(This post is a sort of continuation and conclusion for the “Caturday” post I made back in April. While the quarantine is now over, I felt something needed to be added.)
Katzenheim is a small cat refuge located in Schwaz. It is linked to the “Tierschutzverein für Tirol”, an animal welfare association in the Tirol region. This place welcomes cats without owners, stray cats, or abandoned, or lost. It also accepts pregnant cat mothers and newborn kittens.
The place itself feels warm and welcoming to cats and humans alike, being more like a home than an animal prison. And the people here, professionals and volunteers alike, do their best to take care of these feline refugees, and, if possible, find them a home.
If you find yourself longing for some feline company, you can come and adopt one of the residents here. Kitten or old cat, black or white, quiet or playful, athletic or chubby: there may be a suitable companion for you.
Alternatively, if you live around schwaz and would like to get to know all of them, the shelter is always looking for volunteers to help them provide their pensionnaires with enough care and attention.
For me, I discovered the place in the middle of the confinement, thanks to the good advice of a concerned colleague. Like many people, that was not a good period for me. In fact, looking back, it may have been my absolute lowest point, emerging from a very trying winter only to enter a spring of forced passivity and powerless anxiety.
I was not alone, many people actually tried to help us all getting through that time, including the team and the other volunteers from pojat, but online socialization and distant relationships were never my strong points, and through all that I did not see much to do, write, or say, that could make it better, so I mostly kept to myself.
I started volunteering in Katzenheim, a couple of times at first, then almost everyday until the end of the shutdown; and still two or three times a week once my youth center reopened. It gave me something to do that made me feel both happy and useful. It helped give me enough will to go back to work, and later to start some projects of my own. Enough will to recontact old friends and try making new ones. Enough will to finally write this post.
Maybe that text is a bit late. The confinement has been over for 3 months, after all. But maybe confinement will come back at a later date, or maybe someone will feel as I did, for completely unrelated reasons.
I guess the point of this post is not about cats. Some people are allergic to them, some people don’t like them, some people simply don’t care about them; so what worked for me is obviously not going to work for everyone. But the actual point is, something worked. Things do, sometimes, get better.
And if that last sappy comment is not for you, then here is at least some more cute kittens.
