Karla Martinez doesn’t have a lot of leisure time to spend with the 54 cats in her modern home and shelter in midtown Guadalajara.
But when Martinez, trained as a fashion designer, takes a break from grooming a dog downstairs to have her picture taken on a quilt on a wood floor in one of the four upstairs rooms allotted to kitties, a multitude of cats of all ages, tails upraised and curled in happy salute, gradually approach her as if she were a cat magnet.
“It started with one of the first cats I rescued, Benito,” says the petite, big-eyed Martinez. “I couldn’t keep him because he wanted to fight to the death with my other cat. I tried to find him another home. That’s when I realized that nobody wanted cats. The culture in Mexico is accepting toward dogs, but not cats.”
So seven years ago, Martinez founded a shelter to protect cats, helped by the Internet. The Facebook page she set up, Ayuda Adoptando, ended up with such a plethora of friends that she was told she had to start another page.
Meanwhile, these friends were dropping off rescued cats. So three years ago, Martinez and her husband moved to a spacious, modern home, the site of her current shelter. And she teamed up with the Animal Control office of the Secretary of the Environment and Ecology in Guadalajara’s City Hall to run semi-annual dog and cat sterilization campaigns.
“The shelter is difficult financially and my husband and I use our own resources. That’s why I started the salon a one month ago,” said Martinez, noting that a vet will soon set up shop on her ground floor.
As another commercial adjunct to the shelter, Martinez turned her design talents to making cat toys, pillows and large, elaborate cat scratching posts that might better be described as cat condominiums. She uses several of these in the shelter and has them for sale in her salon.
Interestingly, she trims longhaired cats, especially during warm months, using styles, some of which make them resemble lions. When asked if she is the only cat estetica in town, Martinez replied that most customers want dogs groomed, not cats. Half a dozen large dog cages line one wall in her salon and a small, black dog waited in one of them.
Martinez also had a friendly schnauzer in the salon the day I visited.
“This isn’t a dog shelter, but he was being mistreated, alone on a rooftop all day and in the rain. He gets very nervous if I leave him alone.” She is looking for a home for the schnauzer and several other dogs, using her Facebook page and color signs a friend made.
“When we find a home for a dog, we ask 500 pesos, because the dog comes vaccinated, sterilized and free of parasites. For cats, all we ask is a sack of Kirkland cat food.”
Estetica Canina y Felina, Pedro Moreno 1355, corner of Emerson (3 blocks east of Chapultepec), Colonia Americana, Guadalajara. Tel.: 1661-0874. Small dogs cost 150 pesos, large dogs 170 pesos for the full treatment (medicated bath, nail trim, ears cleaned, anal glands cleaned, trim); cats cost 200 pesos for the same treatment. Facebook: Ayuda Adoptando.