Kelly Clarkson honored Jen Knight, who's saved more than 1,000 cats through her foster-based rescue
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Knight started Del Gato Rescue in 2020 after her beloved pet feline went missing for three weeks
She now raises awareness for TNR — trap, neuter, return — to cope with overpopulation.
Kelly Clarksonis celebrating a fellow animal lover.
On Friday's episode ofThe Kelly Clarkson Show,the host honored Jen Knight, who's saved more than 1,000 cats through her foster-based rescue and was nominated by NBC 4 Los Angeles for a PAWSitively Good Award.
Knight shared the story that inspired her to start Del Gato Rescue in 2020.
"How do you not take them all home? That'd be my problem," Clarkson said of the felines Knight helps.
Knight said that after she lost her job at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and suddenly found herself with free time, she decided to foster a cat.
However, on the first night with her new pet, the cat pushed its way out of the bathroom window and escaped. She was missing for three weeks.
The Kelly Clarkson Show
"I was going door to door," Knight recalled. "I was flyering. I was posting on social media, nothing. I could not find her. On day 19, this bushy tail walks by the back window, and I was like, oh my gosh, she's alive."
Knight bought a humane cat trap, and within two hours of setting it, she'd recovered her lost pet.
"I was jumping up and down inside," she recalls.
She was especially moved to help struggling families during the pandemic.
"We have underserved neighborhoods who are barely able to put food on the table for their families," she said. "They can't afford vet care. People are opening their doors, letting their cats go outside and they're not fixed."
The Kelly Clarkson Show
Knight now raises awareness of TNR — trap, neuter, return — to address pet overpopulation.
"It means we go out, we trap the cat, we fix them, we vaccinate them, we put them right back where they came from," she explained. "The R in TNR is so important because if you put a cat back to a random other location, also known as dumping, that cat's not going to know where the food, the water, the shelter is, and how to hide from predators. So you have to put them back exactly where you trapped them."
"So the feral ones, you fix, you vaccinate, you put them back outside, and that's stopping the cycle of kittens being born outside and preventing all that suffering," she continued. "The friendly ones, that's why we start fostering so many, because we can't put them back outside."
Clarkson then presented Del Gato with a $5,000 donation from the cat-care brand Whisker and an additional $5,000 in products.
During another recentanimal-focused segmentof her show, Clarkson learned that she has a namesake under the sea.
On an episode that aired on Jan. 15, the host welcomed former preschool teacher Andrea Clulow and her husband, Darrell Clulow.
The couple is on a mission to teach kids about the value of sharks in a new children's book,Finn & Friends,and through an organization with the same name.
They informed Clarkson that they had adopted a shark and given her the perfect name: "Kelly Sharkson."
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