Cat lovers can now rejoice over the newest fluffy sensation: Cat Tales Feline Health Center and Cat Lounge
By MATTHEW MCELDOWNEY — city@theaggie.org
While many students may have been scrambling to study for finals at the end of fall quarter, Davis welcomed its first cat café and feline center into its city on Dec. 16.
Tabby Tea Cat Lounge is accepting appointments for visitors to meet, play and even adopt these adorable cats and kittens. Pitched and designed by local Da Vinci High School students in Davis, Tabby Tea Cat Lounge is part of a longtime dream of Davis locals, Dr. Julie Cole and Dr. Chris “Shac” Shacoski, to open a space for cat lovers, by cat lovers. Located at 606 W. Covell Blvd, the cat lounge is part of a cutting-edge cat care facility, Cat Tales Feline Health Center.
During an interview with Fox40 News, Dr. Julie Cole, the medical director and business partner of Cat Tales, described the joy it was to be able to see this cat café in action.
“It’s so beautiful to see people bond, but we’ve also had people come in and just want to hang out,” Cole said.
This cat café will hopefully allow cat lovers who either can’t afford or dedicate the time to own a cat to be able to spend quality time with them. As for those who are looking to become cat parents, this lounge offers a perfect opportunity to get to know some of these cats from the shelter a little better while enjoying a complimentary beverage.
On top of this new cat café, cat parents can enjoy the highest standard of specialized cat care. Attached to Tabby Tea Cat Lounge, Cole and Shacoski’s clinic, Cat Tales Feline Health Center, is hoping to push the standard for quality cat care in Northern California.
“We are using the most state-of-the-art knowledge in feline-only care and medicine to build a practice that truly delivers the best in medicine and concierge-level services tailored specifically for cats and the people they own,” their official website reads.
As a longtime practitioner and managing partner for Cat Tales, Shacoski described the ways, big and small, that they have tailored their business to appease the appropriately high standards of their fuzzy clientele. From the layout of the clinic to the color of the walls, Shacoski described how he and Cole hope to create a calm environment for these cats down to the smallest detail.
“The No. 1 word [that best describes cats] would be calm,” Shacoski said. “Cats are calming for people, but they also need calm around them.”
To achieve this, Shacoski said that Cat Tales opted for telephones that vibrate instead of ring and chose wall colors that have been proven to be calming for cats. They also chose decor that cats wouldn’t feel startled by — cats are often startled by paintings of people and animals that face toward them — and specialized in cat care exclusively to eliminate the sounds caused by other pets like dogs. Furthermore, Cat Tales has procedures in place and a clinic layout designed to put cats at ease.
“Cats really like to be in one place, so if you have to move a cat, the cat wants to be moved once,” Shacoski said. “[At Cat Tales], the cat doesn’t move like waiting in the lobby, waiting in the exam room, going to the treatment area and coming back to another room — we try to do it all in one room if we can.”
By accommodating cats and tailoring a pet care experience for their needs, Shacoski and Cole hope that their clinic can be somewhere cat owners feel comfortable taking their cat back to regularly. This is especially important for cats in this current veterinary landscape as they receive a fraction of the preventative care that dogs receive, precisely because of the stress involved with a run-of-the-mill vet visit.
As they continue to gain traction in Davis, Shacoski hopes that they are eventually able to host informational programs, tours and events in their space. It is confirmed that Cat Tales is partnering with Meals on Wheels to donate pet supplies for an animal companionship program, but Cat Tales is also discussing the possibility of having a booth for Picnic Day. Cat Tales hopes to get UC Davis veterinary students involved in future programs such as externships and a possible collaboration with Yolo County Animal Services’ Trap-Neuter-Return program.
At the moment, however, Shacoski described that their biggest focus is to master the basics of Tabby Tea Cat Lounge and their clinic. To do that, Cat Tales wants to focus on the most important parts — the people and the cats.
“[For our visitors] at Tabby Tea Cat Lounge, I just want them to feel refreshed after being able to sit, hang out with a cat and have a little fun,” Shacoski said. “Out of the clinic, we really want our visitors to think, ‘Wow, this is really different,’ […] and that’s the one thing that’s going to make a difference in these cats’ lives.”
Written by: Matthew Mceldowney — city@theaggie.org