Lynea Lattanzio has given up her large home to more than a thousand felines.
Self-study activity:
Watch the video clip and answer the questions below.
1 How many cats has Lynea lived with throughout her life?
2 How many cats are currently living in her home?
3 How big is the house where the cats live?
4 When did she discover her love for cats?
5 What did she do to help keep the animals’ medical costs down?
6 What is the cost of running the cat sanctuary?
7 How often does the vet visit the sanctuary?
8 How did Lynea manage to expand the grounds for the sanctuary?
9 What's Lynea's main aim?
I’m gonna say that I am at the top of the list of the eccentric crazy cat ladies.
I like cats because they are independent, they are beautiful, they are just graceful, and I enjoy watching them. I have taken in and lived with 28,000 cats. That’s probably a record.
The Cat House on the Kings is California’s largest no-cage sanctuary for feral and abandoned cats. Founded by Lynea Lattanzio in her home, the sanctuary currently houses around 800 adult cats and 300 kittens, and the sheer numbers have forced Lynea to move out of the main house.
This is my boy.
There wasn’t a room for me anymore. I ended up with 60-something cats in my bedroom, with dogs, and I just said that’s it, and I moved out. We had a rental on our property, and I moved to that rental. I went from 4,200-square-foot 5-bedroom home with a pool, and a wet bar and a view of the river to a 1,600-1,800 sq foot mobile home with a view of a rusty metal shed. I’ve come up in the world. This is my cat free zone. Ha! Ha!
In 1992, Lynea’s father had asked her to help him find some new cats. She went to an animal shelter and brought home 15 kittens. By the end of the year, she’d rescued and re-homed 96 cats. It was then that she realised she’d found her calling.
When I first started this endeavour, I was out of my own pocket for seven years. I spent my retirement, I sold my car, I sold my wedding ring.
He is so fat.
In 1993, she became a veterinary technician to help keep the animals’ medical costs down, and the number of cats continue to grow. The sanctuary is now so big that Lynea has staff and a team of volunteers to help run it.
Currently for food, litter, maintenance, staffing, vet, medical, we are at 1.6 million US dollars a year.
We come in about 4 o’clock in the morning and, you know, we start by feeding. It usually takes us, like maybe like thirty minutes to an hour to feed everyone.
I first started here, I wasn’t really a cat person but after that, you know, you work with them five days a week, you get attached to them. Everybody has different characteristics, and you get to know them, and they get to know you. They kind of wait for you when you walk in the gate. It’s pretty cool, man.
This is our ICU. We have a hospital and an ICU, a kitten quarantine, a senior quarantine, but that is where our critically ill cats stay. We have a vet that comes once a week to check our animals. We take animals into him every day for check. And we have seven vet techs on staff.
When a generous donor left Lynea her estate in 2004, the profits from the sale allowed her to buy the neighbouring land and expand the grounds to twelve acres and install cat-proof fencing around the perimeter, meaning all the cats could roam freely.
See, under the trees, all those are cats over there. There is one on the straw. There is, that’s their feeding station, and their bedding, and their heater back there but, see there is a cat over there.
As much as Lynea loves the cats, her aim is to find them new homes; not to keep them for herself.
If you are interested in adopting, you would go to our website and fill out the adoption form. There is five hundred up for adoption that are friendly and ready to go.
I must be allergic to cats.
Bless you.
Thank you.
Key:
1 28,000
2 1,100
3 4,200-square-foot 5-bedroom home
4 In 1992, when her father asked her to find new cats
5 She became a veterinary technician
6 1.6 million US dollars a year
7 Once a week
8 Thanks to a generous donor, who left Lynea her estate in 2004
9 To find new homes for the cats
