Hannah Shaw, aka the Kitten Lady, has traversed the world to learn about feline care and culture, and she’s coming to Lawrence this week to share some of her knowledge.
If you’ve ever Googled “how to bottle feed a kitten,” you probably know about Shaw and her life’s passion to rescue and rehabilitate neonatal kittens while educating the public on feline welfare. Shaw’s an author and educator who’s amassed more than 1.7 million followers on YouTube and 1.3 million on Instagram as the Kitten Lady.
And Shaw, 37, might be the only professional cat rescuer in the world who’s also married to a professional cat photographer. Together, she and Andrew Marttila tell the story of floofs from 30 countries in their new book “Cats of the World,” which landed this week on the New York Times Best Seller List. It’s available at the Raven Book Store, Lawrence Public Library and elsewhere.
Shaw also founded the Orphan Kitten Club, a nonprofit rescue organization that provides support for the Lawrence Humane Society through Mightycat Innovation Grants.
One of those benefactors is Treble. Locals will recognize Treble as the tiny black orphaned kitten with a severe cleft palate and flecks of gray fur who was later rescued and tube fed at the shelter. Treble has since had surgery — provided with funds from the Orphan Kitten Club — and he’ll likely stay in foster care until around Thanksgiving, according to Elina Alterman, a spokesperson for the Lawrence Humane Society.
“He is doing great and getting to eat on his own finally!” Alterman said.
We spoke with Shaw during a layover on her way to Kansas. It’s her first time visiting Lawrence, although she has been to the Sunflower State and even got to meet Treble during a visit with Hill’s Pet Nutrition, headquartered in Topeka. Hill’s has sponsored Shaw’s visit to Lawrence as well as a cat and kitten adoption promotion at Lawrence Humane Society through the end of October.
Through Thursday, Hill’s will sponsor up to $100 of the adoption fee for each cat and kitten adopted at the humane society. The cost for adult cat adoptions is $60 and kitten adoptions are $125. Adoptees will also receive a free bag of starter pet food from Hill’s. Alterman said 80 feline adoptions have already benefited from the promotion. See the shelter’s adoption-ready animals at this link. Adoption hours are noon to 6 p.m. daily.
Shaw will participate in a private tour of the animal shelter during her visit to Lawrence. Alterman credited community members for coming to the shelter’s rescue on short notice to host a community presentation led by Shaw from 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at the Granada, 1020 Massachusetts St.
“Mike Logan was very generous in donating the use of the Granada, and Linda Cottin over at Cottin’s Hardware donated the chairs, and Mary Costello from (Espurresso) Cat Cafe has been so incredibly helpful,” Alterman said. “And so we just quickly pivoted, and it went from a very small event at the humane society to now this larger event so that we could have as many cat people come together as possible.”
Tickets for the two-hour event are going fast, Alterman said. They cost $10 each with proceeds going to the shelter. Purchase tickets at this link. A limited number of attendees also will receive a copy of “Cats of the World” at the event.
Shaw described Lawrence Humane Society’s foster program as “truly incredible.”
“I’ve worked with them for years through Orphan Kitten Club, sponsored a number of programs and staff positions there that are kitten focused,” Shaw said. “So I know firsthand the amazing work that they do. And if people care about kittens, the best way that they can help is by signing up to foster. So when you sign up to foster there, you’re going to be part of an amazing community where they’re going to provide you with things like supplies and veterinary care and knowledge and support. And if you want to get started, coming to this event is a very nice way to get moved into that world.”
Here are a few questions and answers from our talk with Shaw. This transcript has been edited and condensed.
LT: When did you fall in love with cats?
Shaw: I have always been an animal lover, but I was not a cat person until 15 years ago, when I was in Philadelphia in a public park, and I looked up into a tree and found this little kitten up in the treetops. And it was kind of this moment in which I was confronted with the question of ‘Am I an animal lover by name, or am I an animal lover by action? You know, do I intervene when there’s an animal in need?’ So I ended up climbing this tree somehow. I don’t know how I did it. Got to the top of the tree, rescued this little kitten, brought her home and then it gave me sort of my introduction to the vulnerabilities that kittens face. I had no idea that neonatal kittens were the primary, largest feline population facing euthanasia in shelters. And that opened my eyes, in a way that kind of ended up transforming the path of my life. After that I became very passionate about fostering. Well, once I started fostering, I very quickly discovered that I could not do all of it by myself. So I became really, really passionate about education and recruiting support through raising awareness of this issue and raising education and access to resources and knowledge about how to save this very vulnerable population. That cat 15 years ago was my cat, Coco, who actually was my biggest inspiration in life. She unfortunately passed away at the beginning of this year, so everything I do is kind of in honor of her.
