Life & Work with Pat Walker of Ohio

Today we’d like to introduce you to Pat Walker.

Pat, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
It started at least eight years ago when I started to feed a stray cat at work . She was named Kevin than later changed to Bella . She was a feral which took some time, but I tamed her . She ended up having a litter of kittens . That’s when I met a lady named Melissa Camp . She helped me trap her and we got her spayed and her kittens went into foster care . Then, Melissa introduced me to Dr. Joanna Reen who has a nonprofit called Licking County TNR . I trapped for this nonprofit, did recovery and anesthesia at her clinics . This is where I met my trapping partner Donna Sheline . I ended up helping her trap her last adult cat, Big Daddy and nineteen kittens . She has been with me five years and we received our 501(c)3 nonprofit status two years ago. We live in Licking County but we trap in Licking, Fairfield, Perry, Muskingham, Knox and sometimes Franklin counties in Central Ohio. We do all of Fairfield Area Humane Society’s larger colonies trap jobs. A typical year for Donna and I would be between 500 to 600 cats and kittens in a year’s time. We had a slower start this year due to the extremely cold winter. In 2024 we put 176 kittens in foster and 234 last year . Our goal is to help protect, re-home, assist in providing care and altering for stray, orphaned, abused, neglected or otherwise needy cats in the counties we service in the State of Ohio. In addition, Cat Trap Pat, Inc. intends to educate the public on the importance of providing quality care for their colony of cats. I emphasize the importance of reducing the cat overpopulation by spaying and neutering cats.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
The challenges are keeping up with the need. So many people reaching out for help with their growing population of cats. They call when it’s an emergency instead of realizing they should have called earlier before it got to the extent it was. The obstacles are there are not enough trappers and volunteers. Some of the challenges are we work in all types of weather conditions and this has been a deterrent for training new volunteers. We drop everything when we have a rescue, emergency or a lost cat that has been sighted. We’ve trapped injured ducks and cats trapped in a leg hold trap, trapped in a tree and can’t get down, or a city storm drain.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I am retired from working in lines of retail. At this point, my entire free time is devoted to my nonprofit charity, 501(c)3. With all the requests for help, this is full time work for me. We are dedicated to helping people help themselves through the process of trapping their colony of cats for spay and neuter. We are TNR trappers (trap, spay/neuter and return the cats).

What does success mean to you?
Success to us is going into a colony whether it be 10 or 50 cats is trap them all. Our goal is to “close” a colony so it no longer grows in numbers.

Contact Info:

• Facebook: www.facebook.com/p/Cat-trap-Pat-100067776233649/