Volunteer Ali Zichek carries a load of blankets to a room housing several cats. The Cat House goes through dozens of blankets a day in order to keep the felines clean and comfortable. Photo: Travis Beck, NewsNetNebraska
Just a few blocks away from City Campus, lives are being saved every day. And although the survivors can't speak their thanks, you can see it in their soft eyes and swishing tails, and hear it in their happy 'meows.'
The Cat House, located at 19th and Q Street since 2004, is a no-kill animal shelter devoted to saving cats no matter the cost. More than 175 cats live there, including some whose owners can no longer care for, strays and feral cats, and those too sick to survive on their own.
For Cat House staffers, every feline has a place in the world. No cat is ever turned away, even if it means they'll live at the shelter for the rest of their life. Pisa, a cat with feline leukemia, has been in the care of the Cat House since 2003.
The non-profit shelter, started in 1998, is the largest no-kill shelter in Nebraska, and has found homes for more than 1,000 cats since its inception. Between April and September of this year, 156 cats were adopted out.
While adoption is the most preferred option, the shelter's true mission lies in ending euthanasia. And that means providing a quality home for every cat whether it is adopted or not.
A family of cat people
Such a home has only been possible because of the efforts of the shelter's all-volunteer staff, and the generosity of donors. Volunteers come from all walks of life; from children to retirees, from college students to professionals. But they're united in the lengths they're willing to go to for their furry friends.
Volunteers descend daily on the Cat House. They clean litter boxes and floors, put out fresh food and water, wash dishes and laundry, give medications, man phones, drive cats to adoption events or emergency clinics and more. On Tuesday and Thursday, when volunteer crews come in, between four and eight people may be working.
Professionals donate their valuable skills. Still others focus on fund raising or getting information about pet control out to the community, by producing newsletters and pamphlets.
All told, 100 people volunteer at the Cat House. The effort required to keep the shelter running, and the cats happy, is never ending. But volunteers give freely of their time and their love, petting and cuddling the cats as much as they do feeding and other, less pleasant jobs. Not a day passes, even Thanksgiving, without volunteers at the shelter.
"It's a little bit of everything," said Sarah Laney, a team leader for the volunteer crews. "It's high schoolers, kids looking to get their [community involvement] hours for school, retirees and people who just want to volunteer their time."
By day Laney, 52, is the media secretary at Scott Middle School. By night, she organizes volunteers into work teams, then rolls up her sleeves and gets to work alongside them.
"The Cat House kind of becomes a family," she said. "You get very attached. Everything we do here is for the cats. There's a job for everybody."
She discovered the Cat House through its booth at the Farmer's Market six years ago. She considered volunteering at the Capitol Humane Society, but the no-kill mission of the Cat House made her choice for her, she said.
She wanted to volunteer with the same mix of people she finds at school, she said. She’s even found a way to meld her two passions together, showcasing photos of cats at school to get them adopted. The children get loving pets, and the cats get good homes.
Professionals also contribute to the Cat House. Dr. Shelley Knudsen, a vetrinarian, began volunteering because the owner of the All Feline Hospital where she works is Dr. Becky Arnold, who is also a board member at the Cat House.
Sara Laney is a teacher who has volunteered at the Cat House for six years. Photo: Travis Beck, NewsNetNebraska
For five years Knudsen has made monthly visits to the shelter, where she spends between two and five hours evaluating and medicating cats with serious health issues. She frequently treats cats from the Cat House when they're brought to the clinic for spaying, neutering and problems that can't be solved at the shelter.
Unfortunately, that includes euthanizing as well. Cats with terminal illnesses present tough choices for volunteers, forcing them to decide between a cat's pain and its desire to live. "Cats are masters of disguising their pain," Knudsen said. "So it's on a case-by-case basis."
The decision never comes easily for Cat House volunteers, who must say goodbye to a friend they may have known for years. "When we put a cat to sleep, they'll sometimes be in here crying," Knudsen said.
To help the Cat House save on cost, most everything Knudsen and the All Feline Hospital does for it comes at a discount. In addition to consultations and checkups, the clinic provides lower cost spay/neuter operations and sells medications at 40 percent off to the shelter.
The clinic's contributions to the Cat House's success represent a large investment of both time and money. To Knudsen, it's just their way of pitching in. "They do everything they can [at the shelter]," she said. "So you do whatever you can."
