ABC30 campaign to help Cat House on the Kings

FRESNO, Calif.

"We call this cat heaven and dog Disneyland," said owner Lynea Lattanzio.

Lattanzio built her animal amusement park somewhat by accident.

The cats started coming in 1991, marching into her house after she looked for a cat for her father.

For 21 years, the cats and their numbers have always gone up - even though she adopts out hundreds - and Lattanzio just keeps welcoming them onto her property along the river.

Sometimes the cats aren't as generous with their space.

"They'd run across my face, so I have scars," Lattanzio said. "And then, they threw up in my ear. And then I moved. I said that was it."

Lattanzio gave up her 4,200 square foot home to her guests, moving into a much smaller home on the same 12 acres.

And she's still adding more comfortable homes for future pets.

It's now a $1 million-a-year operation.

"It's extremely expensive and mostly, we have 25 employees," Lattanzio said. "You can't have this many animals and this much property and this many buildings without having the proper employees to take care of it."

They go through a whole lot of food too. A whole pallet of cat food - forty 20 lb. bags - will only going to last about a week.

The Cat House on the Kings also pays to spay and neuter hundreds of animals every year.

Donations usually cover expenses - most of the kitty litter is donated for example - and now ABC30 is joining the list of donors.

For every new like on our Facebook page through New Year's Eve, we're giving the cat house 50 cents.

"Our objective is to find homes," Lattanzio said. "It's just that here in Fresno, so many are killed and nobody wants them."

So like ABC30, and help Lattanzio love these animals.

In the first 16 hours of the campaign, almost 2,000 new people clicked the "Like" button for ABC30, racking up about a $1,000 donation to that point.

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