Cats Find Forever Homes at Sip & Purr During COVID-19

Sip & Purr cat cafe on Milwaukee’s East Side isn’t only known as a place to cuddle with cats in the popular cat lounge, but a place to adopt. During Gov. Ever’s Safer at Home order, the cafe has organized over 25 cat adoptions since closing its doors to the public. 

Increases in pet adoptions seems to be a national trend while people stay at home. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), adopting a pet can benefit physical and mental health. For example, pets like cats increase socialization opportunities, which helps with loneliness and depression. This is especially important during a time when people may lack human companionship more than ever before. 

Interested adopters can usually stop by Sip & Purr at any time for a cat lounge visit, but now they must schedule a one-on-one appointment after getting an adoption application approved. All cats are spayed/neutered and microchipped, and up-to-date on vaccinations and medical tests. Sip & Purr has stayed pretty close to their normal average of coordinating one adoption per day. 

“We probably could be doing even more adoptions, but the shelter we work with doesn’t have a lot of cats right now,” said owner Katy McHugh. 

Sip & Purr also provides virtual introductions of adoptable cats. Each cat has a picture and description on the cafe’s website, and gets featured in plenty of photos and videos on social media. Newbies get an official welcome greeting as they enter the cafe for the first time: the cats explore the lounge area, where customers usually fill sofas and chairs as they pet the cats while enjoying wine, coffee or bakery. Sip & Purr also provides a customer-free space for cats to retreat to. 

McHugh says a variety of people have been adopting, including families, couples and singles. 

Jay Snowden and his family had been thinking about adopting a cat for a while. They live across the street from McHugh, and decided to adopt directly from her. On Easter morning, Snowden and his wife Aleksandra surprised their two sons with playful, 9-month-old Lizze. 

“We had them bring the cat to our house and ring the doorbell,” said Snowden. “I went to the front door with my kids and there was our new cat. It was really perfect.” 

Snowden and his family enjoyed spending quality time with their new pet during the Safer at Home order. Adopting at this time can benefit both the cat and the humans, allowing them to get to know each others’ habits and to bond, according to McHugh. 

“For me, adopting animals is a very noble cause,” said Snowden. “We didn’t make a point to adopt during quarantine, but it just kind of worked out that way. It seemed like the right thing to do, something we could control a little bit in these uncontrollable times.” 

McHugh says Sip & Purr is also very careful to ensure cats are going to homes where they will remain cared for when people start returning to work. 

“We’re pretty adamant asking [adopters] what their schedule is like outside of Covid times,” she said. “We don’t want them to adopt a cat just because they need a companionship now.”  

Sip & Purr gets most of their cats from nonprofit Lakeland Animal Shelter in Delavan, Wis. Founded in 1968, the shelter had eventually merged with the Walworth County Humane Society, becoming one of the most highly regarded animal care facilities in Wisconsin. Lakeland has anywhere from 150 to 400 cats at a given time, usually getting them adopted or fostered within one week to one year. 

Sip & Purr’s partnership with Lakeland actually started with a dog. McHugh and her husband had adopted their dog, Jack from the shelter before moving to Milwaukee about 16 years ago. When Jack passed, McHugh would visit his memorial bench at the shelter, where she then stopped by Lakeland’s cat rooms. 

“They had a really awesome procedure for cat adoptions,” said McHugh. “I went into these cat rooms and the cats would just jump on my lap, and I thought, all that these cats need is a bigger audience.”

Lakeland has open-community cat rooms instead of cages, allowing for interested adopters to meet multiple cats at once and assess which cat would fit their living situation. Sip & Purr uses the same open-community concept at the cafe. 

“It lets folks get to know the cats’ personalities a little better instead of meeting a cat who is living in a cage or alone in a room,” said McHugh. “The cats aren’t stressed out from being in a cage and they get their own space. At the end of the day, we believe it helps form a more perfect fit.”

Sometimes finding the perfect fit involves more than deciding between a reserved or playful personality. McHugh stresses that some cats live well with other felines, while others need to be the only cat in a household once adopted. 

Sip & Purr works exclusively with Lakeland because the shelter is no-kill: they care for all animals, whether healthy or unhealthy upon arrival at the shelter. Whenever possible, Lakeland rehabilitates sick, injured and bad-tempered animals. 

If a cat at Sip & Purr isn’t from Lakeland Animal Shelter, it probably came from across the world. When not at the cafe, McHugh works as a flight attendant, which allows her to rescue cats from countries like Egypt and Kuwait that don’t have shelters, let alone adopt cats. 

“It’s the end of the line for those cats,” said McHugh. “Those rescuers and folks over there have exhausted all their resources to find them a home.”  

Rescuers in other countries often care for cats in their own homes without government or community support. People like McHugh who bring cats from overseas to the U.S are the last hope for those cats finding forever homes. 

“It’s super sad now because the situation is really, really bad,” said McHugh. “People are dumping their cats on the street there becasue they think they carry the coronavirus. The vets are closed; they have a 24/7 lockdown.”

As soon as it’s safe to travel and countries open their borders, McHugh plans to start bringing these cats to Sip & Purr once again. 

Sip & Purr may be operating as close to normal as possible with adoptions, but it wouldn’t be possible to continue caring for the cafe cats without funding support. Last week, they held a sold-out coffee fundraiser, offering Ruby Coffee Roasters at curbside pick-up. There are several other ways to support: sponsor a Sip & Purr cat, donate cat supplies or browse the online store. Shoppers can find cat themed items like mugs and socks, as well as apparel featuring two beloved cats that live at Sip & Purr, Nacho and Nero. 

Lakeland Animal Shelter and Sip & Purr care for their cats even post-adoption. They check in with adopters to see how a cat is doing and give adoption updates at #wherearetheymeow. The open-community concept and careful attention to personality matching seems to lead to many success stories of cats acclimating to their new forever homes.