The Brant County SPCA is proud to participate in the Million Cat Challenge.
The Million Cat Challenge is a shelter-based campaign to save the lives of 1 Million North American cats over five years. This joint project from Maddie’s Shelter Medicine Program at the University of Florida, The UC Davis Koret Shelter Medicine Program, Maddie’s Fund and the ASPCA.
Based on five key initiatives the Million Cat Challenge offers every shelter, in every community, practical choices to reduce euthanasia and increase live outcomes for shelter cats. These five initiatives to save cats’ lives were pioneered by shelters across North America, including your local Brant County SPCA Shelter. The campaign offers choices for shelters of every size and type to balance intake, humane capacity, and live release.
- Alternatives to intake: Provide positive alternatives to keep cats in the home or community when admission to a shelter is not the best choice.
- Managed Admission: Schedule intake of cats to match the shelter’s ability to assure humane care and safe movement through the shelter system to an appropriate outcome for every cat.
- Capacity for care: Match the number of cats cared for at any one time with the capacity required to support the Five Freedoms of Animal Welfare for all cats in the shelter.
- Removing barriers to adoption: Expand the pool of adopters by removing barriers to adoption such as cost, process, or location.
- Return to field: Sterilize, vaccinate, and return healthy un-owned shelter cats to the location of origin as an alternative to euthanasia.
“It’s amazing what can be accomplished one small act at a time, when a community comes together with love and compassion, incredible things happen.” Says Executive Director, Robin Kuchma.
The campaign debuted in 2014 and its goal was to save those 1 million cat lives in five years. Every year the Brant County SPCA along with participating shelters, provide the Million Cat Challenge with their statistics.
On November 9, 2017 the Million Cat Challenge hit a huge milestone. Not only did it reach the goal of 1 million cat lives saved, but accomplished it more than 1 year early!
Since taking up the Million Cat Challenge,the Brant County SPCA and the community has achieved unimaginable results locally with:
Alternatives to Intake: In 2014, 209 cats were surrendered by their owners, in 2016 that number dropped to 141 cats.
The Brant County SPCA created a Foster to Surrender program to allow finders to become foster homes for a cat or kittens that they have found.
From January 2014 to October 31, 2017, 3,117 cats were saved through this program.
Removing Barriers to Adoptions: We stopped using over invasive Adoption Applications and brought in the Meet Your Match system which assigns a personality to our cats. Adopters are asked only to fill out a brief survey about their lifestyle to allow us to match them to a feline personality. From January 2014 to October 31, 2017, 5,830 cats were adopted.
Return to Field: For cats that are not candidates for adoption due to their personality (e.g. feral/unsocial) but appear to have been thriving where they came from, we will spay/neuter and ear tip them and release them back into the community that they came from. From January 2014 to 31, October 2017, 384 cats went through this program.
The Brant County SPCA is also working at improving our ability to save cat lives in other areas such as:
Transfers: 19 cats from January 2014 to October 31, 2017
Returns to Owners: 217 cats from January 2014 to October 31, 2017. We continue to promote providing your cat with identification (e.g. our “Tag your it Program”) as well as ensuring all cats adopted from us are provided with a microchip.
“A huge thank-you to Brant County SPCA to every staff, every volunteer, every adopter, every Board Member that believed in the project and made it happen.” Continued Executive Director, Robin Kuchma.
Check out this inspiring video from Dr. Kate Hurley, a driving force behind the Million Cat Challenge.
But the challenge for Brant County SPCA is ongoing, it continues every day, and with your help not only cats but all animal can have the best outcome and the best quality of life possible.
Take up the challenge and join the Brant County SPCA. As always, it starts with You! Animals in our community are counting on You.
