Quilty is a THICC sweet boi. He can get a bit spicy sometimes (hence the spicy a-hole comment), but he'll let you know when he's getting there; he's really good at communication. Right now his favourite thing to do is lay by the door so that he can follow unsuspecting volunteers out of it when they open the door. He also enjoys napping around the room. He'll pull rugs and towels on top of him as a blanket (quilt?! HAH).

He's not a big snuggler with the other cats, but he tolerates their closeness. While we don't know WHY he loves to let the cats out, I really think it might be so that he can empty the room and then have the whole place to himself. Opening doors isn't a new skill -- he would let his dog brother in from going outside at his old home. His previous owner continues to check up on him, and they'll be thrilled with how much love he's received. He partakes in the (cat) nip and Temptations treats. He also enjoys training with our cat volunteers as well (we teach them things like high five, spin, up/dance, etc.).

Learn more about Quilty here.

Quilty was adopted from us in 2012 as a kitten. We have him back now as an owner surrender (that's when someone comes to us and asks us for help re-homing their animal) because his owner was moving, and couldn't take him with. With all of our animals, if the adopter needs to return them for any reason, we take the animals back into our program (of course, we try to help them work through whatever issues they are having first, whether that means help with resources like food/vetting, or behavior consultations). With Quilty's owner we worked with them to try to find any way that they could take Quilty with, but nothing worked out, so he ended up coming back into the Friends For Life program to find his new forever home.

We came in one morning to find that the door to our front cat room was open. Of course, all of the cats that had previously been INSIDE said room were now hanging out around the shelter. And they really had no interest in going back in (except when we started to crack open the cans of wet food...). One of them had peed on the receptionists mouse pad. Another had used the donation bin we keep up front as a litter box. Most everything was knocked off the counter (typical). They were VERY busy.

We have cameras in our lobby, so we checked them, and could see the cats slowly exploring out of the room. At one point, you just see the tops of ears move across the lobby camera. It was a bit ridiculous. When we checked the cameras INSIDE the room, we saw that Quilty was the culprit, and had in fact opened the door. We have lever handles on the cat room doors, because we haven't had this issue before, so round door knob handles we're necessary. Lever handles are also easier for visitors with disabilities to open than round handles, so we had stuck with levers. (All of our dog show kennels, however, DO have round handles because dogs are notorious for opening lever doors...).

We had to figure out something to keep the door closed, which is where the broom trick came in. It kept him (and the other cats) contained. That was an invention by one of our Animal Care Specialists. Quilty was INCREDULOUS. The broom, however, isn't super visitor friendly, so it didn't stay on all the time. And Quilty knew this. We purchased one child lock for the door, and it mysterious disappeared before we could install it (perhaps some human accomplice of Quilty?! we'll never know), so we purchased a SECOND one and installed that. It seemed to work to keep Quilty in the room. Before we got this lock installed, Quilty had been moved to one of the individual cat show kennels in our lobby and he was NOT pleased about being in a single space he couldn't escape from.

When we moved him back to the room, as we do with all of our cats entering the room after not having been in it, we put him in our "Integration Kennel" (the internet has misread this a few times as interrogation kennel, which is slightly hilarious). What did we find in the morning in the integration kennel? Well, not Quilty. And the door to it was wide open. HE WILL NOT BE CONTAINED. We ended up putting him back IN said kennel, and putting a dog collar around it to further secure it beyond the installed latches on it. He's integrated back into the room, so he's now just roaming free in the room (key words IN. THE. ROOM.).

Proceeds benefit Friends For Life Animal Shelter