I am a catless catlover living in NYC. For the past several years I have been visiting my friend who lives in Fargo, ND. She likes to volunteer and for the past couple of years she has been volunteering at a place called Minn-Kota PAAWS (People Advocating Animal Welfare Services at paawsproject.org) which spays and neuters feral and companion cats and some dogs so as to reduce the number of unwanted litters. This August I was in Fargo for two weeks and we spent several days working at PAAWS, working an average of seven to eight hours.
PAAWS was started by a catlover named Lori Magelky who despaired of all the excess cats she knew were being euthanized at the local pound and wanted to do something about it. It began in one room on a shoestring budget and now it’s in five rooms in a warehouse with operating days two to three times a week.
Being catless I was in cat heaven. Cats, especially Beauty, the resident cat, would rush out to greet us and check us out when we arrived at 7:30 in the morning. Others would come by for a bit of petting and the rest would stay in their safe places. All, at some point, had been feral cats, living on the streets so to speak, until caught and brought to PAAWS. Some will find homes and the ones too untamable have been neutered and will be released.
At PAAWS there is an office/recovery room, an OR, a room where the adult cats awaiting adoption or release are kept and the last two rooms are occupied by adorable kittens which makes the all that work worthwhile.
The adult cats are in a room with lots of shelves for them to climb on, many set high enough so they feel secure and can keep an eye on us. However others just love to have visitors and beg to be petted and scritched — they so need forever homes with their own humans to take care of them. While waiting for that day they are not kept in cages but are free to move about their room and even the office when the patients have left (of course there are cages for newly brought in or sick cats until they are ready to join the general population).
All photos copyright 2008 by S.H. Jacobsen
Read Volunteer Vacations, part ii, and Volunteer Vacations, part iii. (Links will work once post is published.)
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There’s more to choosing a cat with The Way of Cats than the article you are reading now. See my CHOOSING A CAT.
