{"id":1984,"date":"2018-10-03T19:43:46","date_gmt":"2018-10-03T19:43:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.humanepa.org\/?p=1984"},"modified":"2018-11-05T17:36:42","modified_gmt":"2018-11-05T17:36:42","slug":"working-cats-a-solution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.humanepa.org\/?p=1984","title":{"rendered":"Cats: A Working Solution"},"content":{"rendered":"

While outcomes have improved dramatically for dogs over the past two decades in animal shelters across the country, there is still a crisis facing cats<\/strong>.\u00a0 Kittens have great outcomes in our region.\u00a0 Healthy, happy adult cats have pretty good outcomes in our region.\u00a0 But adult cats with behavioral issues and feral cats still face nearly universal death in shelters.<\/p>\n

Humane Pennsylvania has been attacking this life and death crisis for over 15 years. In the coming weeks we are going to be rolling out very major public expansions of two of our long running programs: Humane Pennsylvania\u2019s Free Roaming Cat Solutions<\/strong> and Working Cat<\/strong>\u00a0program.\u00a0 Today I want to share our expanded Working Cat program.<\/p>\n

Working Cat – Alternative Placement Program<\/h2>\n

\"\"Working Cats are cats which can\u2019t successfully be placed in a traditional home adoption setting but are candidates for non-traditional placements.\u00a0 These cats may have behavioral challenges such as having limited socialization (but not being \u201cfully\u201d feral) or have litter box issues.\u00a0 They are often wonderful cats that just don\u2019t particularly dig being hugged, or dig using the litter box as appropriate.<\/p>\n

As a result, their chances of being adopted are virtually zero.\u00a0 Blunt reality: adopters don\u2019t choose cats which will hide in a closet their entire lives and refuse to be petted, nor will they pick a cat which doesn\u2019t use a litter box.\u00a0 We can\u2019t blame people for making a choice to adopt a cat without these issues.\u00a0 With unlimited time and space, we might even be able to rehabilitate many of these cats in our shelter.<\/p>\n

But we don\u2019t have unlimited time and space.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That means these cats are almost certainly going to be euthanized in our shelter or some other shelter.\u00a0 But there is an alternative to death and that\u2019s an alternative placement.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Humane Pennsylvania has been partnering with businesses, commercial greenhouses, families with barns, and other locations where cats like this can have an alternative housing placement.\u00a0 These are places where they will be given shelter, supervised, fed, and provided with regular vaccinations and medical care as needed.\u00a0 It just isn\u2019t in a traditional home setting.<\/p>\n

These cats provide service in return:<\/h3>\n