The Facebook post earlier this month grabbed your attention. Especially the attached photos of a dirty, bedraggled cat. The anonymous poster reached out to the community through the Bellefontaine In the Know page, hoping someone could rescue the mistreated feline.
“Is there anyone who can help capture this cat and get it vet care?” the writer asked. “He is missing chunks of hair and has sores.” Though she had tried to feed him, the other strays would chase him away.
Amazingly, someone recognized the animal. Leann Thornton of Bellefontaine was certain this was her cat, Mike, (pictured below), who had gone missing two years before. Though eager to get him home, the runaway feline was skittish. They needed someone who knew what they were doing and could catch him safely.
Enter Kati Roby.
Rescuing cats is what Kati does, and she was ready that day with traps and food to get Mike home. Within hours, Leann was back on Facebook with an update: Mike was safe, he was eating, he let her hold him for a minute, and the next day he had an appointment with the veterinarian.
“It was one of those communal things,” Kati said. “Trapping cats can take hours, but the people who’d been feeding him kept watch.”
Kati has become the go-to person to call when it comes to stray or homeless cats. Though she’s been rescuing the animals on and off since 2010, an incident in 2019 convinced her to go all-in and setup a shelter in her house.
It started with a report about abandoned pets at a duplex on Ludlow Road. Of the three cats left behind, only one was caught, and she was in bad shape.
The cat, Trixie, became the first one Kati adopted out. And it was a successful match. “She’s ginormous now and living her best life,” Kati admitted with a smile.
From that point, Kati ramped up her feline rescue efforts. She turned one of her spare rooms into cat quarters. She created a Facebook page called Kati’s Kitten Caboodle. And she’s been taking in cats and finding them homes ever since.
If you know Kati’s story, though, it’s not really a surprise, as she was adopted herself. In 1988, a young woman named Pat Roby worked as an English instructor at Ohio Hi-Point Joint Vocational School (OHP), and she longed to be a mom.
Attorney John Ross was a friend and wanted to help. He knew about an OHP student who was expecting but was “very young.”
Thanks to Ross, who would later become a Bellefontaine Municipal Court judge, everything worked out for a closed adoption. Kati said, “It was one of those things where the stars aligned. Since then, it’s always been me and my mom.”
Within days of Kati’s birth, though, Pat was told the newborn was seriously ill and had been transported to Children’s Medical Center in Dayton. The baby had a partial blockage in her aorta plus her heart had two small holes and blood was pumping into her lungs. Pat had to authorize a heart catheterization for her daughter before she even had a chance to meet her.
Fortunately, Kati made it through the surgery just fine and was home before she turned three weeks old. Once she was about six months old and strong enough, doctors performed open-heart surgery to take care of the holes.
Kati grew up in the area and graduated from Benjamin Logan High School in 2006. She earned a degree in history from The Ohio State University in 2011, which, she admitted with a laugh, “I’m doing nothing with right now.”
After college, Kati got her teaching license and spent three years as a fourth-grade English teacher in Urbana. But, she soon discovered, that wasn’t her forte. She then took a job with NEX Transport, which later rebranded as NX Automotive Logistics in Bellefontaine.
Starting as a receptionist, Kati worked her way up to human resources and now works with the benefits department. She’s been there seven years now and likes the job as it keeps her busy and lets her work with people.
It also allowed her to buy her own home, a necessity for someone planning to rescue cats.
“Wanting to save all the animals has been in the making probably my entire life, but it wasn’t feasible,” Kati said.
Growing up, Kati and her mom had one cat and one dog.
“I would have had a household of all the abandoned animals, but my mom would not allow it. So no one should be surprised now that I have my own home and can control what I have in it.”
Besides her cat rescue — which she eventually moved into her garage because she needed it to be separate from her living space — Kati owns four cats named Carlton, Morris, Ebony and Odin, and her dog, Lincoln, a Shar-Pei.
Each of her pets has its own unique personality. Especially Lincoln, who loves cats and helps them become familiar with dogs. According to Kati, that makes cats easier to adopt out.
So, why cats?
“I feel cats are forgotten and considered easily dispensable. They’re so independent and can give or take humans,” Kati admitted. “They’re almost considered vermin, in a way, and that’s completely unfair to cats.”
Still, Kati is ready to get her garage back and, with that in mind, she’s grateful for the upcoming new animal shelter, to be built next to the Logan County Sheriff’s Office. Once that’s up and running, she plans to volunteer there.
As much as she wants to save the cats, trying to cover the costs, plus the cleaning and efforts to adopt out the animals is hard for one person who also has a full-time job.
Which means that once the cats she’s currently sheltering find homes, the Kitten Caboodle will shut down. For now, at least, the Facebook page will remain active so she can feature strays from the animal shelter.
“A cat that’s frightened or sick or needs TLC —give them medicine and snuggles and it’s a totally different animal. I like being able to provide that and match them in homes with people we hope will care for them the rest of their lives.
“Ultimately,” Kati concluded, “it comes down to the fact that cats are living beings. They’re not indispensable. They should be treated with dignity. If we could do something, we should do something.”
Kati estimates she’s probably adopted out over 100 cats so far. She encourages anyone who wants to help to visit the Kati’s Kitten Caboodle Facebook page to see which cats are still looking for homes.