Photo By John HoffJanet Joy Mattice--who goes by "Joy," most of the time--has spent many years in the real estate biz. I met Joy through a would-be real estate deal that didn't go through, but at least I had the Joy of knowing Joy.
Joy's real passion is the welfare of animals, in particular cats. The mortgage meltdown has thrown many people out of homes, and this disruption of the social fabric keeps rolling downhill until it hits hard the most helpless in our society: poor dumb animals.
Joy goes around North Minneapolis (NoMi) with "live traps" and captures roaming felines. She puts out food for the felines until they can be live trapped. She then takes steps to assure the felines go to "no kill" shelters and are adopted. Joy has also done things for non-feline animals...
When I ran into Joy a couple weeks ago, she told me about shelling out more than $6,000 to take care of about half a dozen young pit bulls. These were her own personal funds. Joy doesn't have a non-profit but she is happy to accept donations, including donations of cat food. She also told me about the time she rescued a guinea pig which somebody had just put in an alley in North Minneapolis--cage and all--and left to die.
I asked Joy if she was wearing a real fur coat, and Joy responded, "REAL people wear FAKE fur."
If you know of stray cats, give the critters a break and call Joy instead of Animal Control. The odds of a cat being adopted in a so-called "shelter" are about as good as your odds of winning at pull tabs. Here is Joy's contact info to give her cat information or to arrange for a donation:
Janet Joy Mattice
11200 Commerce Drive North
Champlin, Minnesota 55316-3166
Phone number 763-569-5661
Joy's real passion is the welfare of animals, in particular cats. The mortgage meltdown has thrown many people out of homes, and this disruption of the social fabric keeps rolling downhill until it hits hard the most helpless in our society: poor dumb animals.
Joy goes around North Minneapolis (NoMi) with "live traps" and captures roaming felines. She puts out food for the felines until they can be live trapped. She then takes steps to assure the felines go to "no kill" shelters and are adopted. Joy has also done things for non-feline animals...
When I ran into Joy a couple weeks ago, she told me about shelling out more than $6,000 to take care of about half a dozen young pit bulls. These were her own personal funds. Joy doesn't have a non-profit but she is happy to accept donations, including donations of cat food. She also told me about the time she rescued a guinea pig which somebody had just put in an alley in North Minneapolis--cage and all--and left to die.
I asked Joy if she was wearing a real fur coat, and Joy responded, "REAL people wear FAKE fur."
If you know of stray cats, give the critters a break and call Joy instead of Animal Control. The odds of a cat being adopted in a so-called "shelter" are about as good as your odds of winning at pull tabs. Here is Joy's contact info to give her cat information or to arrange for a donation:
Janet Joy Mattice
11200 Commerce Drive North
Champlin, Minnesota 55316-3166
Phone number 763-569-5661
8 comments:
I've donated cat food to Joy before. I run into her in my alley all the time.
If someone wants to grab an extra bag of food at the store, just let me know, we will connect and I'll leave it out behind my garage for Joy.
Better yet, leave it out behind your garage and give Joy a call and have her swing through and pick it up, she is a dear lady.
Oh, no, they got Joy!
http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/story/19040130/cat-samaritan-charged-with-helping-strays-in-north-minneapolis
If the "cat lady" ever needed support, it is now.
I hope that doesn't stop her. I hope she just finds another spot to help out the cats.
I too feed the stray cats. So fine me too, City of Minneapolis, I double cat dare you.
Throw the book at her and keep her from doing this. It only makes the feral cat problem worse. Homes and garages smell like cat piss because of her, and she doesn't leave or stop when neighbors who actually live here ask her to.
I will be writing a community impact statement asking for as severe of a punishment as the law allows, in hopes that she stops.
Throw the book at her? If all this woman is doing is creating giant feed piles and littering, then I would agree she be cited but it sounds like she traps and spays the animals which helps lessen the amount of feral cats, does it not?
The resident comment in the Fox story sounds like typical NoMi "not gonna lift a finger" response to this problem. For our part, we've rescued two cats from abject neglect in our neighborhood. God forbid people actually take responsibility for their animals and have them spayed and kept safely indoors. Our first rescued animal is FIV positive, which merits a needless death sentence from either the Humane Society or Animal Control. She is perfectly healthy and very happy. Our second foundling was rescued right before our June heat wave. Sadly, we were forced to put her to sleep last week after the spread of an aggressive oral tumor. It was terribly sad because she was a very sweet cat and we console ourselves knowing her last few weeks were spent in relative comfort with two people who actually gave a damn instead of starving and dehydrating to death in the basement of an abandoned house. And a month ago we rescued a love bird that flew into the yard and brought it to an exotic bird rescue via Animal Control--for all these animals we purchased the necessary accoutrement, vet appointments, etc. because it was the right thing to do rather than walk away under the justification that Animal Control will take care of it. I've never seen Animal Control drive by my house, by the way.
I'd guess Joy doesn't stop because the people she has dealt with have given her no indication they are willing to step up and be proactive about this situation in their own neighborhoods. It sounds like (and this is our experience too) that many of these animals are abandoned former pets, not just the litters of completely wild felines.
Well said Hawthorne. F'ing cats should starve because we don't want you to have to smell piss. In fact, the trees nearby dropped pollen on my car... cut them all down!
'Makes the feral cat problem worse'... good grief. You're counting on starvation to solve this problem?
Do you know why Joy Mattice passed away?
News to me.
http://www.tributes.com/obituary/show/Janet-Joy-Mattice-102407012
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