{"id":23254,"date":"2025-11-03T13:28:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T13:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/23254\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T13:28:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T13:28:09","slug":"philadelphia-working-cats-acct-philly-program-seeks-non-traditional-adopters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/23254\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia working cats: ACCT Philly program seeks non-traditional adopters"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know!<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

Suki paces around her office before selecting a spot to sit \u2014 between two chairs, in front of the desk. Then she hisses.\n<\/p>\n

Most cats in Philadelphia enjoy long days of bathing in the sunlight or watching passersby from a windowsill. Once in a while, they may even catch a mouse or two. Almost a quarter of all Philly households<\/a> have at least one cat companion, with more than a half-million pet cats across the city.\n<\/p>\n

But not all cats are cut out for this laidback lifestyle.\n<\/p>\n

Suki is a part of the Animal Care and Control Team of Philadelphia\u2019s working cats program<\/a>. The goal is to place cats who may not flourish in a traditional home setting in an environment best suited to their unique sensibilities: barns, breweries and bookstores, among other places.\n <\/p>\n

ACCT Philly<\/a>\u2019s program has been around for almost a decade, but not many are aware of its existence, says Mikayla Allen, the shelter\u2019s communication coordinator.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people think about your Philly street cats, and then you have the cats you adopt,\u201d Allen said. \u201cThey don\u2019t think about the cats that really can\u2019t survive outside by themselves.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

The program currently has seven working cat candidates \u2014 five at its facility on Hunting Park Avenue in North Philadelphia, and two in foster care. These temporary homes can give the cats a chance to acclimate to a more traditional living style. Not all are able to make that change, though.\n<\/p>\n

Bread was rescued from a hoarding situation as 1 of 30 cats. He was brought to ACCT \u2014 the city\u2019s only open-intake animal shelter<\/a>\u00a0 \u2014 before heading into foster care. Feeling uncomfortable in the home environment, Bread bit his owner while being bathed and was returned to the shelter.\n<\/p>\n

Melina Williams, ACCT\u2019s community cat coordinator, says the cat then decided \u201che was going to waste away\u201d in the kennel. At that point, the best option was to try to make Bread a working cat. He was crated and placed in a shed with the other outdoor cats and, after a four-week period, it seemed like Bread was a whole new cat.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an actual behavioral turnaround,\u201d Williams said, describing how the program helped Bread.
\n\"SukiSuki, one of ACCT Philly\u2019s working cats. (Ben Bennett\/WHYY)\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23255,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[15451,15452,695,69,71,70],"class_list":{"0":"post-23254","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-acct-philly","9":"tag-animal-shelters","10":"tag-cats","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-philadelphia-headlines","13":"tag-philadelphia-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}