Picture this. You’re a cute little boy kitten, rambunctious and playful. For whatever reason, you play too hard, you don’t “get along” with the other cats or dogs, you go outside the box because someone chases you away, so you end up outside, fending for yourself.

Your hormones kick in. Intact male cats are hardwired to procreate, just like intact females. It’s not exactly a love story, as there isn’t a lot of consent involved with everyone compelled to mate over and over until the females get pregnant. An intact male will be forced by his hormones to travel up to 3 square miles if he scents an intact female; he has no choice. Neither does he always choose the fights that arise from having many intact males vying for females, or the abuse they both can receive from humans who don’t like their behavior.

Keep in mind that most of this is perfectly preventable with neutering or spaying, as most fixed cats don’t act like this once those hormones go away.

FIV is transmitted through mating and deep wounds, both of which are likely to happen with this less-than-pretty process, both to males and to females. While occasional fighting may occur with neutered cats, it’s nothing like that of intact cats who are competing for resources, whether food or mating partners.

So here you are, a young male cat, showing up in line for an intact lady cat. You’re very likely to get beat up in the process, even if you are a scrapper, like little Rambo here. If you’re not, you’re even more likely to get FIV from losing those battles.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that recent research tells us cats who are positive for this virus have just as good a chance of living the same number of years as non-FIV cats, especially with good veterinary care. If the cat is one of the sweet ones who got beat up getting the disease, as most of them are, it’s also been proven that they can live happily with other cats and not transmit the disease, unless there’s serious fighting in the home.

Because of this, we are taking in a limited number of FIV+ cats as long as we have room in foster care for them. We will test them twice to make sure they have FIV, as well as provide a blood panel for their baseline health.

As best we can, we will also test for temperament to see if they are cats we can recommend as getting along with other cats.

Most vets will recommend twice yearly checkups to make sure they are in good health, with special attention paid to dental issues and quickly treating any infections, as their immune systems don’t work quite as well as their non-FIV friends. They also recommend annual testing of any cats housed with an FIV+ cat to be sure about their status too.

Rambo, Columbo, Sasha and Stormy are already adopted, but we think you’ll find that our other FIV+ cats are some of the most lovable and sweet cats in the world!

Coming to a shelter is probably one of the scariest things that can happen to a cat, even at Happy Cats! They have been stripped of everything they know and love and find themselves with very little that is familiar, (except for the bedding, toys and food that we ask they be brought with).

Imagine bringing your own sweet and loving cat to a conventional shelter, alongside any completely unsocialized, feral community cat. Research proves that, in the first several days, even the best cat expert won’t be able to tell them apart. Both will probably be either cowering or frozen in fear, overwhelmed by the new sights, sounds and smells of their new situation that contrasts so starkly with what they knew as home. There’s a big risk in conventional shelters for turning adoptable cats into unadoptable ones.

Since we opened in 2011, Happy Cats Haven has been committed to reducing the fear in our shelter cats to get them–and keep them!–more adoptable. It’s all about making the cats feel safe.

Even before they come in, we teach people how to transport their cats and even give away a carrier cover with every adoption to make them feel safer. We teach our staff and volunteers to be respectful of cats’ needs when handling them, which can be very feline specific. When they are less afraid, their stress goes down. When their stress is down, they stay healthier. It also increases their confidence, and when that happens, we have happy, healthy cats for adoption!

Happy Cats Haven is now officially Fear Free Certified. This is a program that was recently started to make sure that the emotional well-being of pets is taken care of, along with their health. Three members of the Happy Cats team are certified in Fear Free Handling and we teach it to all of our staff and volunteers. This is an expansion of what we’ve taught all along, honing our skills and helping us to better care for our cats.

Fear Free Pets now offers support for all pet owners on their Fear Free Happy Homes site. Like our own website, they have lots of great resources and videos for simple ways to keep your own cat happy, both emotionally and physically.

We’re very proud to be a part of this great program, which we hope will help cat guardians everywhere to keep cats in their homes! Enjoy this great video on Cat Body Language, which we use to teach our own volunteers about how to better communicate with all cats.

Cats are getting fatter. About 1 in 5 cats were obese 25 years ago. Now that number is almost 1 in 3. While they’ve gotten safer in the last 20 years, the typical indoor cat is bored, overweight and at risk for disease and early death.

Most dog owners know they need to walk their dogs daily. We cat guardians also need to build in daily play sessions to keep our cats healthy.

