The last two weeks I’ve talked a lot about what some of the cats in our foster care experienced prior to coming to us, (you can check out those posts here and here) and all the behind-the-scenes work that LYFF Rescue volunteers put in to get the cats to us.
So this week I want to highlight some adoption success stories, with the hope of course that this becomes an ongoing series!
If you’ve visited us in the past few months you are sure to remember some of these star players – who are now living the high life with their forever families thanks to YOUR support!
SODAPOP
Sodapop living the dream
“She is now feeling like home is home. She is getting along with our 2 rabbits. The master bedroom is her territory, along with the rest of the house.
She sleeps between my legs so I can’t roll over, and doesn’t care. She loves laying flat on her back and sleeping. She goes almost too crazy for the red laser toy.
Sleeping on her back is like a venus fly trap though. All I want to do is pet that fluff, but it most likely will hit the trigger and she attacks the hand. That soft belly is worth the gamble though because sometimes she loves the belly pets.
Sodapop has such weirdness, sometimes she prefers to play with the tail of the catnip toy as opposed to the actual catnip part!”
~ Sodapop’s family
ENDOR
Endor ready for nap time
“He is doing amazing! His name is Pete now 😁 We love him so much. Seriously the sweetest cat I have ever had. He is a snuggle bug. He wakes me up every morning at 5am by kissing my nose. Follows me around like a puppy all day long.
At about 11AM he cries for me to basically put him to sleep. He likes to be scratched until he falls asleep on my bed for the day. We couldn’t be more happy for such an amazing cat.”
~ Endor’s family
SPACE BEAR
Spacebear relaxing in his new digs
“He’s wonderful! He has bonded with my other male cat, Ziggy. And he loves our two girls. He likes to wake me up for cuddles!”
Space Bear’s family
COPPER
Copper keepin’ it casual.
“He is doing great!
We’ve given him the nickname Mr. Muffins because every time he gets all loved up he makes muffins 😂 . He’s been doing great during the day when he’s home alone!
The only toys he really loves are the puzzle treat dispenser (he’s very food oriented) and the laser. But he loves to lay on anything soft and make muffins. And he sleeps with me and my husband every night.
All in all me and my husband are so happy to have him and he’s a great addition to our family!”
Copper’s family
ROSIE
Rosie keeping the blanket from flying away.
“We love her so much! She’s done amazing!! So spoiled and loved. She’s a happy happy girl, seriously the BEST cat we’ve ever had.
She’s family! Like she always belonged. And she knows it too “
If you follow the many amazing rescues organizations of San Diego (or elsewhere) on social media you are well aware there are a lot of urgent and sad situations they deal with every day.
Early on Andrew and I made the decision that we would keep our environment and our social media feeds strictly a place of happy and inspiring content – because let’s face it there is a lot of dark in the world right now.
Any little bit we can do to brighten someone’s day we believe is ultimately in the best interest of the cats we are trying to place in happy forever homes.
That said, I also believe it’s important to understand a bit about what goes on behind the “happy cozy” cat cafe scene – specifically what sort of situations the animals we all work together to help have encountered before coming to our foster environment.
Which brings me to Danny….
Beautiful Dani
Dani is a beautiful 3 year old orange tabby gal. However her story – as far back as we know it – had a difficult start.
Dani – then called “Danny” somehow ended up at a high-kill shelter, ill and rapidly declining in that environment. Thanks to hard working volunteers who work with shelters to network for cats they believe can be saved, someone put an urgent plea out for her…
This is the actual post…
She’s not meowing in this photo, she can’t breathe due to a really bad upper respiratory infection. Not much different than when an infant has a bad head cold.
Luckily she was pulled into foster thanks to the plea for help.
Once in foster, it still took this poor gal over 8 weeks to get healthy enough to be fit for adoption.
And then she came to us at Cat & Craft.
Now she’s known as “Dani” – same sound but a new name for a new start. And as you can see her shadow days are far behind her.
Dani paying the love forward to lil’ Richie
The truly happy ending to her story will be when her forever family comes in and decides to adopt her! But she’s well on her way to a wonderful life from here on out.
Wait wait wait… freeze frame. Before I get into that…
First meet Rocko. Rocko is as awesome as awesome comes.
But his journey has been a tough one…
This is how Rocko looked when our cat rescue partner, LYFF Rescue, rescued him from an animal shelter on January 29, 2019.
He was on death watch due to an undetermined “eye injury” which was later determined to be chemical burns to both eyes. (Likely intentional given placement of the injury.)
The shelter who received him did not have the resources to treat him – not even with pain medication.
