Working Cat Heroes

 

When Disneyland opened in 1955, Walt Disney discovered scores of cats living in Sleeping Beauty Castle. Corporate legend says Disney couldn’t bear to see them rounded up and euthanized. So he had them neutered, spayed, vet-checked and vaccinated. Disneyland’s feral-cat population – still cared for, still keeping rodents (of all things) under control – now numbers 200, according to the Los Angeles Times, which adds that Disney spokespeople will only confirm that the cats exist. 

If cats can get jobs at Disneyland, there must be work for them in less magical kingdoms like Phoenix, not to mention similar programs in Chicago, Minneapolis, and other cities. Since 2014, the Arizona Humane Society has placed about 450 “working cats” in barns, offices, warehouses, stables and elsewhere across the Valley. The group has a waiting list of people eager to hire ambitious young felines.

It began when AHS got a call from the owner of a horse-boarding property in Queen Creek. “She was looking for a green method of rodent control,” says AHS alternative-placement coordinator Hilary Barr. “She’d had some barn cats in the past and wanted to know if the AHS had any programs like that. We were so excited to give this a try.” The property owner has since adopted several cats.

The cats in question are “somewhat feral,” AHS spokesperson Bretta Nelson says. “These are cats who were very unhappy in a home but were extremely happy outside.”

They earn their keep. A gray tabby named Bailey, now almost 3 years old, went to work in December in Scottsdale’s Rio Verde Foothills. Bailey’s beat is 1.25 acres of a ranch he shares with a horse, a donkey, a brood of the cartoony fluff balls known as Silkie chickens, and nine dogs. Ranch owner Joshua Finlayson hired Bailey: “We had a lot of squirrels and mice and stuff, because we keep the feed and everything out there.” 

The verdict: “He’s doing a good job,” Finlayson says, adding: “It’s something you can do with cats that are unadoptable, give them a good home.” Bailey spends most of his time outside, but comes inside to be petted and fed.

But adopting a working cat isn’t simple. Like the Disney cats, the AHS’ workforce gets the full veterinary treatment. And AHS recommends owners confine the cats in a crate for three or four weeks. This gives them a chance to decompress from the noise and stress of pet-shelters, and to acclimate to the sights and sounds of their new environment, like horses and tractors. “Cats are territorial,” Barr says. “During [this] acclimation they’re also learning that this is their environment.”

The cats also need food, water and clean litterboxes. After they are let out of their crates, AHS tells owners to leave the doors open so the cats will have a place to retreat. It helps the cats feel secure. But most often, when cats are released, “You can see them breathe that huge sigh of relief because they’re back in an environment they’re comfortable in,” Nelson says. By this time, the cats are “somewhat street-smart,” Barr says. There’s no adoption fee, but AHS gladly accepts donations in the form of crates, cat food and litter, or cash.

Usually working cats come in pairs, or in groups of three or four, Barr says. That way they have each other’s backs. Finlayson adopted four cats, but Bailey is the only one that stuck around. Cats do get lost, eaten, or taken, Barr allows. AHS fits the cats with a microchip to ID those turned into the shelter, so the group can send them back home. 

Diane Jarvis, who runs a Flagstaff program called Paw Placement, is proud of the 15 mighty mousers her group has placed so far. When The Arboretum at Flagstaff was overrun with mice last year, Jarvis’ group offered a pair of calico sisters named Cleo and Girlie, who’d been rescued from a hoarder. Since then, the Arboretum staff has seen few signs of mice. “They don’t necessarily kill all the mice, nor do they eat them,” Jarvis says. “People still feed the cats. But just their presence is a deterrent. The mice don’t want to be there. So they go someplace else.” 

Sometimes the cats keep more than mice away. Consider the Queen Creek owner’s account, related by Barr: “A coyote came onto the property one day. Jon Snow and Ygritte [named after the Game of Thrones characters] were outside. Ygritte went into flight mode. She crawled up a tree and she was safe. Jon Snow was a little bit more bold and he just stood his ground against this coyote. And he puffed himself up, and the coyote got scared and ran off the property.” 

When it comes to guarding his side of the fence, Jon Snow knows something after all.