Let’s face it: Seattle is a dog-crazy town. From Seattle’s numerous off-leash dog parks, to the legions of dogs trekking around Greenlake, to PAWS’s own famous PAWSwalk held every fall, Seattle has earned its reputation as the dog-friendliest city in America.

But with all this canine consideration, what about cats? Where is a cat to go in such a dog-friendly city?

PAWS Cat City, that’s where. This month PAWS held a grand reopening for its feline oasis, right in the heart of Seattle’s Greenwood neighborhood. Finally, a place where 10 to 15 cats get to stretch out, play together, roam around, nap, and basically be themselves. With its unique colony setting, PAWS Cat City gives a group of cats a calming environment, away from the small cages and barking dogs of a typical shelter. “It’s a real stress-free shelter,” says Denise Cabral, PAWS Adoptions Promotions Coordinator, who supervises PAWS Cat City.

Basically, PAWS was trying to create the type of shelter that the cats would tell the PAWS staff that they would like to stay at, if only they could talk. “I’m pretty certain that our cats would tell us that it is a perfect place for them,” says Kay Joubert, PAWS Companion Animal Programs Manager.

PAWS Cat City is also proving to be a perfect place for potential adopters. “Some people find regular shelters kind of sad,” says Joubert. “They just don’t like to go into them. But no one could ever think that Cat City is sad. Here you get to see the true personality of the cat, their temperament, and their activity level.”

By allowing adopters to freely interact with the cats, PAWS hopes that people will be more easily able to identify the cat with the perfect mix of personality, temperament, and activity level for them. “If someone is looking for a gregarious, yet docile cat, it can be hard to identify when the cat is in a small cage,” says Cabral. “But here that cat will be obvious to spot.”

The national sheltering community recommends that cats and dogs be exposed to as much natural light as possible. The PAWS Lynnwood shelter, like many other shelters, has dozens of skylights to bring in the warm natural sunlight. But you would be hard-pressed to find an adoption facility anywhere in the country allowing in as much light at PAWS Cat City. With a ten by eight foot plate glass front window, cats can bask in the warmth of the sun, and let passersby “window-shop”.

Inside the front window is the room housing one of the three colonies at PAWS Cat City. During kitten season, this colony room will be shut off from the other colonies and adoptable kittens will reside in it. When the facility has no kittens, all three colony rooms are opened up, allowing cats to roam freely between the rooms. Each room has cat toys, cat structures, litter boxes, food dishes, and water dishes. A window overlooks each colony from inside the lobby of PAWS Cat City, allowing potential adopters a preview of the cats before they visit them.

PAWS has found that the open atmosphere of PAWS Cat City has helped to prevent common illnesses. “Since the cats are so comfortable, we have been seeing much less upper-respiratory infection in them,” says Cabral. “And that is a great sign, because upper-respiratory infection is probably the most common shelter ailment among cats.”

The idea for a cat-centered adoption facility grew out of a conference trip that Cabral, Joubert, and Shelter Director Colleen Smith took to San Francisco three years ago. While in the Bay Area, they visited the San Francisco SPCA, home to the world-famous Maddie Center companion animal shelter. “We were so inspired by what we saw at the San Francisco SPCA,” says Joubert. “They were showing us that a cage is just not as much of a home as a spacious room can be.”

At the San Francisco SPCA, Cabral, Joubert, and Smith saw dogs and cats living in “apartments,” which were individual rooms with comfy chairs, carpets, and even TVs. In essence, the rooms were reassuring temporary homes for the cats and dogs until an adopter could come and provide a permanent home.

PAWS didn’t have the space for “apartments” the size of those found at the San Francisco SPCA, but they did have the perfect facility with which to experiment. PAWS had operated a thrift shop at the corner of 85th and Greenwood in the Greenwood neighborhood of Seattle. As the relatively small revenue generated by the thrift store began to seem less and less significant compared to the need to create new avenues for adopting cats, the decision was made to convert the thrift store into an adoption center. In August of 1997 PAWS opened the Greenwood Satellite Adoption Center, and created one of the first colony-style adoption centers in the United States. Since that opening, Cabral, Joubert, and Smith have found it to be an unqualified success, allowing the cats room to roam and adopters the opportunity to see a cat’s true personality.

Critical to the success of the center has been the work of volunteers. “They’re crucial to us,” says Cabral. “They provide the love and care that the cats need throughout the day.”

Volunteers work shifts in the morning, afternoon, and evening. Volunteer duties can range from cleaning litter boxes and feeding the cats, to serving as adoption counselors. “And of course they need to give the cats lots of love and attention,” says Cabral.

This past year PAWS decided that the center needed a name that would quickly and effectively convey to the public what the facility was all about. After a staff contest, PAWS officially decided that “PAWS Cat City” said it all: it tells people that the facility is a haven for cats, where they get to live in kitty cities, away from the stresses of a regular shelter environment. “People need to know that we are this perfect oasis for cats,” says Cabral.

Being located in a Seattle neighborhood is important for PAWS as well. “Being right in the middle of a downtown neighborhood offers us close proximity to the Seattle apartment-dwelling community,” says Cabral. “Cats can be perfect apartment companions, so our location is great.”

PAWS Cat City is part of an organization-wide commitment that PAWS made to companion cats four years ago when PAWS decided to stop euthanizing healthy, adoptable companion animals. With a constant stream of cats coming into the PAWS Lynnwood shelter (PAWS receives, on average, 6 cats every single day of the year), the Companion Animal Services department had to find some creative solutions for placing more cats into homes. The highly successful PAWS Foster Care program also added to the need for new adoption avenues (PAWS expects to foster 600 kittens this year). To alleviate this crisis, PAWS partnered with over a dozen pet supply stores in the area, placing one or two PAWS cats in each store, and working with their staffs to facilitate PAWS-approved adoptions. In one sense, PAWS Cat City was like the biggest, most-successful of these offsite facilities. With the grand reopening, and with a new name, PAWS is hoping that PAWS Cat City can become a focal point of PAWS cat adoption efforts.

“It’s just so important,” says Joubert. “Many people don’t realize that there are many more cats euthanized in shelters in Washington State than dogs.” While PAWS does not euthanize healthy, adoptable cats or dogs, PAWS animal receiving statistics show the extent of the problem. Last year PAWS received 1,106 stray dogs and 1,558 stray cats. Fortunately, more than a third of the stray dogs went back home. But of the 1,558 stray cats in the shelter, only 22 went back to their original home (less than 2%). Living on the street was stressful enough for these cats; PAWS Cat City is proving to be a welcome respite on their journey to finding a new home.