Play therapy can give cats the best of both worlds, a safe cat that is healthy mentally and physically. It’s also a fun way to strengthen the bond with your cats.

Plus play relieves boredom, improves circulation, prevents disease, builds muscle tone and can prevent or reduce behaviors that are undesirable.

Your cat’s natural instinct to hunt for prey can be turned into playtime. A good play therapy session should include:

 

• A cue to initiate the session
• 7-10 minutes of active play
• Limited distractions from other humans or animals
• Using a toy, not your hands or feet
• Using the toy to simulate the movements of prey
• Safe surfaces for the cat to jump, run and land
• Letting the cat catch the toy near the end of the session
• Feeding a healthy protein treat to complete the hunting sequence and end the session
• Hiding the toy when you’re finished and rotating hidden toys

Your cat will probably get bored quickly with any toy that just sits there. Who wouldn’t? Your best investment is a toy that has you on the other end of it, making playtime a partnership full of surprises. The more you play with your cat, the more your cat will want to play.

You can make your own cat toys from common materials or buy commercial ones that appeal to your cat. Experiment with different motions that imitate the movements that attract cats in nature.

You might have a cat who likes bird motions with fluttering, swooping air dynamics or you might find that scurrying a toy across the floor and hiding under furniture excites the cat’s hunting/playing instincts. Some cats like lots of rapid motion; others will be intimidated by so much activity.

Test your cat’s reaction to the following and find a few that will get your feline raring to play. We recommend and use the following toys for all our cats.

WAND TOYS: Cat Catcher, Cat Dancer, Da Bird, fishing pole designs, peacock feathers, string-on-a-stick

The idea is to find or make something that allows you to excite your cat’s hunting instincts when you wave, flutter, twitch, or circle the toy. You can get big movements and keep your hands away from the hunting cat.

If your cat isn’t going after a string toy, try snipping off the toy on the end, leaving the string. Almost all cats love a string.

Remember to put the wand away out of sight after playtime. This will keep the cat excited about the play sessions. It also keeps you a critical part of the sessions and builds your relationship. Check toys for loose parts that might be harmful if swallowed and replace as needed.

BALL TOYS: wadded-up paper, Mylar crinkle, ping-pongs, sponges, felted balls, large pom-poms

The movement of a ball along the floor mimics the scampering of small prey animals. Many cats like to bat, kick, bite, drop, and carry these toys. You can increase the attraction with balls that have bells, treats or catnip inside to stimulate the play. Some cats will learn to bounce the balls into a basket, play soccer in the tub or play fetch with you and the ball. These toys should also be rotated to keep them interesting.

TIPS
Watch the signals
Play at your cat’s pace and watch the body language so you don’t overexcite the cat. If a cat gets too worked up, he or she could redirect their energy towards your hands or feet or another cat. Encourage play but be ready to take a break if things get too wild.

Don’t use your hands
If you use your hands to play with your cat you are teaching them to treat you as prey, so scratches and bites are likely to occur. You may think you can control the level of excitement but it is unfair to ask your cat to know the difference between play and affection.

You could be putting yourself, your cat and other humans at risk by teaching them to “attack” hands. Many cats end up in shelters because they were encouraged as kittens to bite hands or feet.

Pick a good time
Try to schedule playtime with your cat both in the morning and evening to find out when your cat is most receptive. If your play sessions are before mealtimes you mimic the natural prey sequence. Cats like routine so a play session each evening before meals will satisfy your cat’s natural drive to hunt and eat.

Careful with laser lights
Avoid using laser lights alone for play sessions, since many cats become frustrated or obsessed with chasing a light that they can’t ever catch. If you use a laser then transition to a toy or food that the cat can catch and bite to complete the natural prey drive.

One cat at a time
If you have more than one cat, try to play with them separately. If two excited cats are chasing a toy they could accidentally crash into each other and get hurt or frightened by the other cat. You might have to take the game into a room with one cat and close the door or keep two cats entertained with two separate toys (good exercise for humans too!).

No small or loose parts
Do check all toys for loose parts that might be harmful if swallowed and replace as needed. Swallowing string or other small parts can be very damaging or even fatal to cats.

It all starts with a glimpse of a dark shape, maybe a flash of eyes in the night. (No, we’re not talking a Twilight movie.) You wait patiently. You put out food. Soon the fearful cat you’ve glimpsed becomes a common sight. Soon, you have more than one. Soon, there are raucous sounds of cats in love. Soon, you have kittens.

