The changing of seasons always makes me nostalgic because each is a more obvious sign of the passing of time.
I woke up this morning to sunlight streaming through our windows (finally) and old man Guinness sitting on my chest yelling at me to feed him. Yes he literally yells in my face each morning (unless Andrew’s alarm goes off first in which case he’s the one that gets yelled at).
This might sound terrible to a non-cat owner, but for me this behavior is a joy to wake up to because it’s an instant reminder that I still have my best buddy with me.
Guinness has been a part of my life since he was hamster sized – I could literally hold him in the palm of one hand. He looked like a Black & Tan beer so that’s why I named him Guinness. I was 22 when I got him and Rugby. The two of them traveled home with me every Christmas, moved to Florida with me, moved to Atlanta with me, and of course traveled cross-country to California when we made the big move out here.
Guinness – in his younger years – was an 18 lb handful.
I workout.
He learned how to open every cabinet and drawer in my various apartments – he even figured out how to open sliding pocket doors! I would come home from work and find him in all sorts of places. In my single days I remember waking up late one night to a loud crashing noise in my kitchen. Terrified I jumped out of bed, grabbed a baseball bat and went to investigate what or who had broken into my house. As I turned on the kitchen light, my gaze traveled across the kitchen floor to find cat food kibble EVERYWHERE. As my eyes followed the path of disaster, I then saw my kitchen pantry door wide open and counted up one, two, three, four, five wire pantry shelves to find Guinness happily sitting 6+ feet up where the cat food storage container used to be. It was 2AM and I had a 6AM flight to catch, so I guess he wanted to make sure I didn’t forget to feed him his breakfast.
These days he is slow, a little hard of hearing, and his frame has become smaller and more fragile. He has small cell lymphoma which we’ve been able to manage well with a steroid and chemotherapy (cats handle chemo better than people do). He can’t jump like he used to, so I have pet stairs for him to get up onto our bed. He spends the majority of his days snuggling with Letty – who we call Nurse Letty because she seems to sense when her presence is a comfort. And every night I fall asleep with his warm little body curled up against my legs.
Nurse Letty & Guinness
I know our time together is more limited than it once was, and therefore the time I spend sitting with him, petting him, listening to him yell at me while he licks my face in the mornings – becomes the most special and enjoyable part of my day. The joy and happiness he – and Rugby – brought to my life over the years is a really big part of why we do what we do.
I want to help people find that special soul who meets them at the door when they get home each day, who they can snuggle with, cry with, and binge watch Bravo TV with. Because in doing that, I figure I can help others experience happiness and connection in a world that is often filled with sadness and pain.
Do you have a similar story with your own furry family member? Feel free to share in the comments section below!
If you’ve spent time with us at the cafe or followed alongside our journey on social media, then you’ve heard us talk about our big adoption goals – 500 adoptions by January 2020.
We’ve had 46 adoptions as of the date of this post, so we have a loooong way to go. Here’s the great news…
These 46 adoptions prove our concept works!
And what’s even cooler is that this number actually means that 52 cats have been saved. See, each cat adopted from Cat & Craft enables our rescue partner to save another life.
Let’s a have look at how this works…
The Cat Rescue Cycle
It is often said that rescue takes a village, and I can assure you there is a LOT of work that goes into transitioning cats from an at-risk situation and into a safe loving home.
Cat & Craft <> LYFF Rescue – Cat Rescue Cycle
STEP 1: LYFF Rescue Pulls Cats From Area Shelters
After pulling a new rescue, all of the behind-the-scenes work begins…
intake examinations
blood work
physical exams
spay/neutering if necessary
vaccinations
microchipping
specialty care
Once each cat is deemed healthy and ready for adoption, it’s time the next step…
STEP 2: Transfer into a temporary foster home.
Cats live with a LYFF Rescue foster volunteer for a period of around two weeks.
During this time they can learn whether the C&C cat lounge will be good fit and what kind of permanent home would be ideal for that particular cat (e.g. good with dogs, good with other cats, etc.).
