INGHAM COUNTY - Ingham County Animal Control and Shelter has put a new cat adoption special in place to help find homes for their cats and kittens.

At the start of COVID-19, the shelter was able to put all of their animals available for foster care into foster homes. Around half of them ended up being “foster fails” meaning that they were adopted by their foster families.

“We’ve found that a lot of people, because they are home and working remotely, they’ve decided that this is a great time to add to their families,” said Heidi Williams, the Director of the Ingham County Animal Control and Shelter. “COVID’s been bad for us but great for the animals.”

But, with the re-opening of shelters last month, cat intakes have increased exponentially, according to the shelter.

“Unfortunately, when people don’t spay and neuter their cats, we end up with a lot of extra cats and kittens this time of year,” said Williams. “We found ourselves being very crowded with cats and kittens, so we started a new special called Caturday Saturday.”

For the Caturday Saturday adoption special, cats and kittens will be available for $25, and senior cats and long term resident cats will be available for free. All of the cats are spayed/neutered, microchipped and have age appropriate vaccines, said the shelter.

There were 28 cats adopted on July 25, the starting date of the special.

“That was huge for us,” said Williams. “There were people lined out the door, they were wearing their masks and social distancing, but they were patient with our staff and it was great.”
Caturday Saturday will be replacing their old cat adoption special called Whisker Wednesday. This change from a weekday to a weekend was made in hopes of being more available to families, according to Williams.

“A lot of our longer term cat residents, very sweet cats but older cats and a lot of times people just want kittens, fortunately a lot of those cats were adopted,” said Williams. “Everybody felt great that these cats were finally going home and will be loved and taken care of for the rest of their lives.”

The adoption special will continue as long as there are cats in the shelter.

For more information, Ingham County Animal Control and Shelter can be contacted at (517) 676-8370 or visit their website at www.ac.ingham.org to view all of their adoptable animals.