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Kelsey HollenbeckGeorge RamosJOURN 20329 October 2009

Edie Griffin-Shaw: Not your average cat lady!

As a small child, she spent a great deal of her time curled up in a rocking chair, pretending to sleep and mimicking the behavior of her cat, Pudsy. She also admits to dressing up her childhood pet in baby-doll dresses and parading her around the block in a baby carriage.

While she no longer styles the cats she is surrounded by, Edie Griffin-Shaw’s love of all animals, cats included, has followed her into adulthood, and beyond into her everyday life.

Griffin-Shaw has been volunteering and helping run the Cal Poly Cat Program since the day it all began, over 18 years ago.

In 1992, the program was created as a Senior Project to help control the campuses immense feral cat population. It has since evolved from a system of trapping, fixing, medicating and releasing, to include a fully equipped shelter, with a fast-growing volunteer base and fundraising staff.

Griffin-Shaw, who works for Facility Services as the Locksmith and Key Distributor on campus, saw that staff members were needed to help with the new program and was happy to put her love of cats to a good use.

She began volunteering with the wild cats, trapping the feral felines, which she notes are not nearly as cooperative as her childhood pet.

“I love working with wild cats,” says Griffin-Shaw, as she reaches down to pet Woody, an elderly black cat with a seemingly calm demeanor. Griffin-Shaw reveals that Woody, who suffered tremendous abuse by his owners, was not always so friendly.

“We had to wrap [Woody] up in a blanket each day just to put medicine on his throat, which was slit” recounts Griffin-Shaw, with a grave look on her face. She spent well over six months working with the traumatized cat, before he allowed her to pet him. She rolls up her sleeve to reveal scars from where feral cats, like Woody, have left their mark.

These battle wounds prove that Edie Griffin-Shaw’s job consists of much more than cuddling with kittens.

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In addition to her full-time job, Griffin-Shaw spends around 20 hours each week in the shelter working with newly captured cats, attending to long-time residents, and maintaining the building.

This does not include the time she spends trapping feral cats on campus, as well as in San Luis Obispo and surrounding communities.

“It took me five years to trap one cat,” Griffin-Shaw says with a triumphant smile.

Once trapped, the feral cats are taken to the veterinarian to be spayed or neutered, and medicated as necessary before either being released or joining the 50-or-so cats currently residing at the shelter.

The money needed to purchase these traps and medical treatments, as well as the supplies used at the shelter, is generated primarily from donors and fundraising events.

In October, the Cal Poly Cat Program had a car wash on Marsh Street, where 15% of the day’s profits went back to the program. There will be a Holiday fudge sale to benefit the shelter, and calendars featuring photos of shelter cats are currently on sale at the El Corral Bookstore.

Even with the steady flow of generous donations that keep the shelter running, there have been numerous occasions where she and her colleagues have had to pay for expensive medical procedures for the cats out of their own pockets.

“Unfortunately,” she explains, “there have been times that we have had to put off medical treatment a little longer than we ordinarily would due to lack of money.”

Although her job is tough at times, as she balances trapping, feeding, cleaning and fundraising, it is evident that Griffin-Shaw is passionate about helping and being around animals.

She particularly loves the challenge of “taming down the wild cats so that they are adoptable.”

Thirty to 40 cats and kittens are adopted each year from the Cal Poly Cat Shelter, and while she is always happy to know that the shelter cats have found safe new homes, she reveals that it is sometimes difficult for her to let go.

“I do get attached; its hard not to,” Griffin-Shaw explains, recalling numerous times when she had to leave the room during an adoption because she was on the verge of tears.

Griffin-Shaw is absolutely guilty of taking her work home with her, and she does not deny it. She used to have a habit of taking in certain shelter cats, in order to give

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them more attention and to get them used to living and interacting with people, however, this quickly became dangerous as she almost always ended up keeping them.

This past Christmas, however, as a present to herself, she took home a favorite cat, 11-year-old Max.

“It’s like having a mini shelter at my house,” she says, referring to the 15 cats, four dogs, tortoises and chickens that she takes care of at home. Many of these animals are sick and require daily medication, and a handful of the cats are strays that she feeds each day. Plainly put, she cannot say no to an animal in need.

Cat Club member and shelter volunteer, Abby McCormick describes Griffin-Shaw as a “smart, zany, caring and compassionate woman.”

Edie Griffin-Shaw does not get paid for any of the countless hour she has spent, and will continue to spend, improving the lives of cats and humans alike. The twenty hours a week, for eighteen years, have all been voluntary.

Instead, her payday comes each time a capable owner adopts one of the cats that she has trapped, nursed, fed, domesticated, and loved in the shelter.

“It keeps me going,” she says, before scooping up the nearest kitten and cradling it in her arms.

For more information regarding upcoming fundraisers for the Cal Poly Cat Program, as well as volunteer and adoption opportunities, please visit http://www.calpoly.edu/~calyon/cpcp/about.html, or contact Ellen Notermann by email at enoterma@calpoly.edu or by phone at (805) 541-9219.

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Edie Griffin-Shaw plays with a recently rescued kitten, named Wally, who has a respiratory illness, inside the Cal Poly Cat Shelter. When he arrived a few weeks ago, he was skittish and afraid. After having worked with him, Griffin-Shaw is able to hold and pet him, and is confident that very shortly he will be adopted.

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