If the cat shows signs they’d cohabitate well with other cats then they ‘graduate’ to the next step…
STEP 3: Welcome to the Cat & Craft foster lounge
In the Cat & Craft foster lounge, these cats get more exposure to people than they might in a traditional adoption setting or in an individual foster’s home – allowing for more opportunities for interactions.
Nemo struttn’ his stuff
It’s sort of like dating – the more people each cat interacts with, the more likely it is to find it’s forever family.
And given the cage-free layout of the foster lounge, the cat behaves more like they would at home – increasing the likelihood of a great match.
Then comes my favorite part…
STEP 4: Adoption to a ‘furrever’ home
When you see the pictures on our Instagram or Facebook pages with the blue cat background, most likely it’s an adoption pic like these:
Happy Tails!
Hopefully you can see now a better picture of all that happens to get these kitties into C&C and ultimately to a loving home.
So what can you do to help?…
LYFF Rescue needs temporary fosters
Adult cats just like those you see being adopted from Cat & Craft are sitting in shelter cages waiting for a savior every day and LYFF Rescue is ready and willing to be that savior – they need your help though.
LYFF Rescue needs temporary foster volunteers in order to help save more cats and transition them to C&C for adoption.
Here’s how foster volunteering works…
You provide space in your heart and home for a rescue cat.
LYFF Rescue provides you with all the supplies you need to care for your foster – food, toys, litter, etc…
After two weeks, your foster either graduates to the Cat & Craft foster lounge or goes to a more permanent foster.
Pretty easy right? Well if you think so, then here’s your next step..
Andrew and I had our first foster experience back in 2015, long before we ever arrived in California. I had considered it for years, often hearing how rescues desperately needed temporary homes for the animals they worked to save.
Back then it was easy for me to come up with excuses about why I couldn’t be a foster – we worked too much, we traveled too much, we already had three cats, etc.
Then one Fall a feral cat had kittens under our back porch.
Nursing pile of fuzzballs
I called every single rescue and shelter organization I could find expecting someone would come out and get the kittens and momma and put them into an adoption program.
Many of the organizations I contacted laughed at my naivety, and others took the time to explain how they had less than zero resources to help.
So if these animals were to have any chance at a better life, it was solely on Andrew and I to provide them with the option. While this specific situation involved trapping and handling all the veterinary care and adoptions on our own, it forced us into fostering and the realization that all my reasons for why I “couldn’t” were just excuses and my fear of the unknown.
We’ve since fostered cats and kittens in our home here in California. We’ve even “foster failed” in that we adopted one of our fosters from LYFF because we fell madly in love with her (I’m talking about Letty, our gorgeous tortie gal you’ve probably seen on my instagram).
Letty the circus tortie
And because we are crazy we then built a business where we could care for even more cats and help them find their happy endings!
I say all of this to tell you first hand how easy – and rewarding – it is to foster. You get to play a pivotal role in saving a life with almost zero commitment.
As I write this it’s International Women’s Day. Adopted as a global day of recognition by the United Nations in 1975, today people everywhere commemorate the inspiring role of women around the world and their work to secure women’s rights and build more equitable societies. In the world of cat cafes, there are LOTS of amazing female entrepreneurs who have made a commitment to provide a better life for the animals they work to find homes for. Do a quick scroll through of Instagram and you’ll lose count – Pounce, JavaCats, Crumbs & Whiskers, MacTabby, The Cats Meow, Cat Therapy, the list goes on and on. But behind the scenes there are also countless women involved with the various rescues and shelter organizations that are affiliated with these cafes.
“A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is a reality”.
Yoko Ono
Did you know our rescue partner LYFF is women founded and operated? If not I want to take a few minutes to tell you about them, because these ladies work 24/7 to save animals, and they don’t get paid a dime for the time and resources they dedicate towards caring for those who have no voice and at times cannot care for themselves. Their work extends far beyond the cat & kitten foster and adoption program you get a glimpse of by visiting and following us. So here they are in their own words.
