RAPS’ Super-Power: Kitty Comforters

We’ve got scores of kittens and cats arriving into our care.

From a massive hoarding situation in Langley to a special delivery of cats from a rescue agency on the island, as well as the regular influx of cats that find their way to us from various means, we are awash in fluff.

As of today, we have rescued 46 total from the Langley situation, including pregnant mamas, and we’ve welcomed 11 from Victoria.

We’ve cleared out a special pen for the 11 “Capital Cats,” who are comfortable around one another but not yet around us. They were all checked by vets and vaccinated before they came to us and so their physical health is good all around. (If anything, they are a little too well nourished.) It’s their emotional well-being we are prioritizing right now.

Of the 46 Langley newbies, there is a vast range of personalities and responsiveness to humans.

At the RAPS Cat Sanctuary, we pride ourselves on delivering individualized care to every animal.

We know that not every cat is going to become a lap cat. Some will never really come to enjoy human company. The one thing we do want to ensure – for their own sake – is that they do not live in fear of us. Because that is not a healthy environment for them.

Others, of course, will come around to bipeds. Some once-feral kitties will eventually warm up and some will make their way to family homes.

Most cats who come from situations like the Langley group will fall somewhere in the middle. They will adapt to having humans around, though they might not want to live with them. These are the ones who will live out their lives happily at our “Kitty Club Med.”

No matter what level of accommodation they might make with their human support staff, the progress they make in that regard is usually due to a small coterie of extraordinary individuals.

They are our Kitty Comforters.

Or, as they might well be known, RAPS’ Super-Power.

These are no mere mortal humans. These are some of the most patient, devoted animal allies alive.

Our Kitty Comforter program has had unbelievable successes. Cats who no one ever dreamed would be approachable have become magnets for human affection.

In some ways, all the approximately 200 volunteers at the Sanctuary are “Kitty Comforters,” demonstrating by example that humans can be awesome. But those who bear the official title Kitty Comfortersä are on an entirely different level.

We have individuals who sit alongside a particularly nervous feline sometimes for hours, reading to them so they get used to the human voice, or even just being present in silence. Some cats begin by accepting tentative pats and evolve into more thorough striking. Cats, as anyone with experience knows, adapt at their own speed.

Kitty Comforters know this – and respect it.

Some kitties will come along to a certain point and that’s where it ends. Others will leap far beyond expectation. Some steadfastly refuse inter-species relations.