: Friday, Oct. 30, 5:30–10 p.m., Franklin Terrace Ballroom, 126 Campbell Ave., Troy. $90/person via kittenangels.org/blackcatgala.

Details from Kitten Angels’ announcements and kittenangels.org; flyer and poster images courtesy of Kitten Angels. Clinic times and locations are provided after registration — confirm your date in your confirmation email (spam folder and all) or on their Facebook page.