Christine Hubbard – Founder
Christine Hubbard
“In April 2011, I decided to do something for the greater good in honor of my birthday. I decided to start volunteering at one of our local shelters. Boy did I not realize how that decision was going to change my life forever. From that day on I have been actively working to change the lives of feral cats. I had set many goals and had many dreams of what I wanted to see for our feral felines. We still have a ways to go but just in the past four years have made huge strides.
One of my dreams was that one day shelters would end the euthanasia of feral cats which came true at one shelter, and a goal was to get a TNR program started at the local shelter and that was achieved. I wanted to share my journey with all of you in hopes that people can see just one person CAN make a difference. Please take a stand and be the voice of our feral felines. Let’s take this journey together to change the lives of feral cats.”
Melissa Dunaj – Senior Director
Melissa
“I have been in animal welfare for close to 10 years, both working in vet offices as a vet assistant and multiple roles with local shelters. I found my calling with Love Your Feral Felines in June of 2017 and it feels like home! We are able to step in where the shelters aren’t able to.
We have big plans for our Cat & Kitten Foster & Adoption Program and will continue our life-saving work through our other, more developed programs as well. We learn something new everyday in rescue and we hope to continue to make a positive difference in the world.”
Then of course you have our amazing team of cat lounge hosts – Sydney, Jennifer, Ashleigh, Veronica, Shelley, Lanie, Kaelin + our rockstar manager Charlene and our rockstar baristas Delaney, Nikki, Hoyan and Katy. I’m going to talk more about them in future posts because I think each of you would enjoy knowing a bit more about the faces you see when you come visit us.
Bottom line of all this is each one of us all share in the dream that has become Cat & Craft. What Andrew and I gave physical form to would be nothing but an empty shell without the women (and men) who put in their time to help us all make a difference, because each believes wholeheartedly that together we can and will make a difference. It’s already happening… 44 cats – some of which had spent MONTHS in a shelter – have found their forever homes since we opened on January 12 2019.
With intention you too can do anything you put your mind and heart into. So I hope you will spend some time today celebrating you, and all the amazing women in your own life.
Time to knock the dust off the ol’ blog! And WOW… looking back at
our first 30 days in business and beyond that the final push to complete
construction and get our doors open by first of the year, SO much has
happened that should be celebrated.
Tuesday February 12th marked our 30th day in business, and in those
30 days we’ve had 30 adoptions! Can you believe it? We talk about
adoption all the time and it’s working – our supporters and the
community is stepping up and helping us make the difference we promised
we would spearhead.
We are so beyond grateful, but there is much more work to do and our
rescue partner has many, many more lives to save. Our goal is still 500
adoptions in our first calendar year, so there are 470 more souls that
we need to connect to their future fur-covered best friend!
Yesterday was also Valentine’s Day, and we had so much fun
celebrating love with our customers on this special day. The cats could
feel the good vibes too – the whole crew was out playing and snuggling!
Hello friends, happy almost Halloween! October has always been one of my favorite times of the year. The nights are getting cooler and I’m lucky to have a row of beautiful American Sweetgum “Liquid Amber” trees across the street from my house (spoiler, I can get really nerdy about trees)!
And because Halloween is approaching it’s almost time to pull out my favorite Halloween movie ever – Disney’s Hocus Pocus!
Earlier this year when I thought we would be open before Halloween, I had grand plans to show Hocus Pocus on repeat in the cat lounge while hosting Sanderson Sister and Black Cat costume contests. I even have a Disney official Black Flame candle (those of you who love the movie know what I’m talking about)!
All this said, I’ve just given you a huge sneak peek into what’s going down at Cat & Craft for Halloween 2019. 😜
For those of you who read our most recent newsletter we had some fun celebrating House Panthers… and wow we got so many emails from readers sharing pictures of their own adorable black cats!
I LOVE hearing stories from you about your feline family members and why you love them so… each one makes my heart do happy backflips. So to continue our celebration of black cats, here are a few adorable pictures we received!
Be sure to check out our social media in the coming weeks as we are making some fun progress with cafe construction. All is slowly but surely coming together!
