When I wrote about the launch of the Million Cat Challenge, in December 2014, I suggested that it “felt like something historic.”
“As if we’ve entered into a new era of animal sheltering where cats are concerned. This ambitious campaign promises to be a game-changer not just for the million cats it aims to save (over the next five years), but for sheltering itself.”
Well, here we are just 17 months later, and the Challenge is already surpassing the 500,000-cat milestone. Apparently, the future is now.
“We’ve reached a tipping point; nobody wants to turn back now,” observed Dr. Kate Hurley, of the UC-Davis Koret Shelter Medicine Program, in a press release.
“Shelters now have strategies that are more humane, more effective, and better serve cats and communities. These strategies really work, and on April 11, we’ll have 500,000 witnesses to prove it.”
Key to those strategies are the Five Initiatives outlined on the MCC website: alternatives to intake, managed admission, capacity for care, removing barriers to adoption, and return-to-field. This is progressive, twenty-first-century sheltering—and, as the map of MCC participants shows, it’s gaining traction across the country (and beyond).
Whether your community’s on board yet or not, you can join in the celebration on the MCC Facebook page Monday, April 11, at 3:00 pm Eastern Time. (Rumor has it there will be “kittens galore.”)