Cat Depot was the third-place winner of the 2016 1-800-PetMeds Cares™ DOGust Birthday Contest. You can learn more about the contest here.

In 2003, a former shelter in Sarasota, Fla., abandoned several hundred free-roaming cats. Five concerned citizens stepped up and rented a space to keep these cats, nursing them back to health and starting Cat Depot in the process. Now, the group has a large state of the art green adoption facility in Sarasota, complete with a surgical center, community cat care clinic and education and activity center.

Cat Depot’s mission is to save cats’ lives, find them great homes and provide education to the community to improve the lives of homeless cats. It achieves this by focusing on four areas: cat rescue, adoption, TNVR (trap, neuter, vaccinate, release), and education.

The group works daily to rescue abandoned, injured and free community cats and kittens, and it saved more than 1,400 cats in 2015 alone. It frequently assists with local and national rescue missions and will accept special-needs cats from other shelters and rescue groups.

Cat Depot houses more than 125 cats at any time, most of whom are ready for adoptive homes. The facility is free-roaming, so the cats are able to interact with each other and visitors while hanging out inside or visiting a secure outdoor lanai. There are several rooms, called pods, to separate cats with special needs, including an FIV+ pod.

FIV is a disease that affects the feline immune system. It cannot be passed to people or other non-cat animals, and it’s very difficult to pass to another cat. FIV will not make a cat sick on its own, but it can weaken the cat’s immune system so that any sickness or injury is harder to recover from. FIV+ cats can live completely normal lives with regular preventative vet care, good-quality food and little stress.

That being said, many adopters overlook FIV+ cats due to a lack of knowledge of the disease or fear over what it means. Some shelters will even automatically euthanize FIV+ cats, making Cat Depot’s FIV pod an important sanctuary for FIV+ cats in the area. Learn more about FIV and what an FIV+ diagnosis means here.

One of the cats living in the FIV+ pod at Cat Depot is Bernard. This laid-back boy has been at Cat Depot for more than a year, and has been overlooked time and again.

Bernard is one of our longest residents – he has been at Cat Depot for [more than] a year. He loves hanging out with people, but isn’t a lap-cat, and he is overlooked because he will stay to the side and watch potential adopters.

He loves sitting on the lanai, watching lizards and butterflies, and he puts his cute little nose up to the breeze. We’re hoping an adoption event with sponsored adoption fees will help Bernard find the loving furever family he needs and deserves.

To learn more about Bernard or apply to adopt him, visit Cat Depot’s website and fill out an adoption application. There are also many other cats and kittens looking for great homes! Cat Depot is located in Sarasota, Fla. and is open to visitors 7 days a week.