The Community Cats Podcast

This episode is sponsored in part by Doobert.com , and  KittySift . Author of Hobo Finds a Home and Huck and Finn, Bookstore Cats and independent bookstore owner Kevin Coolidge is featured in this episode. The tradition of library and bookstore cats goes back to the Library of Alexandria and Kevin is keeping up the tradition with his two bookstore cats Huck and Finn, who have been featured in Cole...

In this special episode, we celebrate National Cat Day by talking with  Pam Johnson-Bennett , Certified Cat Behavior Consultant and  best-selling author. Pam and Stacy discuss how Pam started her career and why we need to "think like a cat," as well as her latest project with ARM & HAMMER Cat Litter's "Purrfectly Impurrfect" campaign. The campaign is kicking off on National Cat Day to shed light o...

This episode is sponsored in part by Doobert.com , and  Heaven Can Wait . Kathleen O'Malley is a longtime practitioner and educator of TNR. She has worked for the Hudson County Animal League, the ASPCA, the Mayor's Alliance for New York City Animals, and Bideawee Feral Cat Initiative (FCI). In this episode Stacy and Kathleen discuss what to do if you see a stray cat, the many ways you can help wit...

This episode is sponsored in part by Doobert.com , Heaven Can Wait , and C5 . This week Stacy talks to Meagan King, who has worked in pit bull rescues, animal shelters, and the pet service industry for more than eight years. She is interested in animal fear, aggression, and behavior and has worked with the SPCA of Texas as the Dallas behavior coordinator. She is a champion of fear-free cat-handlin...

This episode is sponsored in part by Doobert.com , Boulder Holistic Vet , and C5 . Kathy Black, an all-breed judge from the Cat Fanciers' Association (CFA) for the past 19 years, joins Stacy in this episode. Kathy has bred and shown cats for 30 years, and she also chairs the CFA's Companion Cat World (CCW), a program that celebrates rescued and non-pedigreed cats around the world. Kathy shares a b...

This episode is sponsored in part by Doobert.com , Boulder Holistic Vet , and Kitty Sift . In this episode, Stacy chats with Sarah Moore, the clinic manager for the Animal Protective League (APL) of Springfield Illinois's spay/neuter clinic, and with Dr. Teri Kidd, the clinic's veterinarian.  They discuss how Dr. Kidd got into high-quality, high-volume spay/neuter and TNR, and how things have chan...

This episode is sponsored in part by Doobert.com's FosterSpace , Boulder Holistic Vet , and Community Cat Coalition of Clark County . In this episode, Stacy chats with Jennifer Barnes, a US Marine Corps veteran who has been colony feeding and trapping cats for TNR for over five years in New Jersey. Known online as "The Trap Queen," Jennifer largely uses her own money to fund her TNR, and she doesn...

This episode is sponsored in part by Doobert.com's FosterSpace , Boulder Holistic Vet , and Heaven Can Wait Animal Society . Sarah Dunsmore of CDE Animal Cages, previously featured on CCP Episode 302 , joins Stacy to talk about catios, which CDE (a 2020 Online Kitten Conference sponsor) produces in all shapes and sizes for all different applications. Stacy and Sarah discuss the benefits of catios,...

This episode is sponsored in part by Doobert.com's FosterSpace , C5 , and The American Association of Feline Practitioners . In this episode, Stacy chats with Holly Ganz, Ph. D., a micro-ecologist who studies how microbes and mammals interact, with a specific interest in the role that the gut microbiome plays in gastrointestinal (GI) conditions in cats and dogs. In 2015, Holly founded Animal Biome...

This episode is sponsored in part by Doobert.com's FosterSpace , Heaven Can Wait , and The American Association of Feline Practitioners . In this episode, Stacy catches up with Keith Williams of the Community Cat Coalition of Clark County (C5), based in Las Vegas, Nevada. Keith was featured previously on CCP Episode 297 , ad in a CCP Trapper Tips & Trips blog post . Stacy and Keith review C5's mis...

Anna Raines, currently a community cat program manager at Best Friends Animal Society, has been involved in animal welfare for about 10 years. She started her career as a wildlife rehabilitator, where she learned about complaint mitigation and the importance of spreading the message of coexistence. From there, she became an ACO, a role in which she learned about TNR and community cats. After takin...

Anne Beall, CEO and founder of Beall Research, a strategic market research firm in Chicago, IL, is also an animal advocate who has written extensively about the human-animal bond. In this episode, she chats with Stacy about her most recent book, Heroic, Helpful and Caring Cats: Felines Who Make a Difference , and about how she came to be so passionate about cats after becoming the caretaker for se...

