What started with a search for two kittens has grown into a partnership aimed at tackling one of Liberty County’s most persistent animal problems.
Samantha Robertson, of Liberty, and Shyanne Loftin, of Magnolia, are among the volunteers behind Rural Texas TNR, a program working to reduce the number of stray and feral cats through trap-neuter-return, commonly known as TNR.
The two women recently joined Bluebonnet News for an episode of the Headlines and Heartlines podcast to talk about the program, the challenges facing community cat colonies and the enormous amount of volunteer work involved.
Their friendship, appropriately enough, began with kittens.
Robertson had lost two of her cats and was looking to adopt. She remembered seeing Loftin post on Facebook about kittens needing homes and contacted her.
“I went over there. I took the two kittens I wanted and then she started telling me more about what she’s doing,” Robertson recalled.
Robertson, already a self-described “cat lady,” was intrigued. Before long, she was asking how she could help. She began fostering and then joined Loftin in trapping community cats and transporting them to Houston for veterinary care.
“She jumped head first in and has not slowed down since,” Loftin said of Robertson. “She’s been a godsend.”
For Loftin, the path to Rural Texas TNR began after she temporarily moved from Magnolia to Liberty about two years ago. Already involved in animal rescue for roughly a decade, she quickly realized Liberty had a significant community cat population and few resources available to address it.
While living at Forest Grand Apartments in Liberty, Loftin was already helping some elderly neighbors get their pets spayed and neutered. Then came an incident she couldn’t ignore.
Someone knocked on her door after hearing kittens near a dumpster. Loftin went to investigate and found seven newborn kittens, less than a day old, double-bagged in Walmart sacks and thrown into the dumpster. The kittens were placed in foster care, but none survived.
“I knew I had to do something,” Loftin said. “I couldn’t just keep allowing that to happen.”
She began trapping cats around the apartment complex and having them spayed or neutered. Once those cats were addressed, she realized the animals moved throughout surrounding neighborhoods, so she began knocking on doors and asking residents for permission to trap on their properties. From there, the effort grew.
Today, Rural Texas TNR operates under the nonprofit umbrella of ROSES, which stands for Reducing Overpopulation Spay Neuter Education. ROSES helps with veterinary expenses and takes in adoptable cats and kittens removed from TNR locations. According to Loftin, many of those animals eventually find homes outside Texas in states where shelters and rescues do not face the same level of cat overpopulation.
The basic idea behind TNR is straightforward. Community cats are humanely trapped, transported for veterinary care, spayed or neutered, vaccinated and then returned to the areas where they were living. Cats that are friendly enough for adoption may instead enter foster care when space is available.
Cats that have already gone through the program can usually be identified by a missing tip from one ear. Ear tipping is performed while the cat is under anesthesia during surgery and provides an easy visual indication that the animal has already been sterilized.
“If we do trap a cat, we can just check the ear,” Loftin explained. “If it’s not tipped, it’s going to the vet. If it is tipped, then we release it and reset the trap.”
The need is considerable. Robertson said Rural Texas TNR handled 333 cats in 2025, yet hundreds more remained on the group’s list. At the time of the interview, the volunteers estimated that roughly 600 cats were still waiting for assistance based only on the requests they had received.
Those numbers do not account for colonies that have never been reported.
The group accepts requests from throughout Liberty County, but much of its recent work has focused on the City of Liberty after city officials provided funding specifically for cats within the city limits.
A typical TNR event can involve 50 to 60 cats and consume much of a week. Volunteers begin trapping days before the scheduled surgeries, house and feed the cats overnight, transport them to Houston, monitor them after surgery and eventually return them to their colonies.
All of it is done around jobs and families. Robertson works for a cancer hospital, substitutes at her children’s school and is involved with several organizations and her children’s sports. Loftin works in the claims department for a builder service company, has three children and continues fostering cats through ROSES.
Loftin estimates she currently has around 22 foster cats in her home. Both women emphasized that Rural Texas TNR is volunteer-driven, which can make immediately responding to every request impossible.
“Understanding that we can’t just work the schedule that they want us to work, and just because they have a cat problem does not mean we can solve it,” Loftin said. “We can only do what we can do.”
The problem can grow remarkably quickly. Cats can begin reproducing at only a few months old, and an unmanaged colony can expand from a handful of animals into dozens.
One Liberty location alone resulted in more than two dozen adult cats being provided with medical treatment and 31 kittens being removed from a single property, according to the women.
Many of the people caring for these colonies are not indifferent to the animals. It is quite the opposite, Loftin said. Some are elderly residents who faithfully feed and watch over cats but simply cannot afford to sterilize an entire colony.
“They very, very deeply care about their cats,” Loftin said. “They’ll sit there and tell you all these cats’ names and they all look just the same to us. But they know exactly what that cat is.”
Veterinary costs are one of the biggest obstacles. Even discounted services add up quickly when a colony contains 15, 20 or 30 cats.
TNR also provides an opportunity to address medical problems. Cats going through the program are vaccinated, given flea prevention and treated for medical conditions when possible. The volunteers have encountered cats needing treatment for abscesses, parasites, mange and serious injuries, including cases requiring the removal of teeth, eyes or limbs.
In rare situations where an animal is suffering with no reasonable quality of life, euthanasia may be necessary based on a veterinarian’s recommendation.
The ultimate goal, they both say, is less suffering.
Rural Texas TNR would also like to see more Liberty County municipalities become involved. Dayton officials have already expressed interest in hearing a presentation from the group, and the volunteers hope other cities will eventually consider supporting similar efforts.
More funding could mean more cats sterilized and fewer kittens born into already-overwhelmed colonies.
The women also hope to expand their trapping equipment and techniques, particularly for those elusive cats that refuse to enter conventional traps after most of a colony has already been caught.
For now, some of their greatest needs are surprisingly simple: canned cat food and money for gasoline.
Trapping dozens of cats means feeding dozens of cats while they are being held for surgery, and every large-scale event requires volunteers to make the lengthy drive to Houston for veterinary services.
The group maintains an Amazon wish list, and donations can also be made through information posted on the Rural Texas TNR Facebook page. Those wanting to make larger tax-deductible contributions can do so through ROSES.
Volunteers are also needed. The women said additional help could allow the program to reach more colonies and shorten the lengthy waiting list.
For information on how you can donate supplies or your time, go online to https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61576546051239. To donate to ROSES, go online to https://www.rosesnonprofit.org/about.
Canned food donations can also be dropped off at The Health Fix Store, 1808 San Jacinto, in Liberty.
To hear their full interview on the Headlines and Heartlines podcast, click the link below:
The amount of work these two ladies do on behalf of community cats is incredible! I am so grateful to get to work with them. If you live in the area and care about animals, get involved! It’s extremely rewarding. And they are amazing people to learn from.