It is high season in the cattery, yet not all cats are running together. “It is very busy because there are now 45”, says Piet van Berge of cat boarding house De Uitkomst in Zaandam. Only if you look around you will you see cats everywhere. “In a few weeks when the holidays are over, there will only be a few left.”
Piet is visually impaired and has a progressive eye disease. He runs the cattery at his house with his wife Henriëtte. They started in 1998, after Henriëtte heard on the radio that you can earn good money with a cat boarding house during the summer holidays. “At the time I had a bird boarding house”, says Piet, “I generated a turnover of less than 300 guilders a year with it. That didn’t really help.”
Piet, who was once a truck driver, wanted to have something to do and not be behind the geraniums at the age of 42. Henriëtte got all the necessary papers and so they could start. The love for animals and especially for cats was part of Piet from an early age. “I remember our cat Moos throwing babies at the foot of my crib. I think that’s when the cat love started.”
At ease
The fact that those 45 cats are so relaxed and feel at ease in a strange environment has everything to do with Piet. “I have a thing for all animals. Just not with fleas.” Because Piet can’t see the cats very well – one eye has 5 percent vision and the other 15 – and they are not allowed to escape, there are three doors that you have to go through before you get into the cat house. In all those years one has escaped and luckily has been found. After that, the ‘security’ has been adjusted.
The funny thing is that all those cats get along just fine in one room and feel at ease after just one day (and night). “Very occasionally, getting used to it doesn’t work,” says Piet, “and then you just have to admit that it’s not going to work.”
And what if the cats don’t want to go home after the holidays? “Yes”, says Piet, “that also happened once. A cat absolutely did not want to come along and could not be caught. In the end it was only after three weeks – when almost all other cats had gone and it was quiet – that the cat caught by the animal ambulance and brought back home.”