About three years ago, Martha Plummer needed a change in her occupation. Her career as a pharmaceutical sales rep for veterinarians required her to be away from home all the time, and she just couldn’t do it anymore. Plummer sought the advice of a business coach and was asked the timeless question, “What’s your passion?”
“All my friends are like, ‘Are you kidding? Come on, Martha, you don’t know?’” Plummer says. “Oh yeah, great: cats. What can I do with cats?”
Plummer followed her passion and has opened an exclusive, luxury, cat-pampering post: the Happy Cat Hotel and Spa at 3900 San Mateo NE. Bougie felines have their pick of 25 rooms, each with a vacation theme and a catty name. Among the choices are “The Stowaway” adorned with nautical regalia, the Hawaiian-themed “Waikikitty” room or “Diva Las Vegas” complete with furry dice for cats who are feeling lucky. Upon entering the “Paws, Camera, Action!” room, you might notice a framed photo of Audrey Hepburn posing with a cat and two fancy glasses positioned in the foreground — one filled with an adult beverage, the other with milk.
“I never really wanted to board anywhere, because all the boarding places have dogs,” Plummer says. With Happy Cat Hotel, “It’s quiet. It’s all about them. We literally cater to them. It’s kitty housekeeping, basically. My housekeepers take care of them, and Kitty Concierge actually does the enrichment and makes sure that everything’s booked, and everything’s good, and they have their necessary paperwork.”
The “Kitty Concierge” is responsible for check-in — much like the duties of a front desk attendant at a human hotel — but their paperwork duties require more than scheduling wake-up calls. They include keeping track of the cats’ medical records. Plummer says Happy Cat will administer medicine to their guests, but she’s holding off on boarding cats that have serious medical conditions for a while. For example, she says it’s important to wait six months to a year before boarding diabetic cats until they are fully regulated. But her staff does receive training to cater to their exclusive clientele. She says she recently taught them a cute technique to get cranky cats to take their pill. It’s similar to swaddling an infant.
“This one is the sweetest, but she gets heart medicine in the evening,” Plummer says of a recent guest. “So we have to ‘purr-ito’ her. You put them on a blanket, you cover the paws, and then you tighten it like a burrito. A ‘purr-ito.’”
The residents at Happy Cat enjoy daily brushing, play and “enrichment” activities throughout the day. Enrichment involves giving the cats affection and human interaction, and Plummer says it helps with separation anxiety. She says cats who are left alone for too long are notorious for holding a grudge against their caretakers.
“They pout and they can be destructive,” Plummer says.
Owners bring their cats in carriers which are left in the room for 24 hours so the cats have a familiar space from home if they need it. Plummer says after the first day, they remove the carrier and the cats usually don’t seem to miss it a bit. Miller, an orange cat wearing a bow tie, seemed to genuinely enjoy his vacation as he lounged in the “Costa Rica Kitty” room. In fact, he rolled over on his back to be petted as new humans entered the kitty casa.
“This is their home. They become acclimated. Usually, the customers bring their bedding and their blankies and their toys, so they feel a little bit more comfortable,” Plummer says.
A Family Af-“fur”
Happy Cat has a regular full-time staff, but during an opening week visit from The Paper. in late December — a few days before Christmas — the hotel was a family-run operation. Plummer’s sister was busy hugging a resident that they sarcastically referred to as “the very spoiled, needy cat” while Plummer’s mom stood guard at the front desk, diligently watching a television screen as if it were an afternoon kitty soap opera. Each room is equipped with a camera so someone at the Kittie Concierge can keep an eye on the residents at all times. Plummer let her cat-mom instincts show as she talked about losing sleep over concern for the residents at the hotel.
“I can see how they’re doing. I actually have it on my phone. One night I was worried because the boys came in and I was worried that they’d be wild and upset. So at 12 o’clock, I wake up and check [the cameras] and I’m like, ‘Oh, okay, good.’ I just had this anxiety.”
Just like their human counterparts, many of the feline tenants at Happy Cat require special accommodations besides affection and specialized medical care. Squirt, a heavyset multicolored cat with a distinctive black mark in the middle of her nose, was dropped off with a partner, but they needed to stay in separate rooms.
“These two live separately. One lives with the dad, one lives with the mom. I’m like, ‘OK, two rooms? Two rooms it is!’” Plummer says.
Squirt’s owner chose a room in the front part of the hotel about 10 feet from the concierge, so her cat could see people during her stay.
“She is just a hoot. Now that’s her favorite spot on that shelf,” Plummer says. “We put her blanket up there. It was in the kitty casa, but now she likes it high because she can actually see us over here.”
More Than a Kennel
Happy Cat doesn’t smell like cats, even people with a cat allergy wouldn’t be bothered by the air in the hotel. During The Paper.’s pre-holiday visit, the rooms and facilities were spotless, and a tour of the back of the house revealed a brand new sparkling steel grooming station. Happy Cat offers grooming by trained professionals and Spa sessions with or without reservations for cats of all personality-types.
“We are actually NCGI [National Cat Groomers Institute] certified, which is a cat-grooming-specific certification,” Plummer says. “Dog groomers don’t know how to groom cats. They’ll try, but there’s a specific way to groom a cat. My groomer groomed my mom’s cat and it seems like he’s a different cat.”
According to Plummer, cat grooming is much more than a cosmetic service. Oftentimes cats have matted fur that is impossible to see, and it can cause discomfort and even pain, making them grouchy. Sometimes a haircut is all it takes to transform a hissy-fit-prone pet into a delightful diva.
The Happy Cat Hotel and Spa is a secure place to board beloved fur babies and the Plummer family possess nurturing qualities that likely came from years of taking care of their own pets at home. Their passion for cats is clear, and their concern for their client’s well-being borders on panic, but it’s a cute panic. As the doors to the exclusive kitty hideaway closed, the trio of adorable cat ladies could be heard playfully bickering with one another in the background.
“It’s not a kennel, Mom, it’s a casa,” Plummer says. “A kitty casa,”
You can take a virtual tour of the rooms at the Happy Cat Hotel and Spa and book a reservation on their website (happycathotel.com/albuquerquenm/).