You want to do the right thing. You want to socialize the kittens so they have a chance at becoming pets. You want to get the parents neutered or spayed so they don’t have to face another harsh winter or times of starvation or predator attacks. Thank you for wanting to help.

Trap-Neuter-Return

Outdoor community cat populations come from humans not taking care of their pet cats. Colorado Springs has a highly mobile human population, with an estimated 10,000 homeless or abandoned cats. Each abandoned, unspayed female kitten can get pregnant at 4 months old, producing hundreds more kittens in her lifetime. Without human care, cats in unmanaged colonies can experience great suffering from hunger, predators, disease and the elements.

Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) is the most humane and effective way of controlling community cat populations. TNR cats are spayed or neutered, vaccinated and surgically ear-tipped on one ear (the universally-recognized sign of a TNR cat). Then they are returned to their territory.

Colony Managers feed and provide shelter, monitor them for illness and adoptability, and trap and fix newcomers. TNR eliminates objectionable behavior that includes fighting and mating, and improves their health, behavior and quality of life. Instead of spending their energy on mating and raising kittens, they spend their energy putting on weight for the winter. Every cat who gets sterilized prevents hundreds if not thousands of needless feline deaths in our region, mostly kittens.

The Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region has a TNR program that supports community cats within the Colorado Springs city limits. If you live in the city and can commit to longterm care for the colony you are feeding, you can call them at (719) 302-8786 or go to their website for more information. Click on Services then Community Cats to find out how to become a sanctioned Colony Manager. If you are a sanctioned Colony Manager, they will provide you with free cat sterilizations, vaccinations and instruction for trapping.

Trap-Neuter-Return-Care

If you have outside cats that you’d like to help by containing their numbers and need assistance beyond what HSPPR offers, Happy Cats will do our best to help you. We are a small non-profit, so all our assistance comes from community members like you who want to help our outside cat friends.

We have a number of humane traps that we can loan out, along with volunteers who can instruct you on how to use them to trap, transport and release each cat. We assist HSPPR by signing up Colony Managers within their agreements.

Depending on funding, we may be able to assist with the cost of spays and neuters. We depend on the public for monetary donations to our TNRCare Fund. We use this to help pay for spays and neuters for cats outside the narrow focus of HSPPR.

We provide assistance when we can to Colony Managers to help feed their colonies. We also depend on our community for that, taking in donations of food throughout the year and distributing it to those in need. Last year alone, we received donations from St. Paws Thrift Store, Rescued Hearts Unique Boutique, Petsmart, Chuck & Don’s, Walmart, Whole Foods, All Breed Rescue and National Mill Dog Rescue, as well as many individuals. Opened bags of food that are donated to HSPPR do not get used or distributed.

Abandoned Cats & Kittens

Luke Before

An abandoned cat must very quickly learn to act feral in order to survive. Research has proven that it can be very difficult to tell a tame cat from a feral one within the first few days of meeting them. It is very common for someone’s abandoned pet to end up at an outside colony, searching for food.

Colony Managers are the best people to spot these cats who desperately want to find a home again, but may be too traumatized at first to trust humans. Depending on available space, we are glad to take them in and help them recover from the trauma of being abandoned and providing medical care and spays or neuters as needed.

Luke After

If you find a cat on the street who appears to be friendly, or have taken the time to befriend one who was first scared, please consider getting him or her inside to safety. You do need to take precautions for your own cat or cats and try not to expose them to the newcomer, but this can be fairly easily done by putting the newcomer in any small room or bathroom with a door. The main things to avoid are grooming or fighting between your cats and the newcomer.

If you contact us, we can send you an Intake Application and get the cat on our waiting list. If you can commit to becoming one of our Foster Parents, we can support you with supplies while we wait for an opening for the cat or kittens.

If you find kittens in your neighborhood, please contact us for assistance. Our first priority will be to get them safe, but right after that, we will help you locate the mother. Even if the mother is outside, she is still the kittens’ best chance at surviving and staying healthy. Of course, our priority will be to spay her so that this doesn’t happen again.

Again, we will support you with resources if you can become a Foster Parent for these cats. We are always looking for people who can bottle feed orphan kittens. If you can’t help the kittens you find, we will try to locate a Foster Parent for them as soon as we can.

