Two Years Of Volunteering At Almost Home Cat Rescue

celebrating a small milestone in service at a place that does good work

Facebook memories informed me this morning that two years ago today I posted (along with some cat pictures):

Just finished volunteer training, after hanging out with Ayla and Zuzu. I’m now no longer a frequent guest at Almost Home Cat Rescue, but also officially a volunteer!

I knew that this anniversary was coming up soon. Frankly, I was a little bit surprised that it hadn’t already arrived in June (it looks like I misremembered dates a bit). But it is good to know that as of today, I am officially two years in.

Most of the matters I write about here in my Substack are directly related to philosophy, broadly speaking, but you have likely seen me occasionally posting here in Notes about cats and kittens, the Almost Home shelter and organizations, and my own departed cat companion Sassy. Today’s entry will be very much about the latter matters and probably not much at all about philosophy. So if you’re here exclusively for philosophy-related matters, you might want to move on to one of the many other pieces that will fit that bill better.

I will say this, however (and this is something I do intend to write more about down the line): It’s my view that, in general, it’s a good thing for people who are particularly interested in philosophy, and who spend a lot of their time and thought on it, to not center everything in their lives in philosophy. In my case, my interest in classic heavy metal music is something I can enjoy without shoehorning philosophy into it. I can enjoy a good walk or hike and appreciate the summer flowers without needing to indulge in reveries about aesthetics. And when it comes to engagements with cats and kittens, it’s fine for that to be disconnected from the philosophical work I do.

Back to Almost Home. How did I end up there? That’s a rather long story, and it starts with the Sassy cat, and the end of her long life in 2022. Sassy was one of two kittens who had survived an apartment fire in New York City that killed their mother and their littermates. My now-wife Andi adopted them from a shelter when they were young, and she was told that Sassy’s sister, Teensy, would likely be all right, but that Sassy probably did not have a long life ahead of her. As it turned out, Sassy outlived not only her sister but also her two canine adoptive siblings, Magnus and Amica.

When Andi and I reconnected (we first met back in high school — another long story there!), and we became involved, I met all of her four-legged family. Sassy and I became friends immediately. While Teensy hib behind a box, Sassy strutted out to me, nuzzled my hand, purred, and let me pick her right up into my arms. Once I moved in, Teensy warmed up to me, and the dogs and I had gotten close as well. But with Sassy over the years, I formed the deepest connection I have had with any animal over the course of my life.

When we moved back out here to Milwaukee from New York, Sassy rode with me on the rather ill-fated trip, which saw our truck break down along the way, and Sassy riding with me in a semi tow truck. She and I spent a lot of time together over the years, especially as the other members of our pack got old and died off, leaving her at the end the only one left. Without understanding the reason for it, Sassy, I think, was very happy with the Covid-19 lockdown era, since it meant that, other than taking walks, and later on going back to the gym and teaching on campus at MIAD and Marquette, I was home with her all the time.

Sometime along the way, I became “her person”. It’s not as if Sassy didn’t love Andi, who raised her from a kitten, but she had a special connection with me. Apparently, when I would leave the apartment, and Sassy realized I was gone, she would wander around seeking me out, making a specific cry she used only when calling for me. She slept next to me most nights, sometimes pushing with her head to arrange my hands and arms into a configuration that suited her. She spent a lot of time in my lap or in my arms, expected a little “taste” of what I was eating (she went wild over Ashley’s fried catfish and over plain tuna sushi!), and would walk me down the stairs in the morning, making sure I followed her down by looking over her shoulder and occasionally chirping at me.

Sassy lived to 19 1/2, and while she was never in great health — there were always some things she struggled with — she was almost always in good spirits. She loved trips out to her grandmother’s house in Brookfield, where she would explore the yard, hiding under the hostas, scratching and sniffing around the old logs in the woodpile. We also took walks around town with her tucked into in a harness across my chest, and she loved not just smelling the air, but watching the rippling waves of the Milwaukee river, and greeting the people we came across. She even accompanied us on a road trip up to Green Bay the Christmas before she died, and charmed the hotel maintenance guy who fixed the hot water in our room when we were at the Packers game.

Andi said a number of times, after Amica died, and only Sassy was left, seeing the two of us spending time together: “It’s going to be really hard for you when she goes”. And it was, of course. Sassy was nearing the end, and stopped cleaning herself, or even sometimes getting down from her bed to use the litter box, so I cleaned her, her bed, and the butterscotch blanket she loved frequently. In her last few days, she was unable to keep food down, and then broth, and then even water. I cancelled all of my classes and appointments, and just spent her last three days with her, mostly holding her in my arms, or laying her on my chest. She died at home with us. I still feel some twinges of grief remembering her tiny frame and face at the end, but I’m happy that we were able to give her a decent final few days with the people who loved her and she loved.

After Sassy died, some well-meaning but rather tactless people suggested that I should deal with the grief for a beloved companion by just replacing her. “Get a new kitten”, they urged. That was the opposite of what I intended to do. Andi and I had talked this over quite a bit. She had spent nearly two decades caring for her four-legged family, she was still grieving the loss of both dogs from years past, and it was time for us to be freed of caretaking obligations for a while. I had thought that, once my grief had mellowed, what I wanted to do was to volunteer at some sort of rescue or shelter to help care for cats and kittens, to give some love, affection, care, and attention to animals that needed it.

