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Mangawhai’s Helping Paws sanctuary will soon be able to offer its residents an outdoor play area, with plans underway for a new enclosure allowing them to dig their paws into the dirt and claws into trees.
Funded by a special Lotteries Minister discretionary grant, the 100 square metre area will open up the existing catio, which features cat trees, towers and perches above a concrete floor.
Designed by a cat foster mum, who is also an experienced landscape architect, the new area will serve as a natural garden for the cats, Helping Paws founder Megan Denize says.
“It will be a grassed space with trees to climb and a pond to drink from,” she says.
Established in 2019, Helping Paws rehabilitates, desexes and rehomes about 500 cats and kittens every year.
The animals come from across Northland and Auckland, and the centre’s foster homes extend from Whangarei to Waikato.
With a no-kill policy, the refuge is also the permanent home for a number of other rescued animals including alpaca, seasonal ducklings, five miniature horses and two goats.
At any given time, 80 to 100 cats are on site in the maternity ward, new arrivals area or quarantine rooms.
Denize says despite the number, most of the animals live together in relative harmony.
“There is an assumption that cats are solitary creatures, whereas in reality they live in communities like we do. Like us, they don’t always like every other cat they come across, so there’ll be the odd tiff, but for the most part, they all get on,” she says. “It’s a little bit unsettling when a new arrival is suddenly thrust into this big environment full of cats, but they settle down pretty quickly.”
Denize says a current local challenge is properties being sold with a ‘no cats covenant’, with landowners laying traps to catch the cats before bringing the animals into the centre.
“It can be difficult to manage because while some landowners cannot have a cat, it doesn’t stop their neighbours from having cats. Unfortunately, cats don’t know about these boundaries.
“Some people assume that because the cat is in a trap, it shouldn’t be there and needs rescuing. In reality, the cat lives two doors down and probably has a family. We can’t just uplift them.”
Helping Paws has a team of dedicated volunteers including people with intellectual abilities and, on occasions, students.
Denize says teenagers who struggle with attendance and classwork are allowed to spend time with the cats as part of a rewards programme and the bond they develop with the cats has had an extraordinary effect.
“The kids spend a lot of time one-on-one with a cat of their choice to help socialise them and do really well, taking cats that were terrified of humans through to the point where they can be successfully adopted,” she says.
“The students also went from being disengaged at school and having a very patchy school attendance, to almost full attendance. So the cats and kids helped each other out.”
Denize says the goal is to each year save more cat lives than the previous year.
“With the new space and community helping out, we’re on track to do that.”
To find out more about the important work at Helping Paws, visit www.facebook.com/groups/mangawhaishelpingpaws
