Cats for Hire

Take your ball of yarn and put it where the sun don’t shine. That’s what the members of the Wisconsin Humane Society’s Working Cats Program would tell you if they could talk. Probably.

See, these tough, fearless felines are less about purring and more about pouncing. They’re not interested in the staid life of a house cat. They are barn cats. And they’ve got rodents all over the state running scared.

The cats in the program come to the Humane Society as strays and have typically lived on their own in the wild. They’re under-socialized and not fit to be kept as house pets. But they can find homes in barns, stables, and warehouses, where they provide organic pest control.

The program was launched in 2015. Since then, more than 1,000 working cats have been placed. 172 cats got jobs delivering barn justice last year alone.

There are care and placement guidelines set up to get the cats acclimated to their new surroundings. Even though they’re not nuts about humans, they still need caretakers who ensure the cats have food, water, and shelter. They also prefer the cats to be adopted in pairs. Presumably, so the two can exchange witty one-liners after they take down a foe, like in Tango & Cash or 21 Jump Street.

If you’ve got a mouse problem on your property and have nowhere else to turn, you can learn more about the Working Cats Program at the Wisconsin Humane Society’s website.