We Have Moved into Our Terrific New Shelter!

We Have Moved into Our Terrific New Shelter!

Our New Location:

Northwoods Market Shopping Center

at the intersection of NW. Maynard and N. Harrison Avenue in Cary, NC!

Our public adoptathon hours are Fridays 3:00 pm to 6:00 pm and Saturdays noon to 4:00 pm.

Cat Angels Adoption Facility Update

We've recently announced that we are looking for a new facility because the lease on our current facility is ending. I wanted to give the correct and clear information on the situation with our lease.

We are in the fifth year of a five year lease on our current space. Our lease began when we opened our doors to the public on January 1st, 2007 and it ends on December 31st 2011.

We are in the sixth unit of a five-unit flex building. Our landlord runs his business out of the other five units. When we first started here our landlord was using four of the six units and leasing two of them out. When the tenant in the fifth unit's lease was up, about a year or so ago, our landlord expanded his business into that unit. So he is now using five of the six units for his business.

We asked to extend our lease and our landlord declined, for one simple reason: his business is still growing and he needs the space we are currently in, to grow into. We understand this. He needs to grow his business and so do we, as we are also a tight fit in our current space. It should be made clear that this is an amicable parting, and he has written us a letter of recommendation to use with prospective landlords in our search for new space, and has offered some flexibility on move out dates.

So now we are searching for a new facility. This is quite a challenge, both financially and logistically. Financially it's a challenge because a new facility will require expenditure for upfit and the rent will likely be higher as we are looking for a bigger space. Logistically it will be a challenge because of the nature of our business. We can't exactly store the cats in banker's boxes while we find and upfit a new place! We have to have a new place ready before we can move out of the old one. So even though it is currently more than seven months before the end of our lease, we are looking in earnest for new space.

We are working with a commercial broker and have seen a few spaces, none have yet hit the sweet spot of functionality and affordability but we are looking!

You can help by contributing to our building fund to help us upfit a new place. We'll start a full fledged capital campaign for this shortly. Currently we are trying to win a Pepsi Refresh grant to help us with this effort, to help with that see voting instructions and vote for us in the month of May.

Also if you know of good places that are available in Cary or in the parts of Apex that are close to Cary, please let us know by email to catangels@gmail.com. We need at least 2500 square feet (hopefully more) with multiple rooms/offices and as much plumbing as possible (we would like to have a sink in every cat room in our new place). Ideal locations are probably former medical or veterinary spaces.

Rescue Math, or why we probably can't take in the cat you emailed us about

Like all no-kill rescues, Cat Angels gets many requests to take in animals. It is important for people requesting us, or any other rescue group, to take in animals to understand some basics about how no-kill rescues work and what the limits are.

All no-kill rescues have a maximum capacity. This maximum capacity is determined by many things including financial resources to care for animals, foster space for foster groups, or space in the facility for a group with a shelter facility. Shelter facilities, like Cat Angels, are licensed by the NC Department of Agriculture. This license sets limits on how many cats we can have in our facility. Like all other rescues, we operate full all the time because we don't want to turn any away if we can help.

This means we do not have open space available waiting for someone to email us to take one or more cats. We have to adopt out a cat to make room for a new cat. In other words, in a given year, intakes cannot exceed adoptions.

What do those limits look like in the real world? On average Cat Angels adopts out approximately 175 cats per year. This averages out to roughly one adoption every other day. It's important to note that this is an average over a year and that adoptions fluctuate. In some months, especially summer months, adoptions are extremely slow and there may be only 5-10 adoptions in some months.

By contrast we get 2-5 requests to take in animals every single day. Many of those requests are for more than one cat as well.

So over an average week we will adopt out 3-4 cats and people will request that we take in 15 or more. You can see that these numbers don't work and we can't take in the vast majority of cats that people ask us to help with.

What about a waiting list? You can see from the above numbers that if we put everyone that we couldn't help onto a waiting list, it would grow by over 10 cats a week or over 500 cats after a year. This is unmanagable and there would be no realistic prospect of animals on the list getting in any time soon. Other groups may have waiting lists, but most of them close their lists when they reach a maximum size.

All the no-kill rescues are in the same situation. Some may have more capacity than others and some may have foster networks and therefore might be able to help if you are willing to foster the animal until it is adopted (note that Cat Angels is not a foster organization and so we can't offer that). However the simple truth is that there is no spare no-kill capacity out there to take in cats that people want to get rid of quickly.

This is why it is critically important for people with "problem" cats to work to solve those problems instead of get rid of them. And people who find strays need to work to find their homes or rehome them themselves.

Rehoming cats or kittens that you found or can't keep

It is possible for you to find a place for a cat you can't keep or a stray that you have found following this advice. It isn't necessarily easy, but it is extremely rewarding to know you are responsible for making a cat safe and happy.

First, if the cat is a stray and you can take it inside, that is a very important step. This way, you know that you can access the cat to get it to an adopter, you know the cat is being fed and has access to water, and you know it's safe from predators, poison, traffic, and other outside dangers. The cat does not need full run of your house - just a single room with food, water and litter box. Cats instinctively use a litter box after about five weeks of age, so you do not need to teach the cat to use it.

If this is a stray, take it by a local vet to have it scanned for a microchip. If they have one, you can have the company the microchip is registered with call the owners and you're done!

If the cat does not have a microchip, you may want to get the cat vaccinated for rabies while you are there. The microchip scan should be free, though the rabies shot will not be. Check online for lost cat postings. Post your own "found cat" posting.

You'll need appealing photos of the cats. Try this in natural light so that you don't have to use your camera flash, and get on the cat's eye level. When you have these photos, you can make adoption flyers, specifying the details about the cat and his/her personality. These flyers should have hang tags specifying the cat's name and your phone number for people to rip off. Place them at every vet office in your area. Most of them have a bulletin board of some kind and if they don't, some have books you can put the flyers in.

Petfinder.com will allow you to post pictures and descriptions of your cats and kittens for free!

Go to Petfinder.com, Click on "Classifieds" and follow the directions to place "Post Free Pet Classifieds". Be sure to use a good picture and write a good description.

You can post the flyers other places as well - anywhere there is a public bulletin board, like at Petsmart, grocery stores, etc. Tell everyone you see in your daily life that you have a cat for adoption - at the dry cleaners, at the grocery store, at the bank, at work, etc. The more people you tell, the more chance you'll encounter the right home for him/her.

Be very careful about advertising to the general public, like in the newspaper or Craigslist. People looking for cats as bait for dog fights, etc. try to get animals from there, so be sure to do some research on the people interested in the cats, such as a vet check or a home ownership check.

This sounds like a lot, but you can do it. A rescue has many cats to find homes for, but you are likely to have only one or two. That focused energy can yield quick results. There is nothing like the feeling of knowing you did the right thing to help an animal. Hang in there - you can do it!

Yard Sale Assistants

Yard Sale Assistants

Cat Care - Wednesday Mornings

Cat Care - Wednesday Mornings

Cat Care - Wednesday Evenings

Cat Care - Wednesday Evenings