Angela Hill / Eyewitness News
NEW ORLEANS -- At the Spaymart Second Chance Adoption Center and Thrift Store, life may be changing for several of the residents.
For Bell, Thomas and Clande – they could end up like Obie – wanted and adored.
Obie, like the others, was among 200 cats saved from an extreme hoarder six years ago. They have lived at Spaymart cat sanctuary since, but now Obie has a real home.
Obie’s fortune is in part because Spaymart founder Lynn Chiche came up with the idea that the best home for an older cat would be with an older person.
“So many people in our city, we don’t realize that they live alone,” she said. “They come home to an empty apartment and they wake up to an empty apartment. I think their life is very unfulfilled.”
Having a cat to love would give some seniors a reason to get up each morning, Chiche reasons.
“It goes a long way to fighting depression and loneliness and anxiety,” she said.
For 71-year-old June Ervins, Obie has become family.
“If I am out of the room for just a few minutes, then he comes and looks for me,” she says.
Obie, now given a real home and love fairly late in his life, has added immeasurably to Ervins’.
“He takes care of me and I take care of him,” she said. “We love each other.”
Susan Buzik didn’t get her first cat until she was 30. That was nearly 60 years ago. Now, at almost 91, she has two, older Spaymart cats.
But she has always loved older cats. She has a picture of two cats that she calls her big board cats. She took them in when they were about 15. She named them Exxon and Xerox.
Her home is a testimony to the love she has for cats and how she values their relationships.
“I don’t know what I would have done without my cats,” she says. “I am never lonely.”
The Senior for Senior program is not just about adoption, but it is about building relationships. The cats cost nothing and Spaymart will pay for an annual visit to the vet that includes dental, blood work and vaccines, services that are on the high end.
She said the program addresses a very delicate question.
“The people actually worry about what is going to happen to the animal if they die and Spaymart’s answer to that is that we will take them back,” Chiche says.
Mary Francis Ready got a cat named Rudy from Spaymart last month.
“I am having trouble with a wound that won’t heal,” she said. “I spend a great deal of time alone with my feet up.”
If she goes to the hospital, Spaymart takes care of Rudy until she gets back home.
And, Mary Francis’ love and care for Rudy is readily reciprocated.
“All cats are such individuals,” she says. “It’s like living with any person. You learn to know each other and appreciate each other and it definitely keeps me from getting wound up in my own loneliness.”
