Breaking the Cycle of Cat Homelessness – One Cat at a Time

By a significant margin, cats are the animals we support the most at the OHS. Last year alone, we took in more than 3,500 cats and kittens, from strays found lost and alone, to cats surrendered by people who made the heartbreaking yet compassionate decision that they could no longer care for them, to feral cats who can’t live in typical home with people.

Preventing cat homelessness is the focus of much of our work for felines, which takes shape in our commitment to spaying/neutering every cat before adoption, increasing access to affordable spay/neuter services for families who otherwise couldn’t afford it, and working with feral cat colony caretakers to sterilize and vaccinate cats in their care.

Just as important as offering these essential services is increasing awareness and understanding in the community of challenges facing cats and how a single person can make a difference. This week, we ran our very own Cat Awareness Week and shared essential education about cats in Ottawa and how everyone can be involved in making a more compassionate future possible for our community’s cats.

Today is also National Feral Cat Day and one of the big reasons behind this week of education. Feral cats are cats who have lived most of their life outdoors, avoiding people and using their instincts to hunt and survive. On top of offering more sterilization appointments to colony caretakers, we also got teens involved in building shelter boxes for feral cats for the coming winter. These boxes are already being put to use, and the workshop was a great opportunity to connect young people with the joy and fulfillment of doing good for animals.