LYFF Rescue stepped in and sent out an APB asking for monetary commitments so that they could commit to the treatment they knew could save this cat and give him an awesome future.
A generous anonymous donor stepped in and Rocko went to a volunteer foster home for continued treatment – progressing to this…
Rocko on the mend!
Once he was fully healed, good ol’ Rocko moved into the Cat & Craft Cat Lounge and started livin’ large…
Then on May 13, 2019 his forever momma who came in for her Cat Lounge reservation, applied for and was approved by LYFF Rescue to Rocko him home to his brand new life!
I often have to remind myself that the “cat cafe” concept – while present around the world – is still not a universally known thing…
I sometimes overhear first-time visitors ask why we have cats and why we charge a fee to spend time with the cats.
It’s sometimes a challenge to communicate correctly, especially when there are a lot of elements competing for our modern-day short attention spans!
If you found this blog and are taking the time to read it, I realize you are probably onboard with the whole “cat cafe” concept…so that’s why I’m going to ask for your help!
Do you know someone who has heard of us (or any cat cafe) but hasn’t visited? Or maybe you have friends or family members that love animals, but have never had a cat as a pet before?
…OR maybe you know someone who deep down is destined to become a crazy cat lady or cat man, and you know all they need is a little coaxing!
“Come over to the dark side… it’s furry and purry here!”
If you answered “Yes” to any of these questions, please read on and use this info as a tool to help us grow our community and save more lives!
Here’s the deal… just like Rocko, every cat in our care was saved from euthanasia.
You read that right…
Every single cat we have cared for at C&C since our January opening was pulled from something referred to as “death watch” in the rescue/shelter world. This means the cat was marked for euthanasia by the shelter and assigned a timeline for changing/appealing that decision.
Euthanasia assignments can be based on a number of things – behavioral issues, medical issues, or simply a lack of space.
Some behavioral issues are easily addressed with time and attention. Some medical issues are easily (or not so easily) addressed with treatment and dedicated care. And when it comes to a lack of space, resources are finite and when an adult or senior cat is taking up cage space with no one showing interest in adopting it time can simply run out.
We exist to give these cats another chance.
I like to think of our space as a spoke in a wheel. Each spoke serves a purpose that helps the wheel to turn, and the wheel in turn to carry forth an objective. Shelters, rescue organizations, individual volunteers and cat cafes are all spokes in a wheel, and all work together to give companion cats a higher quality of life and a second chance at love.
We are extremely lucky to work with a non-profit rescue organization that is willing to take on the hard cases – and sometimes expensive cases – to help as many cats as they can. But a rescue can only commit to saving a cat if they know they will have the resources to care for it and help it get adopted. This is where we come in.
Each cat adopted from Cat & Craft enables LYFF Rescue to save another life.
We work really hard to give our foster cats a safe, comfortable and cozy environment where they get plenty of love and attention. But we are no substitute for a family and a home to call one’s own. And worse, the longer current fosters reside with us, other cats are stuck living in cages and missing their chance to be saved due to a lack of available foster space.
Operating a foster cat lounge isn’t free… or cheap.
In a perfect world committing to help improve the lives of others would be a free endeavor. Sadly we don’t live in a perfect world. We have to pay additional monthly rent for our cat lounge space. Additional monthly power and insurance bills too. Staff costs to feed and clean up after 15 cats every day? That’s an additional monthly expense too. Cat litter… I won’t get into how much cat litter we go through.
By additional I mean all these costs are added to our costs to operate a coffee shop. And the coffee shop is the vehicle by which we attract and encourage people to come spend time with – and hopefully adopt – our foster cats.
So on the rare occasion I hear someone make a comment that they shouldn’t have to pay $12 to hang out with cats, I don’t disagree.
I tell them if they can convince my landlord to stop charging me rent, and SDGE to waive my power bills, and AllState to give me free insurance, and help me win the lottery so I can pay our staff so they can buy gas to get to work, then I am beyond happy to waive their $12 lounge fee!
In all seriousness, what I’m getting at is that we are invested in providing the platform and experience that we know will help the 500 cats we are trying to save in our first year of business, and even more beyond that. But like any small business we depend on the community to support us. And that is where you come in.
Even just choosing to make us your daily or weekly coffee shop helps… truly it does. But spending time with the cats in our care… helping us share their stories and encouraging others to do the same… that’s how you can help us weave something truly magical!
If you didn’t see Andrew and I at Cat & Craft this past week, it’s because we stepped away for some much needed rest and relaxation.
This would not have been possible if not for our super staff and rescue partner keeping everything running like clockwork while we were away.
