Duette Animal Rescue Team, Inc.: Cat Enrichment Grant Report
How did this grant help your organization and the pets in your care?
Thanks to the Petfinder Foundation enrichment grant, we were able to furnish our newly erected "Catty Shack" building with much-needed enrichment items. The building serves both as a space for cats and kittens to thrive and a meet-and-greet area for interested adopters who want to meet the animals to ensure they are a good fit for their family.
The indoor part is air-conditioned and then there is a screened-in catio where there is more space for the cats and kittens to hang out, play, and interact with people at their own pace. With the grant money, we’ve enriched the lives of the cats that are currently in the building, but many more in the future will benefit from cozy little houses (heated for winter as well), climbing shelves, cat trees, hammocks, toys, and more.
The same building and catio serve as our meet-and-greet area for adopters and, depending on the weather, they can be inside in the AC or outside if the weather permits and spend time with the cats and/or kittens they are interested in. This now-furnished cat house is perfect for people and cats to share the love and get to know each other. With the grant we purchased scratching posts, insulated/weatherproof and heated houses, climbing structures and playhouses, cozy cat condos and hammocks, and catnip enrichment.
How many pets did this grant help?
About 35-70 adoptions per year average
Please provide a story of one or more specific pets this grant helped.
Rose and Jasmine (first photo) are two adorable kittens who came to us as strays. They were found in a rural area where, most likely, their calico mom, Calypso, was dumped.
The family that found them could not afford to keep them and had large dogs not friendly to cats. Our rescue focuses on serving our immediate community, so we darted into action and took them in.
With the current pet crisis, we are at our maximum with cat intakes. Therefore, we have to expand, and the new cat building is the first one ever since the start of our young sanctuary. With rising prices, we have to sometimes make tough choices and often have to be cautious where we spend our money, choosing between necessities and enrichment items.
Thanks to the Petfinder Foundation enrichment grant, we were able to provide Rose and Jasmine with much more stimulation in the space. They took to all the new items immediately and got very excited, as good kittens should be.
Rose and Jasmine were two of the first kittens to benefit from the enrichment. Since they are in their own comfortable space now, it also makes it much easier for them to meet and greet potential adopters.
Cats and kittens can be shy, but now adopters can meet them in their own comfort zone, which makes for a much better encounter all the way around. Rose and Jasmine are ready for adoption and are eagerly waiting for the right person(s) to give them their forever home together. With a slow adoption summer almost over, we look forward to meeting and greeting possible adopters in the new enclosure and giving these two kittens a better chance at being adopted.