How You Can Help TNRCare

You can help reduce the suffering of our community cats by volunteering to:

• Become a Colony Manager to take care of community cat colonies, including trapping and feeding
• Contact us for training to become a Colony Trapper and/or agree to help train other Colony Managers
• Become a Foster Parent for frightened but adoptable cats and/or kittens who have been rescued from colonies so Happy Cats can find them permanent homes
• Make a monetary contribution or designate Happy Cats Haven as a beneficiary in your will to support this crucial work
• Help to educate the public about feline overpopulation and ask for their support

Please contact us if you’d like to volunteer your time, either by managing a colony or helping trap or transport food or helping train others to help. You can contact us here or call us at 719-362-4600 .

We are always in need of funding to help prevent more suffering. Please click below and be sure to note the TNRCare program in your donation.

Conventional grooming must be one of the most terrifying experiences a cat can have: first the car ride, then barking dogs, noisy clippers and blow dryers (never forget a cat’s hearing is 60% higher than ours and 30% higher than our dog friends) and of course, water. Then when it’s all done, the cat is usually left with unwanted smells in their fur that prolong their stress.

However, if your cat is longhaired and is past the point where you can deal with the mats effectively, we recommend a mobile groomer, where at least the car ride and dogs can be avoided. We have yet to hear of a good mobile cat groomer in Colorado Springs, but this one in the Denver area comes highly recommended:

Colorado Cat Grooming Sally’s Colorado Cat Grooming offers custom cat grooming services in the privacy of your own home. She serves the Denver area but will travel for an additional trip charge. Wait time can be 2-6 weeks, so plan ahead.

How to walk your cat on a leash: Cats are not born knowing how to do this! It’s a behavior that needs to be taught. From our feline behavior consultant, Melissa Shandley, great instructions for how to make this a happy experience.

Catio Help: We highly recommend giving your cat fresh air and sunshine by building your cat a safe outdoor enclosure.

Outdoor Enclosure Examples from Jackson Galaxy

Spoil Your Cat Rotten with a Catio from the Animal Rescue Site

Purrfect Fence

The Cat’s Den

My Pet Enclosures

C&D Pet Products

Safe Cat Enclosures

Cats On Deck

Feral Friends

How to help care for our community cats.

Bergan Turbo Scratcher

Designed to provide hours of fun for your furry companion

The Turbo Scratcher has a channel for a small ball your cat can nudge with its nose or shove with its paw

In the center of the Turbo Scratcher, the textured scratch pad is both durable and replaceable

Includes 1 base (16″ diameter), 1 scratch pad and 1 ball; place ball in track for hours of fun – entertain your cat and protect your furniture from scratching!

Cat Dancer
Wire with rolls of kraft paper. Bounces around erratically like a bug.
Cats love this simple inexpensive toy.

Books:

Online:
Pam Johnson-Bennett’s Website
Pam Johnson-Bennett’s Facebook page
Pam Johnson-Bennett on The Cat Channel
Pam Johnson-Bennett YouTube videos

Marilyn Krieger: Marilyn Krieger, noted Certified Cat Behavior Consultant known as The Cat Coach, is an internationally recognized cat behavior specialist and award winning author. She offers on-site, Skype and telephone consultation sessions throughout the world. Marilyn works directly with clients as well as through veterinarian referrals. Her intelligent, capable advice solves diverse behavior problems for all breeds of cats. Thousands of cat lovers are familiar with Marilyn from the twice-monthly articles she writes for Catster as well as her previous 8 year association with Cat Fancy Magazine when she wrote their monthly cat behavior columns. She also contributes articles to such popular publications as Cats USA and Kittens USA.
Website:The Cat Coach

Books: (We have this in our Happy Cats Shop)

Online:
Marilyn Krieger’s website, The Cat Coach
Marilyn Krieger’s Cat Coach Facebook page
Marilyn Krieger on Catster

Good Kitty Behavior Consulting & Training: If you’re in the Denver area, Billie Reynolds is your local Cat Behavior Specialist and Certified Trainer. She has educated hundreds of cat lovers and provided practical solutions that effectively change unwanted cat behavior. Her wealth of knowledge and experience, both personally and professionally, can help you answer your simplest questions to solving your most frustrating cat issues. And, she has a way of making it fun for everyone.

Best Cat Books:

When you’re ready to dive a little deeper into the subject of cats, these books will help. They’re our paws-down favorite sources for reliable cat information. Click here.