Henry County Humane Society-Geneseo: Cat Enrichment Grant Report
How did this grant help your organization and the pets in your care?
We purchased three cat wheels to put in three of our six community cat rooms.
We are always looking for ways to provide different enrichment to our cats while they wait to find their forever home. All of our cats live in community cat rooms and in order to keep them busy and entertained, we are always rotating out the type of toys that are in their rooms.
Despite always introducing new toys, we were still having trouble getting some of them to get the adequate amount of exercise to keep them at a healthy weight and keep them active. We also felt that if we could provide more ways for the cats to get exercise, it would help reduce the cat fights that sometimes go on in the community cat rooms because the cats would be able to expel some of that pent-up energy in a more positive way.
We always wanted to get cat wheels, and being awarded this grant made that possible much sooner. We have several cats who will use the wheel and our volunteers are working on trying to get more cats interested in it. We have a hunch that more cats are using it than we know because as soon as we come around the corner and they see us watching, they tend to hop off.
How many pets did this grant help?
30+
Please provide a story of one or more specific pets this grant helped.
Those of us in the animal-shelter or rescue community know that black cats are some of the hardest cats to adopt. This can be because of the superstitions around black cats or just because their fur doesn’t have any interesting variations or markings to make them stand out, so oftentimes these cats are picked last.
This has been the case for Beauregard and Amos, who came in last summer as kittens and are still in our shelter a year later. These boys have great dispositions and always interact with everyone who comes into their room.
They have found that working out in pairs is better. We always need that friend who is going to be there for us and encourage us every step of the way. I think that is what these two are for each other. So now, while they wait for their forever homes, they can continue to work out together and continue to live their healthiest lives.
