This powerful community of practice conversation was kicked off by Claudia Otis (Founder and Executive Director, The Little Lion Foundation). Our discussion revealed that when it comes to supporting community cats and their caretakers, we face significant challenges, but we’re also getting better at working around them by working together.
A few creative solutions:
- The Paw Mission partnered with Tips and Whiskers to host TNR workshops, attracting 30 community members with 25 more signed up for upcoming Spanish-language sessions.
- Elk Grove Animal Shelter transported cats 45 miles when facing veterinary shortages, refusing to let obstacles stop their community’s readiness to help..
- Debra Olmedo’s team maximized limited clinic appointments through strategic trap training for caregivers.
- Pasadena Humane has developed alternative support systems for residents who want to access TNR care when direct involvement isn’t possible.
The conversation highlights our shared experiences and affirms that breaking down barriers by respecting and working across language or cultural difference is one crucial way to support more community cats and their caretakers. Whether we’re a municipal or nonprofit shelter or organization, a cat caregiver or cat-weary neighbor, collaboration and persistence can create better outcomes for people, cats, and wildlife in our shared communities.
Watch now if you’re ready to feel less alone in your challenges and uplifted by colleagues’ and community members’ determination and creative solutions.
[Get more community cat program strategies]
Related resources
- Fix the Future® and Spay/Neuter grants: Explore opportunities from the Bissel Pet Foundation.
- All Call on Meeting Kittens and People Where They Are: Debra Olmedo, ASPCA Community Outreach and Medical Care Senior Manager (Los Angeles), shares how working alongside community caretakers has increased the amount of felines being altered and kept out of Animal Care Centers.
- What Home Means for Cats: Dr. Kate Hurley and Monica Frenden-Tarant discuss why it’s best to return all cats to their homes, how to build community support, and why indiscriminate impoundment of cats is harmful to marginalized communities.
- Community cat messaging in English and Spanish: Find ready-to-grab messaging at our Sample Shelter Site. Translated materials that use jargon-free, everyday language are most effective. To help California shelters implement welcoming practices, Cal for All Animals is fully subsidizing Spanish translation services. Email Patitas y Palabras (pyptranslationservice@gmail.com) for more information.
Emily Wood pointed out that when we focus on building programs that are truly responsive to and representative of our communities, we not only gain partners in caring for animals; we rally a larger community to voice support for community cat programs:
Emily: “Having culturally competent interventions in the community, having staff that really are from the community and can speak to the community means that the people who come to the table at community meetings start to look more representative of the community and make your politicians listen in a different way. They’ve been listening to people who look like me scream about the cat in my backyard […] and they’ve learned to tune us out and with good reason. We’re not speaking for the whole community. And making spaces that are welcoming to everybody, too, I think is really important. So if your TNR crew looks like me, and somebody of color shows up to the clinic and […] is very uncomfortable looking for the one staff member who speaks a different language, are they likely to come back?”
Jamie Larsen reflected on lessons learned since the start of Sacramento SPCA’s community cat program, which has grown from serving 244 cats to 6,000 over the last 18 years:
Jamie: “One of the most important takeaways, I think, is really taking care of our staff, because sometimes community cat spay and neuter is a thankless game. The cats do not appreciate it, and are, you know, are not happy to be in traps, and sometimes the caretakers can have some frustrations, because, again, demand always exceeds capacity. […] And so reminding your teams and reiterating to your teams that the positive impact that they’re making every day in the lives of those cats and those caretakers is also important.
