71 cats arrive to safety at Best Friends

Big Papa is just what you might expect from his name. He’s a giant, round-faced tabby cat who’s unmistakable in the room where he’s staying in Cat World at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. Or more specifically, the room where he’s likely relaxing on someone’s lap in Cat World. Today, he’s no longer the timid cat he was when he first arrived along with 70 others who had been living in a single home in a small, rural town in Utah.

Big Papa and the other cats’ lives changed when local authorities learned about the situation the cats were living in and contacted Best Friends for assistance. The only shelter in the area was far too small to take in so many cats, many of whom would need extensive care to regain their health and to be socialized to people.

Large-scale cases such as this can strain animal shelters’ efforts to reach no-kill, and it takes agencies working together to share the effort and to place those pets in homes. So the cats came to Best Friends Animal Sanctuary as a first stop for veterinary care, to assess which cats could go on to other organizations for adoption right away, and to help those who may need more care before they could be adopted.

[Feisty felines overcome labels to become friends]

The cats settled in at the Sanctuary, each one checked by veterinarians and given a comfortable place to stay. What became clear right away — as is often the case when pets are removed from situations with too many animals — is that many of them weren’t socialized to people.

So the Cat World team put out a call to staff and volunteers, asking them to come and sit with the cats to get them comfortable in their new surroundings. Whether someone had all day or a bit of time to spare during a lunch break, it all made a difference.

That’s how Big Papa learned that people aren’t so scary after all — and that people’s laps are a perfect place to find comfort. He began to come out of his shell, as have so many of the other cats from the case. Some of them have already moved on and into new homes. And the scuttlebutt around Cat World is that Big Papa has started playing and is even chatty these days. Maybe it’s his way of saying he’s glad he’s at the Sanctuary and ready for whatever comes next.