A kitten with black and white smudged fur stares from across the back porch. He’s twice the size of the other cats in the room, rightfully named Tank. He’s ready to pounce on an unsuspecting ball when a different, smaller paw places itself on top of the toy. Meowing ensues. It’s a cat’s paradise, but human Anita Smelley feels right at home.
Smelley, president of the Board of Directors of the Humane Society of West Alabama, is sitting with her legs crisscrossed in the middle of the porch. Three kittens weave in and out of her arms and under her legs, chasing the sound of a tiny bell that is wrapped around her finger.
“Oh my goodness, Olive. That is a big cat for you to be pickin’ on. But see, Tank doesn’t know he’s big, he think he’s a baby, too,” Smelley says. As you watch her sit in a room of about a dozen cats, you would never suspect that Smelley’s love for animals began with a Saint Bernard.
Twenty-five years ago, Smelley was traveling the dog show circuit when she met some Humane Society of West Alabama volunteers. In the world of showing, animals are not spayed or neutered because the show ring wants them completely intact. But after learning about the importance of spaying and neutering and how it effects the overpopulation of strays in Tuscaloosa, Smelley’s focus began to shift from perfect showing form to how she could help the community.
“I began to think differently when I heard about the numbers of animals that are euthanized each year because there’s simply no home for them,” Smelley said. “So I changed my mind and decided I wanted work with a shelter instead of showing.”
Smelley has been the humane society’s president for two years now. As a cat named Boots unties her shoelaces, she said that sometimes she thinks she got voted in because no one wanted the job. But this interaction is the very thing that Smelley treasures about her job.
The Humane Society of West Alabama has two separate facilities for their animals. Betty Freeman runs the dog shelter, and Smelley directly oversees the cat shelter. The humane society’s cat shelter is one of the only cage-free facilities in Alabama. This atmosphere allows potential cat owners sit down and get to know their future pet.
“Sometimes people come in and say, ‘Oh I want an orange cat. That’s the one I want.’ Well okay, come have a seat and let’s see what happens,’” Smelley says. “Sometimes the cat picks you, you don’t pick the cat.”
Potential adopters are also able to get a sense of who the cats are through the unique names that they are given upon arrival at the shelter. While many Blacky’s, Fluffy’s and Pumpkin’s have come through the shelter, Smelley says that she likes to look beyond the physical appearances of the cats and come up with a name that reflects their personalities.
“When I first came aboard, they would always let the vet name ‘em,” Smelley said. “He had one litter that he called the Soda kittens and he named them things like Pepsi, Coke, Sprite and Dr. Pepper. So finally I said, ‘Okay, we’re not havin’ a cat named Coke and Pepsi, we’re just not.’”
Nowadays, the humane society has a different naming system.
“We have a volunteer who comes in on Saturdays to help name them. She’s 13 and her name is Erin,” Smelley said. “She’s been coming with her mom for several years.”
Smelley explains that Erin will spend time at the shelter and get to know the cats before suggesting names on a sheet of paper. Some of these names include Tabitha, Little Bear, Kid and Luna.
The shelter is home to around 30 cats, but no one would be able to tell just by scent alone. The shelter is kept incredibly clean and is free of unwanted smells. The environment is incredibly positive and new faces pop in to say hi regularly. One of these faces is Carole Criswell, a soon-to-be humane society board member, who swings the porch door open.
“This place is phenomenal!” Criswell said as she stepped onto the porch, or as Smelley has dubbed it, the “cat-eo.”
“It was an older house built in the 1940s, and there had once been a deck out here that had long since fallen down,” Smelley said of the facility. “One of the guys that was doing some carpentry work for me said why don’t I build one and make it a cat-eo.”
The entire porch is cat-proof. The screen is made of steel hardware cloth and is reinforced several inches below the wood to ensure that the cats can’t push it out. Smelley says an added bonus is that it gives the cats an opportunity to observe life outside of the shelter.
“We can leave ‘em out here and it’s very safe,” Smelley says. “And they get to see the woods and the birds.”
Apart from keeping the shelter running and overseeing each adoption, Smelley’s biggest challenge is to educate the Tuscaloosa community about properly caring for one’s pets.
“People will come up and say, ‘My cat is missing. We live in a wooded area and she went out and hasn’t been seen,’” Smelley said. “I’ll just tell them, ‘You know what, a coyote probably ate it.’ And most of the time they don’t take well to that. But that’s the truth.”
She says that the longevity of outdoor cats is about five years whereas an indoor cat can live up to about 18 to 20 years.
Not only does Smelley advocate for properly caring for animals in her day-to-day life, but she’s also done so on stage.
“Did you know she was a star? Recently, in “To Kill a Mockingbird” at Shelton,” Criswell said. “She was awesome. The part was so Anita.”
For two straight weeks, Smelley played the part of Ms. Stephanie, the character who demands justice for the poor dog shot by Atticus Finch. Nightly, Smelley belted, “What if Old Tim wasn’t really dead? What if he was just full of fleas and Atticus Finch done shot him dead!” on the Shelton State stage.
“He shoots the dog and everyone cheers except for me,” Smelley said. As she recounts the lines, her face beams with pride.
Still sitting on the floor of the porch, another kitten climbs into her lap. Criswell is still standing by the door, amazed with how much love one person can have for their community and how much compassion they have for the animals in it.
“Is she not wonderful?” said Criswell. For Tuscaloosa animals, and animal lovers, she certainly is.
