Shelters present significant welfare challenges for cats, whose stress responses to unfamiliar environments make institutional care inherently difficult.
Cat shelter welfare is complicated by feline stress biology - cats' threat response system responds strongly to unfamiliar environments, strange scents, and loss of territory control. Unlike dogs, many cats do not habituate to shelter environments but remain chronically stressed throughout their stay. Simple provision of hiding boxes significantly reduces stress indicators, demonstrating that low-cost welfare improvements can make meaningful differences. Foster care programs that place cats in home environments during adoption waiting periods provide dramatically better welfare than shelter housing and have become a cornerstone of modern shelter welfare practice.