Monday, April 13, 2009
Programs find 'careers,' homes for adoptable cats
NONA NELSON The Roanoke Times
Princess Fe Fe greets customer Scott Muir at the Birkenstock shoe store near Valley View Mall. The cat was adopted by the store as part of Angels of Assisi's MasCAT program.
NONA NELSON The Roanoke Times
Princess Fe Fe is the mascot at Birkenstock shoe store.
Open the door at Birkenstock near Valley View Mall and the store's official greeter will probably rub her chin on your pants as she wraps herself around your leg.
That is unless she's asleep among the shopping bags.
She was originally named Freida, but she's Princess Fe Fe now. Her Royal Highness was once a homeless cat, but since she arrived at the shoe store in January, she's now a beloved member of staff.
"Everyone loves her," said Christi Page, the store's manager. "She greets everybody at the door and she never bothers anything."
The trim black-and-white kitty found a home at Birkenstock through the MasCAT program, one of two unorthodox plans for placing adoptable cats from Angels of Assisi, a no-kill animal shelter in downtown Roanoke.
The MasCAT program finds businesses willing to foster or adopt socially skilled felines like Fe Fe. The hope is that, if the kitty isn't permanently adopted by the business, he or she will meet potential adopters among the customers.
Angels' other feline placement program is Barn Cat Buddies, where friendly and semi-feral cats are permanently placed on farms, warehouses or garden centers, where they act as "rodent control technicians," according to the program's volunteer director, Diane Novak.
"Barn Cat Buddies will mouse for food," Novak said.
She founded both programs as a way to place some of the shelter's long-term feline residents. So far more than 90 cats have found jobs as Barn Cat Buddies, and two have become business MasCATs.
All the cats have been spayed or neutered and are current on vaccines before they are placed. Potential adopters are screened and Novak said the cats are personality-tested to make the best match with prospective "employers."
The barn cats are usually adopted in pairs, because Novak said the cats typically adapt better to a new setting when they are placed with a familiar feline.
But single kitties have also been placed through the BCB program.
After a lengthy search for the perfect cat, Robert Matzuga, co-owner of the Diamond Hill Garden Center in Moneta, found Woody last month and adopted him through the Barn Cat Buddy program.
The gray-and-white tabby is now "vice president of public relations" for the garden center.
"He's the main man," Matzuga said.
Linda Fultz, a clerk at Diamond Hill, said Woody has been great with customers. "He's adjusted very well," she said. "He's very smart."
Matzuga said the cat has already started patrolling the grounds to perform his crucial role as garden center security guard.
"He's on vole patrol," Matzuga said. "He's already actively looking and searching."
The majority of barn cats have thrived in their new jobs, Novak said. She has sent cats to live in barns as far away as Wythe County. Only three cats have decided they weren't cut out for the work and abandoned their posts.
Though Novak isn't shy about promoting the program, the unfortunate consequence is that she usually gets calls not from potential adopters, but from people wanting to her to take unwanted kitties.
There is never a shortage, she said, of cats that need a place to live and work.
"The biggest challenge," she said, "is having a reserve of barns, warehouses, plants and nurseries to take them."
Nona Nelson's column runs every other Monday in Extra.
