Making the World A Better Place Step by Step : Ferndale Cat Shelter

By Mary Meldrum

Deanne Iovan has been a volunteer for over a year at Ferndale’s Cat Shelter. Unlike other animal shelters, this one has no real brick-and-mortar address. The Cat Shelter in Ferndale relies on brisk adoption and wonderful foster homes to take in the cats that it accepts. Along with this support, the Cat Shelter recently opened the Catfe Lounge on Livernois in Ferndale.

The Catfe Lounge is a brick-and-mortar location – actually a large room – where cats, kittens and humans can enjoy each other’s company. Coffee, tea and juice are offered and donations are very welcome here, in this immersive experience of feline and human energy. Deanne explains that the Catfe Lounge was the easiest and least expensive way to give cats exposure to humans and other cats. The socialization is important and works for the most part. Cats learn to tolerate each other and human interaction, and humans can come and really get to know a cat or kitten before deciding to adopt.

There are a few couches, chairs and tables, but the overall focus of the place is geared for the cat’s experience, with beds, ladders, toys, cat playscapes and bowls of food and water scattered about the room. This nonprofit organization has grown a lot over the last year, and the original thought was to build out the Catfe Lounge to include a larger coffee shop and an actual shelter so they could care for more cats. Over time, the Cat Shelter saw that the physical space of the Lounge has been good for the community and good for the cats. While they are still in need of an actual shelter for new quarantines, and kittens and mother cats, the Catfe Lounge has become a home for many kittens and cats while they wait to be adopted, and they wander about at their leisure.

The Cat Shelter recently took in over 50 cats and kittens from a hoarding situation. Cats were locked in a damp, hot basement in cages of a home. Many of the animals were sick and would have been euthanized if given to other rescues. Ferndale’s Cat Shelter is a no-kill shelter, and they scooped up all the kitties they could, calling on several of their veterinarian supporters to help with the initial care of the cats. The local veterinarians stepped up and helped care for the cats that needed medical attention. They are waiting patiently since these vets accepted the fact that the Cat Shelter would have to make payments in order to make good on their vet bills.

Now almost $10 thousand dollars in debt from this rescue of 50 cats, they need your help. To make a donation, please go to: www.youcaring.com/FCSmedical

The Cat Shelter has a goal to get a shelter space in the next year. In order to make that goal, they could use help in other areas, such as more volunteers, more fosters, donations of wet and dry kitten food and KMR (kitten milk substitute), cleaning supplies and of course more money. And if anyone has a building or space that they could donate for the shelter, please get in touch with the Cat Shelter.
The Cat Shelter and Deanne would like to extend a special thank you to Liz Blondy, owner of Canine to Five in Ferndale on Nine Mile, for providing much-needed space during the three weeks that the Cat Shelter was rescuing the 50 kittens and cats. Without their own facility, the Ferndale Cat Shelter would not have been able to save all the animals without a place to quarantine and organize the cats and cages that came out of that basement.