LT: Where are you based and can you tell me about your cats?
Shaw: I live in San Diego, California, where it is kitten season all year round, so it’s a very good place for kitten advocates like me. I have a couple cats. Chouchou was a kitten who came to me because he had a cleft palate. He had one of the most significant cleft palates that any vet that I work with had ever seen. And through working with him, I had to develop a really unique protocol to keep him able to receive nutrition. He had to have a very, very unique surgery through UC Davis (School of Veterinary Medicine) and he ended up being kind of a groundbreaking case there. And through his care, I developed a protocol that actually is the protocol that ended up being used to help Treble in Lawrence. … (Chouchou’s) a very fluffy white Persian cat who is not the typical kind of cat that comes to me, but because of his medical needs, I’ve had him since he was a newborn. I had him for 10 months, my longest foster ever, just because of the amount of care that he needed to become able to become stable on his own. And once he was in a space where he was able to be adopted, my husband would not let him go. He actually filled out the adoption application to adopt him, and I said, ‘OK.’ That’s our newest cat. But one of the things that I try to do in life, and certainly with my own path, is learn everything that I can from these cases that I take on, whether they’re my fosters or my personal pets, and then spread that knowledge and also spread the resources. So another example is my cat Ferguson, who came to me in very, very bad condition, and not very much was known about why he was in that bad condition. Very long story short, he ended up having kidney disease, which was not something people thought that newborn kittens could have, but they can. And so through scientific inquiry and medical curiosity, we were able to stabilize him after learning that this is what was going on with him, and he inspired one of the studies that we’re now funding at UC Davis, which is looking at causes of morbidity and mortality in the neonate population. So every kitten that enters my orbit ends up being a bit of a pushing off point from which other programs and knowledge grows, and I try to disseminate that as far and wide as possible, because the reality is that kitten care and pediatric medicine for felines is all really new. It’s a growing area with lots of knowledge to be gained and shared.
LT: What life lessons have you learned from the kittens and cats that you’ve cared for or came in contact with?
Shaw: Well, I always say being an animal rescuer is less about having a specific set of knowledge and it’s more about having an attitude of wanting to make a difference. I think that the life lesson, like the biggest lesson that I’ve taken away, is that there’s always more to learn. And I try to approach everything that I do with a real curiosity and hunger for growth and knowledge. I think that nobody ever changed the world by doing things the same way forever, right? We change the world by taking on things that may seem impossible and then finding out, are they impossible, or if we put some resources and effort into it, you know what can be done here? So I think doing this kind of work with neonatal kittens has made me a much more optimistic and hopeful person because I truly believe the world can be made better by individual acts of kindness. I see it every day, and I think that anybody who gets involved in animal welfare, but particularly kitten welfare, is going to come away with those same lessons of the ways in which our outlooks really inform the outcomes of an animal, the importance of just having a hopeful attitude, to everything we do.
LT: Tell me about your presentation tomorrow at the Granada.
Shaw: I am doing a talk on saving kittens, which is a two-hour presentation for people of all levels. Anybody from active kitten foster parents to people who enjoy following kittens on the internet can come and learn about foster care. I cover everything from understanding kitten developmental milestones to how to feed a kitten, how to help kittens go to the bathroom. We talk about kitten behavior and then helping people through the emotional pieces of fostering because a lot of people are afraid to foster because they’re worried that they’re going to have a hard time saying goodbye on adoption day. I love coaching people through some of that and helping them feed a bigger purpose to what we’re doing. I always say “Goodbye is the goal of fostering.” When we say goodbye on adoption day, that means that kind of like a graduation, they’ve made it. They’ve succeeded. And so when we say goodbye, it opens our home to be able to foster more kittens, and there’s always a need. … I do these all over the country, and typically, we end up with a lot of people who felt it wasn’t something they could do, coming away from it saying, “I think I can do it now,” you know? And that’s really the important thing for me. You do not have to be an expert to change the life of an animal, you just have to be willing to try.
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Tricia Masenthin (she/her), equity reporter, can be reached at tmasenthin (at) lawrencekstimes (dot) com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
