Humane Society of the Palouse: Cat Enrichment Grant Report
How did this grant help your organization and the pets in your care?
The money was used to order 200 Stretch and Scratch cat scratchers for the cats in our care. These are corrugated-carboard scratchers that can attach to the door of each cat kennel to provide an appropriate scratching area for the cats.
Not only does this help keep our cats physically healthy by filing their nails, it also keeps them mentally healthy by providing them with the freedom to express normal behavior (which is one of the five freedoms for animals). We strive to give the pets in our shelter the highest quality of care possible, and we ensure their five freedoms are met. By doing so, we have seen a huge decrease in aggression behaviors, depression, and kennel shut-down in the animals at HSoP.
We are extremely passionate about making each animal comfortable and happy during their temporary stay with us, and your grant allowed us to enrich the lives of over 200 cats!
How many pets did this grant help?
More than 200 (kittens who are cohabiting a kennel may share a scratcher).
Please provide a story of one or more specific pets this grant helped.
Evee (first four photos) was brought in to our shelter as a stray. Upon intake, she was angry and spicy. We used a Feliway towel and draped it over her kennel door. We then moved her to a bigger kennel and offered her a Stretch and Scratch. As you can tell from the pictures, she was pleased to have something to keep her busy! We saw a dramatic change in her behavior and interactions with our staff even just one day after being offered a scratcher. Allowing cats to perform their natural behaviors truly does make them feel more safe and comfortable. Evee has found her forever home, and was sent home with her scratcher.
This grant also assisted a litter of semi-feral kittens! Having something to scratch enables an instinctive behavior in cats, so it can assist feral kittens in their adjustment to indoor, domesticated life. The kittens were skeptical at first, but after one day, they were having a blast with their scratcher — such a blast that we had to offer them a second scratcher. This truly helped the kittens feel more comfortable in their kennels, and with the staff at HSoP. All three kittens have since been adopted into indoor-only homes!
