Mission Valley Animal Shelter: Cat Enrichment Grant Report

How did this grant help your organization and the pets in your care?

We have two very small rooms that are used as community cat/kitten rooms: one for our adult cats and one for our kittens. Each room can hold 12-14 cats/kittens. There is not very much space for roaming and playing and not very much space to provide hiding spots or spaces away from the other cats/kittens.

This grant allowed us to use the walls to build walkways and ramps and also to put in a few hiding/napping spots around the rooms which are lifted up off of the floor. This has provided our more introverted cats with the ability to get away from other cats and groups of people when needed.

This grant has also provided front-row hangouts for our more outgoing cats, enabling them to be the center of attention in the room, as they prefer.

How many pets did this grant help?

110

Please provide a story of one or more specific pets this grant helped.

One cat in particular, Jule (first photo), a beautiful 2-year-old tabby, was very pleased to see us building the new spaces and walkways in the adult cat room. She started helping us out from the moment we came in.

She was running up and down the ramps and the shelving as we were trying to figure out how it should all be placed. She let us know if they were spaced too far apart and even jumped on a few while we were trying to hang them up! She even overcame her fear of the drill because she was so excited to jump up and make sure everything was placed just right.

Jule was adopted from our facility on Oct. 27, just a few weeks after she helped us renovate the room.

We also had one kitten in particular who was really impressed with the new equipment that was installed into our kitten room. Maui (second photo), a gorgeous 5-month-old domestic short-hair, was absolutely enamored with the half-moon hammock that was placed on the wall up off of the floor. She crawled into the hammock just minutes after we got it placed and continues to spend most of her time there, enjoying her space from the other kittens and the chance to avoid grabbing hands.

Maui has now been claimed and is approaching her adoption date!