By Perley-Ann Friedman | Project Leader
The month of May brings low season to Lanta Animal Welfare and to the Kitty City Visitor Centre. It was a busy high season with thousands of visitors enjoying the new Kitty City area. They especially liked the cats roaming freely, playing with each other and snoozing on their hammock-type beds.
Kitty City Challenges
When the busy winter tourist season was behind us, we did an assessment of the first months with Kitty City. We realized we had 2 major issues we had to address.
1 - Giant Litter Box NOT! The main area in Kitty City was gravel. Many of the cat's thought it was a giant 'cat box' and did their business in the gravel. This has been very difficult for us constantly scooping, spraying and disinfecting. There were litter boxes all through the area and we even have 2 rooms dedicated to litter boxes. But it just wasn't working. We decided to lay concrete to replace the gravel. We came up with an interesting design with our fountain in the middle, and we found a way to incorporate the large round slates that were painted with cat designs from our many donors. The week of construction was difficult. We had to monitor the cats, who inevitably walked on the wet concrete, got into the sand, and loved to chew on the electrical cables from the drills and sanding tools. But now the construction is complete and the results are super. The pavement stays cool, andthe cats are lazing around and socializing more with the visitors.
2 - Curious (Annoying) Kitties in the Cafe - A few of our cats were too 'attentive' to the visitor's eating in our new Kitty Cafe. Cats will be cats, and the curiosity of what people were eating was getting out of hand. While some people know how to handle a curious cat, there were people who were extremely uncomfortable with a cat watching them eat. We came up with a solution that is working really well and it also provides fun entertainment to those enjoying our vegan brownies, wraps and cupcakes. When we see a cat about to be annoying, we go into the garden shaking a container of cat food/crunchies and sprinkle out a few. The cat immediately runs to gobble up the food and the other cats join in. We then engage them with cat toys and they put on a fun show for our visitors.
I'm so happy to tell you that our challenges are now behind us. Their solutions have proven to be so beneficial in improving the visitor's experience. It's almost like they were blessings.
Kitty City Education Area
We are very confident now that we have ironed out our issues and can now focus on completing the work within Kitty City. As we get nearer to our financial goal, we will be planning and building the education area. This will include a viewing area for presentations and video so we can begin to have education sessions right at Lanta Animal Welfare, instead of negotiating for time at the schools.
Our Kitty City Education Area will provide holiday, weekend and after school workshops for both the children and their families. These session will include caring for animals generally, and specifically, to cover the spread of any infections and diseases. We'll discuss common ailments and their treatment. We'll cover the emotional aspects of having a pet and work on negating the myths and ideas some locals here have about the animals. We are very excited to be about to begin on this last feature with our Kitty City area.
Our New GlobalGiving Rescue Vehicle Campaign
With our Kitty City Campaign nearing completion, we have started a new GlobalGiving Campaign for an Animal Rescue Vehicle. Presently at Lanta Animal Welfare, we only have one vehicle. This poor truck is working almost non-stop taking vets to rescue sites, traveling with a load of medicine and medical staff to sterilization clinic in the surrounding area, picking up supplies and animal food on the mainland, and taking animals to the authorities 2-4 hours away as part of the preparations for international travel. And then taking them to the airport for their trip to their forever homes. Our truck can be away for up to 5 days at a time, leaving the Centre with no means of getting to animals in distress, except on a motor bike or a tuk-tuk. Neither of these provide a way to bring an injured animal back to our Centre for treatment.
With our mobile sterilization clinic success and its growth over the past year, we know our workhorse of a truck will be off-site even more in the coming months. We are the only animal rescue centre in our area and our emergency calls are increasing. In order to be able to provide our animal rescue services on a continual basis, we need a vehicle dedicated to our rescue services.
Please check out our new GlobalGiving campaign and let us know any comments you may have.
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