Yahoo News North Tyneside cat café celebrates 100 adoptions as duo rehomed after combined eight years in shelters
A North Tyneside cat café has celebrated its 100th adoption since opening as a bonded pair were rehomed after a combined eight years in shelters.
Dolores and Draco came to the Bad Cat Café in Wallsend in April of this year after moving from a rescue centre in Yorkshire. Dolores had been in the previous shelter since 2019 and Draco since 2021, where they shared a pen - but they are now moving on to a family home at the coast with another cat and two children.
Café co-owners Tasmin Hirst and Roxanne Scott, who run the café alongside working full-time jobs, are delighted to have reached 100 adoptions since opening up in August 2022. Especially after there were fears that the café could close earlier in the year due to rocketing vets' bills.
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The pair have not only taken cats in from all over the North East, but felines from rescue centres in Greece and other parts of Europe have also found new homes in our region via the Wallsend community interest company. Tasmin told ChronicleLive: "We're really, really happy with the way the adoption side is going.
"We get updates about our cats all the time so we know they're all safe. Everybody's pretty happy with the cats they've got, and really, we didn't expect to rehome this many.
"When we first started we did't know if the adoption side was going to take off. But you've got to look at it that that's 100 lives changed a little bit.
"I know some would have been picked up by other rescues eventually anyway, but some of them might not have, especially ones like Draco and Dolores, who had just sat in another shelter for years."
Tasmin and Roxanne specialise in taking in "difficult" cases. Recently-adopted Dolores needed to have her teeth removed during her stay in Wallsend, while the six cats currently looking for homes include a kitten who was found in a box by a dog walker, and an older cat who escaped from his owner's house after she passed away.
They hope to continue their work but have faced an increase in cats needing to be rehomed, while adoptions have slowed due to the cost of living crisis - a trend which has been noted by animal shelters across the region in recent months.
