Say hello to Pua, a handsome two-year-old gray tabby with striking seafoam eyes and a sensitive soul. When he came to Nine Lives from the Los Banos Animal Shelter earlier this year, Pua found the noise and activity of a busy shelter environment a little overwhelming.
That began to change when Pua recently spent six weeks in a foster home where he finally had the chance to relax and settle in. His foster mom discovered that beneath that cautious first impression is a cat who loves companionship, gentle affection, and simply being close to the people he trusts. Before long, Pua was trading stress for curiosity, snuggles, and cozy afternoons.
Pua will be happiest in a calm home with a patient adopter who can give him the time and space he needs to feel secure. Given a quieter environment and a little time, he can continue settling into life at his own pace while showing more of the sweet personality his foster mom came to know.
After four months in our care, Pua is more than ready to find a home of his own. Visit him this weekend and see those beautiful green eyes for yourself. He just might be the companion you’ve been looking for.
Nine Lives has officially moved into our new furever home! On April 4, we celebrated this incredible milestone with nearly 700 of our friends and supporters. It was a joyful day filled with excitement, gratitude, and hope for the future.
Since moving into our spacious new facility, adoptions have increased by 25%. With double the surgical and adoption space, we are now on track to perform more than 10,000 surgeries and rescue 2,000 cats every year.
In the months ahead, we hope to expand our services even further by offering low‑cost wellness and dental programs to help keep beloved cats healthy throughout their lives.
While we are proud of how far we’ve come, there is more work ahead. We are still $400,000 away from fully funding these vital programs. If our vision for the future of cat rescue inspires you, we’d be grateful for your support. Thank you for being part of our journey and for caring so deeply about cats and kittens in need.
There is nothing more rewarding than watching our cats head home with their new families. It’s the very heart of what we do at Nine Lives! And thanks to our new space, we’ve celebrated a record number of adoptions lately.
We love hearing how our alumni are settling into their new lives. Here’s a sweet update we recently received about two brothers formerly known as Drew and Alex:
“I just adopted two lovely bonded kitties from you on Sunday. Their original names were Drew and Alex, but they’ve since been renamed Vinny and Mookie.
They’re super sweet, curious, funny, and have zero sense of personal space when they’re together! We’ve loved introducing them to our family and feel so lucky that they came into our lives.
Thanks for all of your hard work and dedication to Nine Lives. It’s a great organization and I’m so grateful for all that you do.”
Have a Nine Lives success story to share? We’d love to hear it! Email us at feedback@ninelives.org.
Top Honors for Nine Lives
We’re proud to share that Nine Lives has earned two of the nonprofit sector’s highest recognitions for transparency, accountability, and impact.
For us, these recognitions reflect our commitment to using every donation thoughtfully, responsibly, and where it is needed most. For our supporters, we hope they provide confidence in the care and accountability behind our work.
We are deeply grateful to everyone who believes in Nine Lives and makes our work possible.
Liam’s Corner
There’s something special happening at Nine Lives right now.
Every morning when I walk through the doors of our new building, I’m reminded how far this organization has come—and how much more we can accomplish together. What once existed only as a dream on paper is now a reality: a bustling, lifesaving hub where rescue, surgery, and second chances are happening every single day.
We opened just in time. Kitten Season is here, and it’s hitting us fast.
Tiny, vulnerable kittens are arriving faster than ever before. Some come to us orphaned and hungry. Others are sick or injured and need emergency medical care the moment they arrive.
This year, we are preparing to rescue nearly 1,000 kittens. It’s an enormous undertaking that depends on every foster home, staff member, volunteer, and supporter who stands beside us.
So many snuggly kittens!
And at the heart of it all are kittens like Rosie.
Rosie is impossibly sweet, with giant blue eyes, tiny white paws, and endless purrs. But beneath all that sweetness is a congenital condition that makes even the simplest things, like going to the bathroom, incredibly painful. Our veterinary team has already performed delicate surgery to help her, and we are now working toward the specialized procedure she needs to live a healthy, comfortable life.
Watching our team rally around kittens like Rosie is one of the reasons I’m so proud of Nine Lives. In this new building, we can finally dream bigger. We have expanded our medical capabilities and added additional surgery space to save more lives than ever before. But buildings alone don’t save kittens—people do.
As our intake numbers continue to climb, the need for community support becomes more urgent by the day. Kitten Season is a beautiful chaos—emotionally taxing, incredibly expensive, but absolutely worth it. Because of supporters like you, kittens like Rosie have a chance to heal, grow, and find the loving futures they deserve.
This new chapter for Nine Lives is already changing lives every single day. With your support, we can make sure no kitten is turned away when they need us most.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you for believing in this mission and for helping us build a future where every kitten has the chance to grow up safe, healthy, and loved.
