CATalyst Council Marks Happy, Healthy Cat Month With New Resource for Veterinary Practices
According to CATalyst Council, 62% of cats are acquired via informal channels, and often without a veterinary
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CATalyst Council today marked the start of Happy, Healthy Cat Month with the release of a new downloadable resource for veterinary practices, “The Kitten in the Room: Turning Kitten Season into Lifelong Feline Care.” Authored by Kristin Wuhrman, CCBC, and Gina Fortunato, MBA, the article draws on CATalyst’s 2026 State of the Cat report, the largest cat household survey ever conducted. The article examines why many cats fall out of veterinary care after their kitten vaccine series, and what veterinary practices can do about it.
Why Happy, Healthy Cat Month Exists
CATalyst Council created Happy, Healthy Cat Month to counter a persistent myth: that cats are self-reliant, aloof, and need less medical care than dogs. Cats now represent 45.7% of all pet cats and dogs combined in American homes, yet feline visits account for only about 23% of total veterinary practice visits and roughly 21% of practice revenue. Happy, Healthy Cat Month exists to help close that gap, one cat, and one caregiver, at a time.
How Cats Actually Enter Homes
Unlike dogs, which frequently come with a built-in veterinary handoff, a breeder contract or a shelter voucher, cats follow a different path. According to CATalyst’s 2026 State of the Cat report, 62% of cats enter households through entirely informal channels: a stray taken in, a litter born in a backyard, a cat rehomed by a neighbor or coworker. Another 25% come through shelters or rescues, and about 12% arrive through pet stores or breeders.
That matters because acquisition source is the single strongest predictor of whether a cat will ever see a veterinarian. Cats acquired through breeders visit at an 80% rate; informally acquired cats visit at only 57.7%, a 22-percentage-point gap. Nationally, 8.4% of cats have never visited a veterinarian at all.
“The kitten series may be the single most important relationship-building period in veterinary medicine with feline clients. For many of these cats, those early visits are one of our best opportunities to build a relationship that can support a lifetime of care.”
Kristin Wuhrman, Chair, CATalyst Council
A New Resource for Practices
“The Kitten in the Room” offers eight practical actions veterinary teams can put in place now, from reframing annual reminders around longevity rather than vaccines, to considering wellness bundles that make ongoing care more predictable for cat parents’ budgets, to a simple intake question, “Do you have any other pets at home?”, that CATalyst’s data shows is one of the lowest-cost ways to find cats who have never been seen. The article is available now as a free download on the resource page at CATalystCouncil.org.
“Cat parents are not indifferent. Ninety-one percent want what is best for their cat’s health and wellbeing. The gap isn’t love, it’s that cats are experts at hiding pain, and our care systems haven’t always been built around that. Happy, Healthy Cat Month is our chance to help caregivers recognize this natural feline behavior.”
Gina Fortunato, MBA, Executive Director, CATalyst Council
Read the full article
“The Kitten in the Room: Turning Kitten Season into Lifelong Feline Care”
is available at no cost on the CATalyst Council website.
For media inquiries, contact Gina Fortunato, Executive Director, at gina.fortunato@catalystcouncil.org.
Authors: Kristin Wuhrman, CCBC, and Gina Fortunato, MBA (CATalyst Council).
About CATalyst Council
CATalyst Council advances feline health through species-specific intelligence to drive evidence-based innovation and lifelong care. As the veterinary industry’s trusted authority on the U.S. feline market, the organization brings this mission to life through research, collaboration, and industry-wide engagement.
For nearly two decades, CATalyst Council, a national 501(c)(3), has united veterinary leaders, industry partners, and data scientists to share evidence-based research aimed at improving quality of life for cats and the people who love them. Its inclusive board structure brings together a broad range of stakeholders across veterinary medicine, animal welfare, and industry, working together to change how the U.S. experiences and values cats.
The organization has produced significant research contributions, including the CATalyst 2026 State of the Cat Report, based on a household survey of over 60,000 U.S. households, and the Feline Market Insights Report™ (FMIR), an intelligence series synthesizing seven independent data sources for distribution to its sponsor organizations across the veterinary industry.
More information is available at www.catalystcouncil.org.
Data in this release drawn from the 2026 CATalyst Council State of the Cat Report (n=60,521 households, conducted by Kynetec and Forward Group).
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260901433228/en/
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