January 3, 2026

𝐃𝐚𝐲 𝟑 - 𝐉𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝟑, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔

Today we did something we seldom do. We let a cat go back to his original family.

There's usually a reason a cat comes to us that prevents them from returning home. This case was different. This case showed that a 20-year-old can be more adult than their adult parent.

We took this cat in mid-year—a challenge from the start. He frequently ended up in "time out" due to major behavioral issues. We started him on mood stabilizers to help control his urges to roll other cats. We worked through all his issues, and he became a really good cat (for the most part).

Yesterday, one of his owners resurfaced. She was out of state when her mom was evicted. Rather than take the cats with her, her mother just left them there—outside, to fend for themselves. The cats were unaltered and unvaccinated. Not a good scenario.

She was asked to come speak with me today. I wanted to give her information about his transition to shelter life and get a feel for whether we'd be returning him. She was in tears telling his story—how she begged her mom to go find him and take him to the neighbors who'd agreed to hold him until she got back. Her mom did not respect her request.

After much conversation, we ultimately decided to let him go to his new home. She's on her own now, no longer living with her mom. Now we just pray he does well with his transition once again. It was hard to do, but it felt right. It felt like what was in the best interest of the cat.

Including his adoption, we had six adoptions today. One was a bonded pair of kittens. We rarely bond kittens—when they get into the kitten rooms, they normally make new friends. These two were different.

Little Tundra lost his entire family. We had to watch his siblings perish one by one until only he remained. We paired him with another singleton. It was a match made in heaven. Even with their transition to the kitten room, it was clear they needed each other, so we made them a package deal. Today, they went home. Happy life, little babies!

We always try to explain to people that there's no real "kitten season" here. Our weather can be unseasonably warm. This "winter" is no different. We received our first babies of 2026 today—three little male bundles of joy, about a month old. Though I'm not looking forward to June when we're inundated with kittens, it's always fun to get these little guys in.

We also took in a 16½-year-old today whose human mom had a baby, and the baby was allergic. So she lives with us now. She's absolutely darling, and we hope we can help her through this transition to her new life.

Kittens are resilient. As long as they have toys and food, they don't care too much where they go. It's the seniors that are hard. They lose everything they've ever known, and we spend their first few months trying to combat depression—which comes in the form of getting sick, refusing to eat, and generally just ADR, as we call it. It's an actual veterinary medicine acronym that stands for Ain't Doing Right. It's what we say when diagnostics don't tell us what's wrong, but they're just off. We see that a lot in these sweet seniors who just want a stable home for their golden years.

So we put this day behind us to do it all again tomorrow. Unfortunately, every day we get someone at our door begging us to take their cat on the spot. Our waiting list is so long that we're unable to do that, and it hurts us every time we have to send them somewhere else. We wish we could take them all.