BUCKHANNON – The Lewis-Upshur Animal Control Facility has received new enclosures for their feline residents.

The Upshur County Commission approved $10,250 worth of upgrades for the LUAC facility in the 2022-2023 budget, including repaving the driveway and parking lot, removing the garage door and installing additional shelving for supply storage and purchasing the 27 new guillotine doors that were approved in FY 22 but not purchased.

The new cat enclosure was approved in the FY 22 budget and another enclosure was purchased by the Robert L. Bland Middle School after conducting a penny drive and raising about $7,000.

“They purchased one, the Commission purchased the other one, eventually we hope to have one more set,” Jan Cochran, director of LUAC said. “We might do six so they can be wider and we could get two cats that come in together and can keep them together.”

The new enclosures are higher quality than previous cages, made of stainless steel and Cochran said they are much easier to clean.

“They are much more sanitized, you don’t have the trays rusting like the old ones because this is stainless, these all have the grates, so say if one cat didn’t use a litter box and he peed, he’s going to pee in this, so it’s underneath the grate and he’s not going to lay on it,” Cochran said. “There’s also a tunnel that goes down into the drawer and then we can pull that right out and clean it.”

She said the old cages would rust from the cleaner, but the new enclosures won’t be as affected by the constant cleanings.

“The cleaner just eats through the trays on the old cages and then then they get rusted and everything, so we kept the best cages we had and then we put them on this wall so we could have doubles for cats that come in together,” Cochran said. “We’re using less litter by having more than one to a cage and some cats like having company.”

The new enclosures also have real walls, separating cats that do not want company or may have a contagious illness.

“If a cat is sneezing, he’s not sneezing on another cat, because there’s the wall, there are some things that are airborne, but at least he might have a better chance of not getting it if he’s not getting sneezed on directly.”

In July, LUAC will remove the garage door connected to the cat room and replace it with a wall and build new shelving. The driveway will also be paved sometime this summer, so they will close early that day.

“If people want to sponsor a cat, come up and talk to me because if we can get them sponsored, that makes it easier to find homes for them,” Cochran said. “The nice thing about that is we’re putting a cat back out in the public that’s already fixed, has all their current shots, so if something happens in two years and someone for some reason moves and doesn’t take their cat, which we don’t want to see that kind of thing happen, but at least if they put it outside or left it outside, it’s not reproducing or anything like that.”