DR. ERICA RAMBUS launched Divine Feline in 2003 with fellow vet Dr. Susanna Russo. They depend on volunteers to help trap, socialize and provide foster care for feral cats.
“Nobody talked about them in vet school, probably because there’s no money in them,” she says. “The first time I saw this cat coming in – in a trap – my heart just went out to them. They were living all over the place, trying to fend for themselves. Some were diseased, some hungry, some had abscesses, and on and on. Even the ones that lived in good environments and had caretakers were at risk. It’s not as if the caretakers could treat them if they had something wrong with them.”
The plight of more than 150,000 such cats in Denver prompted Rambus and fellow vet Dr. Susanna Russo to launch Divine Feline – a mobile cat clinic dedicated to neutering and vaccinating healthy feral cats – in 2003. The nonprofit works closely with Rocky Mountain Alley Cat Alliance, an organization promoting humane treatment for feral cats.
“We renovated an old 1984 RV and it became our mobile surgery unit,” Rambus says. “We take our beast out weekly to cat colonies and do surgery on site.” Rambus takes cats (sometimes as many as 40) back to her home for an overnight stay and returns them to colonies the next day.
Divine Feline follows up on colonies of feral cats people report in on. “Someone will say, ‘I’m feeding 20 cats in my alley,’ or, ‘My neighbor has 30 cats in their yard,’” she says.
But many more colonies go undetected. “People say they don’t have cats in their neighborhood,” she says. “Well, they’re feral. They’re scared to death of humans. They come out at night and pick through dumpsters. I think people don’t see them, they’re not looking for them, or they assume they belong to somebody.”
Born in Detroit, Rambus applied to vet school at Colorado State University after earning a degree in retail management and working at Lord & Taylor in Chicago. “I was totally dissatisfied with my life,” she says. “I had always been interested in working with animals, but I think I just wasn’t ready to take on something that serious right away.”
After graduating from CSU in 1996, she took a job at Harrison. “I wanted to work with underprivileged, and at that time it worked only with indigent clients. We spayed/neutered every animal that came in, and provided every kind of veterinary medicine at very low cost.”
Rambus’ love for needy animals is not limited to felines. Three elderly dogs she has rescued – two Chihuahuas and a medium-sized mixed breed – wander about her spacious backyard as she speaks. She has carried an 18-year-old blind cat she cares for onto the lawn for fresh air, and another of her cats has curled up in the garage along with two caged ferals and a six-week-old kitten. A paraplegic cat she adopted lounges at her feet as she explains that Divine Feline and Alley Cat both work to educate people about the need to provide food, water, and shelter for feral cats.
“These cats can’t fend for themselves,” Rambus says. “They’re not wild animals; they’re just not socialized. We don’t just come and spay/neuter and say, ‘Okay, you can’t reproduce anymore, have a good life.’”
Divine Feline removes kittens from their colonies, places them in foster care for socialization, and then puts them up for adoption. They cannot socialize cats older than eight weeks.
“Kittens may be hissing and biting when we get them, but usually within a day or two, they will tame to humans. I’ll send out an email and say, ‘I’ve got babies that need help’ – and have 15 friends show up in a two-week period to spend an hour with them. One of my friends’ teenage daughter brought three of her friends over, and spent a Saturday afternoon in the garage with these kittens.”
Rambus often tries to find adoptive homes for kittens through word of mouth. “If you send them to a shelter, they’re probably going to get respiratory infections,” she says. And she tries to get people to take two at a time whenever possible. “Babies just do so much better when they have a playmate. They’ll play all day long and curl up at night together.”
The organization depends on volunteers to help trap, socialize, provide foster care, and clean surgical instruments. And Rambus strives to get children involved. A friend who works at the Bridge Project, a University of Denver organization for at-risk youth, brings children in to volunteer.
“Those kids just blossom here,” she says. “It’s a natural thing for kids to bond with animals, but a lot of these kids had that taken away from them because they were in such abusive situations. They end up abusing the animals in the house and they know it’s not right; they love animals.”
One boy who had witnessed the shooting death of his older brother began fighting a lot. “My friend told him she was taking away his privileges, including going to the cat van. A week or so later, he came to her to say he had decided to stop fighting. A couple minutes passed, and then he asked if he could go back to the cat van.”
Although Divine Feline helps control the feral cat population, it does not solve the problem. “Statewide law needs to change to require every shelter to spay/neuter before the animals leave,” Rambus says. “(Denver) Dumb Friends League does this, but some shelters don’t. I’ve had people bring cats to me from a shelter and then bring them back, because they’re scared they’re going to adopt them out.
“And if every vet did a little pro bono work, it also would make a huge difference, because not everyone can afford to have their pets spayed/neutered,” she adds.
“The Dumb Friends League now has a mobile clinic providing low-cost spay/neutering for cats and dogs. Those kinds of things really help.”
Besides operating Divine Feline, Rambus performs spaying and neutering at the Dumb Friends League, runs a house-call practice, and provides relief work at the Animal Rescue and Adoption Society’s cat shelter. She loves gardening, yoga, cooking, and runs half marathons with her sister. “We meet in cool places a couple times a year, but it’s hard to get away,” she says.
“My family gets frustrated with me, but I’m really reluctant to leave. My friends ask if I miss the medicine – but this is just so needed. I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever done.
“And I never thought I’d reach a point in my life where I’d prefer curling up with a good book and my animals to just about anything,” she adds. “But, I have.”