During our travels we got to spend time with family on the Big Island of Hawaii. As some of you know, the majority of our family resides on the east coast (where we moved here from). However Andrew’s cousin moved his wife and kids to Big Island a few years ago, and as you can imagine that’s a longer flight than most Georgia and Tennessee residents choose to make.
But now that we are in California (and thanks to Southwest causing all the Hawaii bound flight prices to drop) we decided to go say aloha!
Here’s the cool part and why I’m even getting into this on the blog
Long story short – we arrive to meet cousins that Andrew hasn’t seen in years (and that I’ve never even met) and quickly discover that cat obsessions run in our family more than we knew!
“Are they ‘cat people’… or are they just people who have cats?”
We learned that the Hawaiian islands have a disproportionate number of feral and stray cat colonies given there are very few natural predators, and cats are not a native species (I’m intentionally avoiding the “invasive species” debate here though I can see and understand both sides of the argument in this regard).
Add to the equation large areas without access to affordable spay/neutering programs and it’s easy to understand why there are so many cats.
Much like here on the mainland, many folks don’t understand how feral and stray cat communities operate and deem them to be a nuisance.
Without education, the default solution too often involves the topic of extermination. But thanks to dedicated non-profit organizations and volunteers (like our family members) some really pawsitive changes are being made – such as enrolling area resorts into TNR programs and cat colony monitoring programs.
Along for the ride
Our cousin loads the back of the family minivan with 4 large bags of dry food and 8 reusable plastic tubs of pre-portioned wet food the evening before his 6AM volunteer feeding round.
We rode along with him to meet the three colonies he cares for at a golf resort on the western side of the island, and got to see a lot of very well-cared for ear-tipped stray and feral kitties, as well as a few mongoose – the equivalent of what us mainland caretakers encounter when it comes to racoons!
Quick Clip #1 – Big Island Cat Colony Volunteering
He explained to use that these three specific colonies now have a team of monitoring volunteers in place solely because of one awesome woman who has been caring for them for YEARS.
Quick Clip #2 – Big Island Cat Colony Volunteering
She started TNR on her own – as many do – and later recruited volunteers to help her with feedings. All cats in the colonies are now spayed/neutered, and if a new cat shows up or one falls ill, she traps them and gets them to the vet.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to meet her, but if you follow any cat rescue account on Instagram (@the_original_trapking, @catmanofwestoakland, @kittenxlady, @paulthecatguy, @catmanchrispoole) then you’ll quickly discover a small army of individuals all over the world who chose to get involved and be the change they want to see in the world, rather than stand idly by to let animals suffer – or worst be exterminated.
So how is this relevant to Cat & Craft?
My hope is by sharing this story and photos with you, it might open your eyes to another way you too can help cats.
Andrew and I initially met our rescue partner because we chose to volunteer as community cat caretakers in Carlsbad long before we opened Cat & Craft.
While we paused on our community feedings in order to open the cat cafe, it’s most certainly work we will return to. Most non-profits – including our partner LYFF – provide all the food and supplies.
All it requires from you is a little bit of your time on a regular basis… and you’ll soon be rewarded by cats who recognize you, wait for you, and live a happier and healthier existence because of you.
If you’re interested in getting started with volunteering, click here to visit LYFF Rescue’s volunteer page. They have lots of different ways that you can help – even being a temporary foster for cats who will end up at C&C!
I’ve been introducing you to our team members every other week (if you missed out, check out part 1 and part 2), because they are hugely important to the success of our mission here at Cat & Craft.
So, without further ado…
Delaney – Barista
Delaney was one of our very first barista applicants.
We were conducting interviews in a construction zone – with no bar counter, no bean grinders, no espresso machine and no POS.
Delaney walked in for her scheduled interview and announced that this was her dream job, gave us a speech about how much she loves cats and coffee and wanted to help homeless cats get adopted. Her interview strategy worked because we pretty much hired her on the spot!
Delaney with her signature cat ear beanie!
And just this past weekend, she became the 6th Cat & Craft employee to adopt from our cat lounge Delaney is now the proud new momma of little baby girl Smores!
Delaney holding her new kitty, baby S’mores
Lanie – Cat Lounge Host
Lanie is one of our awesome cat lounge hosts, and has the honor of being our tallest staff member (which really comes in handy when we have to retrieve a cat from the wall shelves LOL!)
Lanie LOVES cats, the cats LOVE her, and she’s another one of our adopters too – her husband and two daughters decided to surprise her by adopting her favorite C & C lounge cat – Gomez – while she was away on vacation.
Lanie’s family secretly adopting Gomez!
Always smiling, cleaning and cuddling our furkids, Lanie is such an important part of our team – we are thankful to have her in the family!
