Cruising cats

SHORELINE — Cats will soon be going on tour. And no, this is not the musical.

Felines currently residing at Whisker City, a non-profit cat shelter in Shoreline, will be traveling throughout King County via a red school bus, beginning Dec. 4. The intention is to increase cat adoption rates in the area.

“We are bringing the pets to the people,” Whisker City founder April Brown said. “The best place for the cats to be is on the bus; it is a public environment.”

The campaign will run though Jan. 2, with the hope of raising $20,000 and providing homes for at least 30 cats.

The mobile animal shelter, called Whiskers on Wheels (WOW), is one of the first mobile animal shelters in the Pacific Northwest, according to Brown. It will be outfitted with 12 cages and will hold between 12-20 felines.

“We are the only one in Seattle, although other groups have mobile rescue vehicles,” Brown said.

Brown, who founded the shelter about 13 years ago, said the organization took out a loan to buy the bus, and also obtained a grant from Maddie’s Fund to refurbish the inside. The group added cages, generators and also an outdoor screened-in area for people to meet the animals.

The bus will be parked throughout the Puget Sound area at various businesses. Many business owners have asked the bus to stop regularly at their site and the overwhelming response has been positive, said Brown, who hopes to eventually obtain a fleet of buses for other animal shelters to utilize.

Brown, together with WOW coordinator Brenda Anderson, began planning for the mobile shelter two years ago. The original plan they devised cost about $120,000, which was eventually reduced to $10,000. Due to the shelter accepting 72 cats during the past four months, largely from people in the military, they had to downsize the plan.

The majority of the cats the shelter accepts are animals in crisis, such as from owners in the military, people who cannot afford to care for a cat, or other unusual circumstances.

Anderson, who volunteers 8-12 hours daily and has been instrumental in organizing the mobile shelter, said with the bus she expects the most adoptable cats to be at the mobile shelter no more than a week.

Anderson hopes the mobile shelter will eventually stop at a different location every day of the week, with a minimum of five days on the road per week.

“We want the bus to be out seven days a week,” Anderson said. “That is our ultimate goal.”

Whisker City has seven volunteers who work on a weekly basis, but they expect to need about 30 people to help operate the new mobile shelter. According to Brown, the shelter is largely funded out of her own income and that of other volunteers. One expense the shelter pays is vet bills, which totals about $5,000 a month.

With the addition of the bus, volunteers expect to quadruple the number of animals helped, which means operating costs will increase. Brown said about $9,000 needs to be raised a month to cover expenses, which she hopes will come from business sponsorship and donations.

“The key to the bus is business support and visibility,” Brown said. “I know expenses will double with the bus.”

The bus will also have a small display of goods for sale, such as catnip grown by volunteers, wreaths of cat toys and knitted mice with catnip. The profits from sales go toward operation costs.

“We want to demonstrate it can be done,” Brown said. “I believe anyone can do this.”

Whiskers on Wheels will be stationed Dec. 4-5 at PETsMART, located at 13000 Aurora Ave. N, Seattle. For a complete list of locations for the month, visit www.whiskercity.com/calendar.