# I'm new!!!



## Sable (Oct 16, 2006)

Hi everyone! I'm new.

I'm 17 and I live in the US of A with my four sweeties: one Siberian (2 years old), one American shorthair/Calico mix (9 years old) and two Siamese/Havana Brown/American shorthair mixes (5 years old). They're all spayed females.

I volunteer at a local "free-roaming" cat shelter.

I love cats and watching them socialize and interact... they each have their own quirky personalities!


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## marie73 (Jul 12, 2006)

Welcome! :2kitties


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## doodlebug (May 13, 2006)

Welcome neighbor. Have you posted pics of the kitties yet? We thrive on them ya know... :lol:


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## DesnBaby (Apr 18, 2004)

Welcome to the forum, would love to see some pictures!


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## Sable (Oct 16, 2006)

I don't have a digital camera, unfortunately... although it certainly tops my Christmas list (after the down payment on college )!


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## Lisa 216 (Oct 25, 2004)

Welcome! Tell us a bit about how that "free-roaming" cat shelter works. It sounds like a great idea, much better than seeing kitties in cages.


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## Sable (Oct 16, 2006)

Someone donated a house to the shelter: it's two stories with a basement. The cats aren't allowed outside, but most of them can go anywhere in the house. There are a couple of exceptions: cats with feline AIDS, Leukemia, etc., have their own 8' by 8' "suites" in the basement (which is heated and air conditioned). Cats that have been abused or are just naturally shy are kept together in one room; some of the cats that start fights are in cages, albeit large ones, usually four feet high and five feet by five feet on the ground. There's a quarantine room for just dropped off or acquired cats and kittens - they stay there until they have been vaccinated and treated for fleas and mites. Other than that, the cats can go anywhere in the house. There are about twenty scratching posts, toys galore, food dishes, water bowls and litter boxes in every room (the water is changed every six hours; litter boxes are cleaned more frequently than that and the food dishes are filled twice a day), and of course, at least two or three volunteers to play with for fourteen to sixteen hours of the day, every day. Every room has at least one window, including the quarantine room and the basement. The house is devoid of furniture except for stacks of chairs in the kitchen to be used on adoption days, scratching posts, perches, cat beds, and a kitchen table. The cats are free to roam wherever they want in the house unless they start fights or are being quarantined, or have a contagious disease or illness. A lot of the cats have very intricate relationships with one another. For example, there's the "Hugs Club," which consists of about ten cats (the one I adopted among them) that meet in the kitchen at about 3PM every day to rub up against one another. Kittens always find a mother figure - or, in the case of six kittens that got dropped off in one very small taxi last winter, a father figure (in the form of an elderly male cat with kidney disease). They usually form bonds so tight that they cannot be adopted alone; I still have to bring Alyssa back sometimes to see her old friends. In this atmosphere, cats can develop their personalities and be socialized quite easily. They also get a healthy level of exercise and seem very happy.


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## kitkat (Sep 22, 2003)

Hi Sable, welcome aboard. The cat house sounds lovely, I wish all places could be like that for the animals 8)


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