Stacy chats with Julie Jacobson of Spay Tennessee, who is also the grants coordinator for CCP's Community Cats Grants program. Julie, a frequent CCP guest (check out Episodes 2 , 92 , and 268 , talks about how great this year's grant program had been going—until the coronavirus hit. Julie and Stacy explain how the Community Cats Grants work: They are strictly for spay/neuter of community cats, and...

Bonney Brown (CCP Episode 30 and Episode 181 ) and Diane Blankenburg, the president, and the CEO, respectively, of Humane Network, join Stacy to talk about the process of leadership recruitment in animal welfare. Humane Network assists organizations with this process and Bonney and Diane talk a bit about their process for going about a search and ways they can help throughout the process, dependin...

In this episode, Stacy chats with Carrie Gillaspie, a television and podcast host from rural central Wisconsin with a huge passion for helping animals. Last year, Carrie began noticing larger than normal numbers of barn and community cats in her area, and hearing complaints from the farms around her, that the cat numbers were out of control. Taking matters into her own hands, Carrie convinced a lo...

In this information-packed episode, Stacy sits down with Dr. Bob Weedon, a retired veterinarian who is still going strong as a volunteer at the TLC PetSnip low-cost clinic in Lakeland, FL, a board member of the Alliance for Contraception in Cats & Dogs (ACC&D), and in other volunteer posts. Bob worked in private practice and also spent many years teaching in the shelter medicine program at the Uni...

In this episode, Stacy sits down with Sterling Davis again (she talked with him before in CCP Episode 243 ) to catch up on what he's been doing for the last couple of years. Sterling is still living up to his nickname of Trap King, doing lots of TNR in Atlanta—but he has also been busy doing educational events and shows. He has been working with scout troops—and hoping to get a TNR badge in place—...

In this episode, Stacy sits down with Ashley Shoults, a principal w/ Animal Arts, an architecture firm in Boulder, Colorado that specializes exclusively in the design of animal care facilities, including animal shelters, veterinary facilities, and pet boarding facilities. Ashley is currently working on the design of a new facility for PAWS Seattle and she recently co-authored a book covering all a...

In this episode, Stacy chats with Steven Morelli, CEO and founder of Waggle, a new—and very different—crowdfunding platform to help pet owners and shelters/rescues raise money for animals in need of urgent veterinary care. Steven, who has a background in finance and data analytics, found himself increasingly angry over the way various crowdfunding platforms operate. Frustrated, he decided to start...

Stacy talks with Elizabeth Finch, a member of the board of directors and full-time marketing and communications volunteer at Good Mews Animal Foundation in Marietta, Georgia. Elizabeth comes from a varied professional background and began donating her time to Good Mews after early retirement. "It's my full-time gig," she tells Stacy, "and I love it more than anything I've ever done." Stacy and Eli...

In this episode, Stacy talks with Mary Howard, the community cat coordinator at McKamey Animal Center in Chattanooga, TN. The program started in 2018 with a grant from Best Friends Animal Society and since inception, the organization's return to habitat releases has gone up by 145%. Stacy and Mary discuss the many programs McKamey offers, including a barn cat program, kitten nursery, trapping serv...

Stacy sits down with Mary Tan, owner and chief storyteller at Whisker Media, a boutique strategic communications agency that focuses on marketing and public relations for pet-related businesses and animal welfare nonprofits. Mary, who previously worked as a news reporter and in government communications, is also the public relations manager for Animal Humane Society in Golden Valley, Minnesota, wh...

Karen Little, featured previously on CCP Episode 17 and Episode 112 , joins Stacy to discuss the new things going on with the organization she and her husband founded in Louisville, Kentucky in 1999, Alley Cat Advocates. In the 21 years since its inception, ACA has altered over 50,000 community cats and has worked to transform the culture of care provided to community cats in the region. Stacy and...

In this episode, Marian Pekar, a software developer based in the Czech Republic, joins Stacy to talk about My Nine Lives, a game he is developing to raise money for cat-related charities. Marian became involved in cat charities after adopting Max, a stray kitten, and earlier this year, he decided to use his skills and passion to find a way to help support those charities. Marian and Stacy discuss...

Stacy sits down with Lora O'Connor, Executive Director of The National Kitten Coalition (NKC), in this episode to talk about the organization, and about its partnership with Community Cats Podcast on the Online Kitten Conference. Lora has been working in animal welfare for 20 years and is an animal behaviorist. She talks about how things were for cats 20 years ago, and how she felt cats just weren...