Our Facility
Come meet our founder, Lynea Lattanzio, and let her introduce The Cat House on the Kings. Our thanks to Jack Perez for making this video!
The House
Please click on a picture to see a larger version.
The Kitchen
The kitchen is where all the action is. Twice a day, Lynea prepares a mixture of canned and dry food that bring the cats, tame and feral alike, running to the kitchen. There's standing room only during this feeding frenzy! There is no place that is off limits to these hungry felines!
The Wood Stove
Around the wood stove is a favorite place for the cats. When it's cold outside this is the warmest spot in the house.
Kitty Garden
The Kitty Garden is a very large room with a sunny view and a loft which can accommodate about 30 kittens who are ready for adoption. They have all been spayed/neutered, tested for FeLV/FIV, wormed and had two or more of their upper-respiratory shots. These babies are ready to go!
Pink Room
The Pink Room was named for the painted color of its concrete floor. This 16' square room has two main uses. During kitten season it houses the overflow from the Kitty Garden. In the off-season (December to May) we use if for new arrivals who, for one reason or another, cannot go directly into the Pasture Project. To date we have not been able to afford linoleum, so painted concrete has to do. Can you make a contribution to help fix this?
Condo Room
The Condo Room is a transitional room for adult cats. It has a kitty door to the outside and access to the house. With plenty of beds, food, water and litter boxes, why ever leave?
Intensive Care Unit (ICU)
The ICU is an important part of the daily work at The Cat House. Venessa, our experienced veterinary assistant, arrives at 6am (or earlier!) to prepare special diets and begin medicating cats. Only seriously ill animals are kept in the ICU; animals on long-term medication are held in other areas. We are planning to move the ICU to a larger room this summer.
Project Updates
Expand Our FIV Ward
Our current FIV ward is not large enough for a lifetime of confinement. With your generous contributions, we would like to construct a much larger enclosure for these healthy but unfortunate outcasts, where they can run and climb a tree.
Create Long-Term Boarding
Once the expansion to the FIV Ward is completed, we will convert the old FIV Ward into a long-term boarding facility to provide some help with our operating expenses.
The Outdoors
Pasture Project
The Pasture Project is a 75' x 100' fully fenced enclosure and quarantine area with two 2-story Tuff Sheds, patios, a waterfall, and lots of grass and trees. The houses have ceiling fans for summer and portable heaters for winter, and are used to house new cats prior to release. Every 6 months, the doors are opened and the cats are allowed to choose where on the property they wish to live.
FIV Ward
First, let's talk about FIV: FIV stands for Feline Immunodeficiency Virus. It's a lentivirus, meaning that it progresses very slowly, gradually affecting a cat's immune system. It is passed through blood transfusions and through deep, penetrating bite wounds — primarily by stray, intact tom cats. The most well-known lentivirus in humans is HIV. But the two are not at all the same, and you can't get FIV from a cat.
FIV is diagnosed by a simple blood test, and cats that test positive for the virus are referred to as FIV positive, or FIV+. Read more about FIV. At The Cat House on the Kings, we care for 10-12 FIV+ cats in a beautiful, fenced-in yard and a two-story Tuff Shed.
Short-Term Boarding
Our short-term boarding facility is made up of three huge enclosures, which can be configured to make any combination from 12' to 36'. These enclosures have ceiling fans, and are cooled in summer using misters and a water cooler; and in winter are heated by portable heaters or heated beds. Note: Plastic sheeting (shown in photo) protects the runs in winter.
Sadie Malone Senior Center
In early 2009 we completed a new enclosure with one of our heated cabins for our older residents who need the peace and quiet of a retirement home, away from the energetic younger cats and, of course, the dogs. We named this facility the Sadie Malone Senior Center thanks to the generosity of San Jose Mercury News readers and those who knew Sadie Malone as an irrepressible feral cat advocate and caretaker in downtown San Jose, CA. Sadie passed away December 26th, 2008, but her work is being carried on by other feral cat caretakers.
Joan Droge Kitten Quarantine
The Joan Droge Kitten Quarantine, our new kitten adoption center, opened in time for the 2009 kitten season. It enables us to limit kittens' exposure to anything which might make them ill while their immune systems are still developing. They have lots of room to run and play and otherwise entertain themselves and anyone who visits them. We have dedicated this new facility to Joan Droge, a long time supporter who left us a very generous bequest when she passed away in 2008.