Lowell Brown, 73, has donated to the Cat House and been a fixture there almost since the beginning. The retired electronic technician and Master Sergeant with the Air National Guard is so devoted to the cats that he's left his estate to the Cat House, and has made his funeral arrangements with its owners.
He donates monthly, and at times his giving has made the difference in keeping the Cat House open, he said.
Though he doesn't clean cages or do feeding while he's at the shelter, he busies himself with a job he considers just as important: spending time with cats hungry for affection. And he's rushed to the All Feline Hospital more than once in the dead of night with a sick cat next to him.
He looks up, smiling, from the floor of an enclosure where he's spending time with Love, a cat that was adopted in December. "You can take me home for $90," he says, and for a moment you're unsure whether he's talking about himself or the cat. Although he will miss Love, he's glad that she's finally found a real home, he said.
Brown began volunteering at the Cat House when he read a news article about the shelter. He donated a few items, but began spending time at the old 23rd and C Street shelter because he worried for the safety of female volunteers who worked alone at night.
Today, Brown makes it his mission to socialize with terminal cats or those that have few prospects for adoption. The sight of cats that will go unloved and unwanted drives him to care when no one else would, he said.
"Some of these will never be adopted," he said, pointing to "the pee room" for cats with bladder control problems. "They're just too much work to take care of. Or the cats with feline leukemia. No one will ever want them. So I at least try to spend time with them."
The Cat House accommodates hundreds of cats throughout the year, some of them sick and dying of disease, others are healthy and full of life. Several rooms are designated to let the Cats blow off steam and exercise while volunteers are cleaning their quarters. Photo:Travis Beck, NewsNetNebraska
To honor cats that few else would, Lowell has arranged a plot at Rolling Acres, a pet cemetery in Lincoln, for Pisa. It's a cost he's willing to pay for an old friend, despite how strained his budget can get supporting the Cat House. Pisa is the second cat Brown has purchased a plot for. He would arrange plots for all the cats that die at the Cat House if he could afford it, he said.
For 22-year-old Mackenzie Moore, a senior communications studies major at UNL, the Cat House was a chance to do something different with her time. She volunteers for two hours on Tuesday evenings.
"It's just fun," she said. "You can be in a bad mood, come here, and find a good mood."
Moore knew she wanted to volunteer and considered helping out at Husker Cats, a care and monitoring program for feral cat colonies that live on City Campus. But she chose the Cat House instead after reading about the shelter online.
Never enough room
While 175 cats may seem like a staggering amount, they're a fraction of the total number of cats in need of rescue in Lincoln. In 2009 the Capitol Humane Society, which holds a contract with the city to take in unwanted, stray and feral cats, had more than 3,000 cats come through its doors, according to records.
"We would be overwhelmed trying to take in that many," said Alma Vlasak, a member of the Board of Directors for the Cat House. Regardless of the numbers, volunteers believe they offer a necessary alternative to shelters that are forced to euthanize cats for cost and space reasons.
Alma Vlasak smiles before opening the Cat House to retrieve laundry to wash. She has been a volunteer since 2003. Photo: Travis Beck, NewsNetNebraska
The price of life
Housing and caring for so many cats isn't cheap. It costs about $14 a day to feed, house and provide veterinary care for each cat, both at the Cat House and the Capitol Humane Society. Spaying or neutering cost an additional $40. Even euthanizing carries a $20 fee.
The shelter is maintained entirely by donations, adoption fees and the sale of t-shirts and handmade cat toys. This year the Cat House applied for a private grant from the Lincoln Community Foundation, said Stephanie Kielian, treasurer for the Cat House, to help supplement fund raising efforts.
Charitable contributions are not always consistent, especially during a recession, and the Cat House is subject to property taxes and rising costs just like any other business. Yet donations have continued to increase, a trend that volunteers fervently hope continues. Finding the money to provide quality care for every cat, however, remains a constant challenge.
Donations to the Cat House began slowly, but have dramatically increased over the years. Between 2004 and 2005, donations increased 135 percent, from about $20,000 to $47,000. This year the Cat House has already taken in $86,000. Of that money, $20,000 came from an estate that was bequeathed to them.
An impurrfect future
The Cat House's mission is one that may never be completed. For every cat adopted or kept at the shelter, dozens more are euthanized out of necessity.
To give them all homes, like those lucky few at the Cat House, is beyond even the wildest dreams of volunteers. But they aren't daunted. It only makes their sense of purpose stronger, and inspires them to give any way they can.
Photographer: Travis Beck Videographer: Elizabeth Gasaway
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