What is the Community Cat Program?

Cali, a two-year-old Calico cat, has lived on the streets of Cheyenne her entire life. She is one of the thousands of free-roaming cats that live in our community but she’s living a better life than many. A few weeks back, Cali’s wonderful caretaker successfully trapped her and brought her to the Cheyenne Animal Shelter to be spayed, vaccinated, and vetted; ensuring she would never have to mother kittens again.

The Cheyenne Animal Shelter has worked to support free-roaming felines, like Cali, and their caretakers but it truly takes the support of an entire community to make a difference. The Shelter currently offers a Community Cat Program that provides low-cost spay and neuter surgery and resources for community cat caretakers. The goal of the program is to increase the number of vaccinated and spayed or neutered cats in the community and ultimately decrease the number of cats coming into the shelter each year.

With limited surgical spots available and the ever-growing population of cats, so much more can and needs to be done. The Shelter team is excited to work on increasing the depth of the program in the future with additional service options, Trap Neuter Return (TNR) programming, and community education. While these efforts are incredibly important, funding and staffing make them difficult to get off the ground.

So, how can you help? Your support for the Community Cat Program can happen in several ways – donate, volunteer, and spread the word! Monetary donations help provide care for pets and increase what the Shelter can provide to the community. You can join our Steady Sidekick monthly donor program for an amount of your choosing and be part of the driving force of change for these kitties. Volunteering your time to help assist with the Community Cat efforts is also a great way to show your support! And you can help by simply spreading the word about this program and encouraging your neighbors to take care of community cats.

To learn more about this program and stay in the know about everything happening at the Cheyenne Animal Shelter, sign up for our eNewsletter below! You can also support Community Cats “right meow” with the donation button. We’re incredibly grateful for our community and all of the cat colony caretakers we work with and can’t wait to see what the future holds for our whiskered friends.