Durango Animal Connection: Cat Enrichment Grant Report
How did this grant help your organization and the pets in your care?
Thank you so much for awarding our organization this grant! It has allowed us to purchase several toys, cat trees, cardboard scratchers, litter boxes, and other life-enriching supplies to help the cats and kittens throughout our foster homes.
The cats and kittens we bring in are almost always from the Native American reservations in the Four Corners region of the U.S. and are coming to us from places where they received little to no care. They are hungry, tick- and flea-infested, and undersocialized and have never had the opportunity to play with toys, scratch their nails on a scratcher, or even use a litter box.
The supplies we were able to purchase from this grant help them relax, play, and socialize with each other and their foster providers, and enhance their lives while they're with us. Thank you!
How many pets did this grant help?
60
Please provide a story of one or more specific pets this grant helped.
Niblet and Nacho are two sibling kittens we took in about a month and a half ago. They had been surrendered to an animal-control facility on the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation in Towaoc, CO. Our team frequently visits this facility and pulls dogs and cats from them as often as possible because the animals there receive very minimal care and no veterinary care at all.
Niblet and Nacho were about 3 weeks old when we rescued them. When we got them to Durango and settled them into their foster home, we found that they were completely tick-infested and very malnourished. We spent lots of time picking off ticks and cleaning them up. They were eating gruel at that time and were thankfully good eaters.
They spent their first few days eating and then napping on a warm heating pad. Within about a week, they started to play with a couple of toys and soon developed into healthy and social kittens. They loved playing with wand toys, climbing up little cat trees, and scratching on their inclined cardboard scratcher.
Once these two sweet siblings were vetted, they were adopted together by a wonderful family and are happily settling in with their new family today!
