Raining (homeless) cats and dogs

SNIP Collier FW Tom Kepp of SNIP returns a spayed cat to its home. -LANCE SHEARER / FLORIDA WEEKLY The sun had not yet peeked above the horizon when we set out from the SNIP Collier facility behind the Immokalee stockade. Loaded with 24 cats in crates, all freshly treated and neutered, SNIP founder Tom Kepp’s minivan headed out to return the felines to their homes – or at least to the location where they were trapped. Kepp explained why it’s important to get an early start each day in the “TNR” or “trap–neuter– return” profession. “Once it heats up, the cats won’t come out, and you won’t catch them.” In addition to returning the spayed cats riding in the back of the minivan back home, he was angling to collect the next batch. The rows of dilapidated trailer homes in Immokalee are fertile ground – literally – for the SNIP Collier mission. Some of the single-wides where the van stopped were surrounded by a dozen or more cats, even after the first group had been rounded up yesterday. The