Check Out Colony Cat Club’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Colony Cat Club

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Colony Cat Club Detroit was founded by Liz Haack and Sam Reed due to a lack of cat centered resources in the city of Detroit.

We were contacted by someone in a dog outreach program who found a cat in Detroit actively giving birth outside on March 20, 2023. We had briefly talked about starting a cat rescue previous to this, but we just took a giant leap of faith and took in this cat with really no resources or definitive plan. Liz brought her inside to finish giving birth, and then Sam brought her home to foster.

Mama Joey and her two surviving kittens, Ross and Chandler, really got the ball rolling for us to seriously take a go at establishing a nonprofit cat rescue that focused primarily on TNR (trap, neuter, return). Liz and Sam had previous experience and connections with animal welfare groups and people, so were able to earn the community’s trust fairly quickly. We got so much help from the community and other rescues that already had a firm footing. Rebel Dogs Detroit were amazing partners to give us tips, and still provide so much knowledge to us. Ferndale Cat Shelter helped us with supplies, and we’ve also partnered with them for different cat situations. And that’s really just scratching the surface. We have a healthy connection with Detroit Alley Cats, and we are trying to break down the competition of being “the first” or “the best” in regards to animal welfare.

We keep our focus on the cats, and it helps us make the right next steps. We are constantly being presented with new challenges, and it definitely helps that we both have a singular purpose.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
There are moments where it feels like a smooth road, but we have definitely hit some big potholes along the way!

One of the biggest struggles currently is access to affordable, quality veterinary care, especially for TNR services.

We believe that TNR (trap, neuter, return) is the only humane solution to control the feral cat populations in our city’s neighborhoods. There isn’t a firm number on how many stray cats are in Detroit, Hamtramck and Highland Park, but we feel confident saying there are tens of thousands. However, there are limited clinics who provide TNR services (spay/neuter, vaccinations, and an ear tip). The clinics that can help have restrictions on the number of cats we can bring in at a time (it’s usually 2-3). It does feel like an uphill battle at times, but we are currently strategizing on how to get the city involved to help solve this stray cat crisis.

Having controlled cat colonies would not only benefit the cats, but it has a ripple effect of helping the people in the community. We can say that an overwhelming amount of residents love “their” cats! Outdoor cats have names and are cared for by the public, but resources become hard to obtain, especially as the colonies continue to grow with kittens. That’s why we believe TNR is essential.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Colony Cat Club Detroit’s mission is to improve cat lives by always doing what is best for the individual cat, regardless of cost. We do this through TNR (Trap, Neuter, Return), adoption, providing resources for owned cats and supporting the community we love.

We heavily focus on TNR, so while we do have cats and kittens that we’ve rescued available for adoption, we are dedicated to growing our TNR program. One way we’ve done that is by forming teams of volunteers that trap in specific areas of the cities we work in. We are proud to have started Hamtramck and Southwest Detroit teams, and have an Eastside Detroit team that is ready to get going as soon as we secure veterinary services.

We are extremely proud of the amount of cats and people we’ve been able to help. We provide TNR to communities free of charge, and utilize fundraisers and donations to pay for those services. We also fiercely advocate for cats, and expect that any cat in our care will be treated with dignity and respect at all times.

We do take in a lot of hard cases, such as cats who are feral but need medical treatment. We have helped outdoor cats get seen by a vet for maybe the first and only time in their lives. We get creative on how to medicate them, and provide them with a safe spot to recover.

Colony cats are oftentimes seen as deserving less than housecats, and we do not tolerate that. Our dream is to have a brick and mortar shelter with high quality rehabilitation spaces for colony cats that need to recover from surgery or illness. Outdoor cats are resourceful and guarded at times, but they are just trying to get by in a complicated world, which to us is so relatable.

What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
We could go on for days about how special Detroit, Hamtramck and Highland Park are.

Detroit exemplifies grit. Go to any enclave of Detroit, and you’ll be presented with people who really care about their community. We see neighbors helping neighbors all the time. We only trap cats in neighborhoods that we are invited into, and we usually end up meeting most of the people in the neighborhood! We hear stories about cats and the community, and we absolutely love when neighbors discover they have different names for the same cat!

Hamtramck is a little gem inside a big city. We recently were trapping in an alley that had at least 50 stray cats. The neighbors in that area were super alert to us being there, but news spread quickly about why we were there, and we had so many people coming up to us and thanking us. Neighbors were excited to see their favorite cats returning with an ear tip (the universal sign that an outdoor cat has been vaccinated and fixed).

Highland Park is such a self sufficient city that really looks out for each other. We’ve had the honor of trapping cats who are so fiercely cared for, and returning them back to their colonies. The city definitely cares about their cats, and is very resourceful in providing for them.

We would love to see more support from the city’s local government and animal control divisions to help with the stray cats and dogs. The animal welfare groups of New York City, specifically Flatbush Cats, are currently working tremendously to get the local government involved in providing low cost veterinary services to the community. It feels like the onus to solve the problem has fallen onto the backs of the citizens, and we feel like funding and shared resources would make tremendous strides to get this crisis under control.

We would love to see Detroit step up and really prioritize animal welfare. It’s always been Detroit vs. Everybody; let’s show them how we get it done.

Pricing:

• Each TNR procedure is $25-$35, and we use donations to provide those services free of charge to the community.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @colonycatclub
• Facebook: @colonycatclub
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@colonycatsdet