A four-year-old white cat named Emerald leaned against the metal wire of her crate during the official opening of The Catty Shack, in hopes of getting a couple of scratches from the facility’s visitors.
The feline is a favourite for Ruth King, a volunteer with Cats R Us, who helps run the new adoption centre at 756 Windermere Road in the London’s north-end.
“She’s really cuddly and really loving. They’re all loving,” King said.
In an effort to reduce the number of stray and feral cats roaming the city, the adoption facility offers a temporary home for up to 50 well-adjusted felines waiting to meet new families.
They’re healthy, they’re vaccinated, and they come in all sorts of ages, shapes, and sizes.
That’s why Ward 5 councillor Maureen Cassidy believes there’s a cat for everyone.
“Rather than going to a pet store to buy an animal that’s purposefully bred, there are so many kitties. And you can find young nice kittens here as well, you don’t just have to get an older cat,” Cassidy explained.
Upon arrival, visitors are greeted by a storefront style room with spacious cages stacked against the walls. The facility, located inside a renovated house, also has a room where people can bond with cats and a room where cats play and socialize. It can house up to 50 cats at a time and strictly deals with stray and feral cats, not surrenders.
On the back of the property is a barn where feral cats, who can’t be adopted, roam free.
Through trap, neuter, return (TNR) programs, organizations like Cats R Us spay and neuter feral cats and return them to their colonies where they’re looked after by a volunteer colony manager. But if the trapped cat doesn’t have a colony to return to, a manager of the city’s Animal Services, Heather Chapman says they’re given a home in the barn.
“It gives them that shelter and food and care, but it allows them to socialize in their own colony within the barn.”
The city met its objective to become a no-kill community back in 2015, which meaning 90-per cent of animals that go into the city’s London Animal Care Centre come out alive.
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