The Broome County Humane Society: Cat Enrichment Grant Report

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

The money was used to purchase 16 mobiles and three sound machines in addition to hardware. The mobiles were distributed between our cat adoption rooms and cat intake and isolation areas. The mobiles are providing visual stimulation for the cats when in both areas. Additionally, our sound machines were set up in one of our cat adoption rooms and intake and isolation areas to provide musical stimulation.

This grant has been able to help every cat in both our intake/isolation areas and adoption areas by providing visual stimulation and auditory stimulation to the cats while they are staying with us. The visual and auditory enrichment has been able to benefit the cats with enrichment all day when we are at the shelter and the mobiles continue to provide visual enrichment even when we are not at the facility.

How many pets did this grant help?

We have been able to help 50 cats so far.

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

Torch is a cat who has been with us for several weeks. He is a little on the shy side and is slowly gaining trust with people when they enter the adoption room. From the moment we hung the mobiles in his adoption room, he jumped onto one of our cat shelves and became fascinated with the turning of the birds on the mobile.

For a cat who is nervous with people and may not appreciate the human touch (yet), this has provided him with stimulation that he was not able to have before. Because of his fear of people, he was not able to enjoy a toy on a string if someone would try to play with him, but since this product is able to move without anyone in the room, he is still provided with visual stimulation.

In addition, the sound machine offers a soothing variety of music, from rain to classical lullabies. You can meet Torch here.