That idea went on hold for a while, not least because I had a lot to process in terms of my own grieving, but also because not long after Sassy died, I came down with Covid, which did a number on me. In some respects, as Andi pointed out, it was fortunate that Sassy was gone when I got Covid, since she would have been upset not being able to spend time with me for the 2 weeks I was seriously ill and isolated.

Then, in the summer of 2022, we took a trip back up to Green Bay, this time to attend a soccer game at Lambeau Field. While up in Green Bay, after having breakfast in the downtown, we walked past a cat shelter, Safe Haven Pet Sanctuary. I initially didn’t want to go in, but Andi suggested as we were walking past it the second time, that we do so. And we did. We got to meet a retired man, “Grandpa Terry”, who spends a lot of his time with the cats there, sometimes just taking naps, and he introduced me to an old girl, Agnes, who was terminally ill with cancer. She got up in my lap, and I petted her until she fell asleep for about an hour. Then we said our goodbyes and went off to the game.

Later on that summer, for my birthday, we decided to visit the local cat cafe here in Milwaukee. That experience was all right, but something quite different from the visit to Safe Haven. You book an hour to spend with the cats, in a single room with lots of other people, including kids who stress some of the cats out a bit, and there’s about as many people as there are cats. Not quite the same model as a cat shelter or rescue that doesn’t focus on the “cafe” aspect.

And then came Almost Home. I saw an article about them a few months after they had officially opened their shelter space to the public in late 2022 (before that, they had the foster network, but not a physical location), and noticed that they were located in a building I had previously worked in, when what is now a veterinarian office was a coffee house. Better yet, they were right off one of the stops of the streetcar that I rode pretty frequently. So one Sunday in February 2023, Andi and I visited Almost Home.

At that time, there were just two cats living in the shelter, a playful little black cat named Ernest, and a beautiful but at-first shy calico named Maxine. Both of them had FIV (feline immunodeficiency virus), so they couldn’t be with other cats, since they might spread the infection to them. Stephen was the volunteer who was staffing the shelter, and he explained about the shelter, their mission, and these two particular cats. I made friends with Earnest right away, and Maxine warmed up to me after I spent time quietly sitting with her and petting her.

Andi and I visited several times, but as it turned out, what had always been a mild allergy for her while she had Teensy and Sassy, in the absence of exposure to cats since Sassy died, had developed into a much stronger allergy. Spending time at the shelter wasn’t much of an option for her, but she encouraged me to do so, and I became a regular visitor.

After some time, I met other volunteers there, as well as getting to know other cats and kittens who came in. Ernest and Maxine got adopted together. Stephen started suggesting to me that I consider becoming a volunteer, and told me more about the organization. I was pretty busy during the academic Spring semester, but decided that once the school year was done, I would submit the volunteer application and go through the training involved.

At that time, that involved going through an online class with Fear Free, going to an orientation to all the ins and outs of the shelter with one of the experienced volunteers, and then doing several shadow shifts with volunteers (and if I remember right, a background check as well). So I completed all of that officially two years ago, and then I began signing up for shifts.

Every day there are morning and evening cleaning, feeding, and watering shifts, where volunteers come in, do those things, and spend time with the cats and kittens. Four days a week, we have open house shifts (Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 6-8 PM, and Saturday and Sunday 10 AM-2 PM) where members of the public come in to meet and spend time with the shelter residents). I started doing regular open house shifts and occasional cleaning shifts (particularly on holidays), and got to see how things were done by spending time with and talking with the more seasoned volunteers, some of whom were actually founders of Almost Home.

As time has gone on, I’ve been asked to help with additional matters at the shelter. Some of the other volunteers, seeing that I bring a calming presence for cats who are stressed, anxious, or otherwise withdrawn, getting them to relax and come out of their proverbial shells, started calling me a “cat whisperer”, and so when a transfer of cats new to the shelter come in, I get asked to help out with just welcoming and spending time with them. Very occasionally I help with events to promote the shelter to the public. I’ve also very recently taken on a new role, vice president of the board, and I’m just in my early months of that.

In the meantime, we’ve had hundreds of cats pass through the shelter and the foster network, staying with us, getting excellent care and the love they need, until they are adopted into their “forever homes”. You do get attached to some of them over time, but it is not just a consolation but our very mission that they’re not supposed to remain with us forever, but rather find their permanent people. I haven’t looked at our count-sign lately, but I think we passed 525 total adoptions sometime last week.

Almost Home Cat Rescue is both a place and an organization. You could also say that it includes at any given time a number of cats and kittens as well. But what really makes it what it is are the volunteers, people who choose to give of their time, energy, labor, and love to care for the cats and kittens that are with us for a while and then move on to a good life with other people who will love and care for them. It has become something quite central and important in my life. And I like to think that my work with Almost Home is a way for me to continue and honor what I was fortunate enough to have with Sassy for roughly 12 years.

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Gregory Sadler is the president of ReasonIO, a speaker, writer, and producer of popular YouTube videos on philosophy. He is co-host of the radio show Wisdom for Life, and producer of the Sadler’s Lectures podcast. You can request short personalized videos at his Cameo page. If you’d like to take online classes with him, check out the Study With Sadler Academy.