Shelter to Home is a rescue group based in Wyandotte Michigan. It recently celebrated it's 5th anniversary and will soon open to the public a glorious Victorian House that will be home for several cats and dogs up for adoption as well as a Pet Adoption Center for fosters to bring in their animals to greet potential adopters. Working with a Shelter group has many intrinsic rewards. When we walk into the animal pound and have to look at all of those faces staring back at us, knowing that we can only choose so many to get out, it helps to understand a cat and it's behavior or personality in only a short amount of time.
This is Noah’s story. I went in to Allen Park Animal Control to pull my next fosters. I saw two gray tabbies huddled in the back of a cage. One was literally hiding behind the other and you could see the terror in his eyes. I was told that he was fairly feral and they weren’t sure he would be adoptable. His body language was one of extreme tension and anxiety, he held himself very rigidly. He exhibited the image of “if you put your hand in here, I will bite you”. I believed all of this until he made his mistake. He looked me right in the eyes. I spoke to him quietly through the cage and he closed his eyes ever so slightly which indicates trust. His partner who was in the front seemed much more outgoing. I wanted to pull them as I was certain Noah had potential.
Due to circumstances of a mom cat and her 5 young kittens being near their ‘last day’ I pulled them instead but could not get the tabbies out of my mind. I had them put on hold until I could make arrangements with a friend to foster them.
Noah and his “sister” Sara went to live with my friend and began socialization. I would go to visit them and quickly realized that Noah needed extra help. He would run and interact with my friends cats and actually seemed to love the Bichon that lived there, but displayed great tension with people when picked up (after having to follow him all around the house).
I called in some young teens to help with the situation. They were able to not only pick up the kittens more easily (they were 2 and 3 months at the time) but the kittens would soon relax with them. The key was that the teens were relaxed and the kittens emulated the same behavior. The female teen was holding Noah on her lap and he looked her right in the eyes at close range and I knew we had turned a corner. It wasn’t long from that point that the kittens began to interact with humans ever so slightly.
Once I had adopted out my kittens, I brought Noah and Sara to my house for “fine tuning” as I call it. Noah was not happy to be held and snuggled, Sara would do anything for treats. For weeks I would sit and pull both of them onto my lap and just pet them and eventually they got to a point where they would come up on laps of their own accord. When we had gotten to this benchmark I then let them loose in my house with my own cats and it was all on from there. They learned to run and play and climb on the cat climbers and seek out attention. I especially felt a great bond with Noah.
Both were adopted out just before Christmas and together. I recently got an update that they are “snugglers” which one would never have believed on that first day. It was very difficult to let them go to another home, but so rewarding knowing I had saved 8 cats that week and I was so grateful that Noah had shown me his potential with that one look.
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