Exploring Life & Business with Judy McGrew of Puurrrfect Paws Rescue

Today we’d like to introduce you to Judy McGrew.

Hi Judy, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
It started in 2016 a few years after moving to Nashville from California. It was a post on Facebook of three little kittens in a box maybe four weeks old that a lady said FREE. We explained to her to get them back to their mom since they were so little. She said she lives in a trailer park and they had enough stray cats and didn’t need anymore and just wanted the kittens gone. Well, we told her we would take them since they needed bottle fed. Well, that led to one after another taking them in to help. It just seemed like there were a lot of dog rescues but hardly any to help cats. I think in 2016, we adopted out about 100 kitties after rescuing them and getting them fixed and fully vetted. We started out just me and my daughter Jessica from our place. In 2017, we adopted out about 250 and a handful of fosters. We moved to Clarksville from Nashville in October 2017.

In 2018, we adopted out 401 kitties, finally got into one store – Petsense Lebanon and had about 30 fosters.

In 2019, we were now established in 6 stores with kitties for adoption. We were pushing 70/80 fosters at any given time. We cleared out Montgomery County Animal Control in 1 day in July when they were going to have to euthanize a lot. We pulled about 85 that day. We had 805 adoptions in 2019.

In 2020, we were still inside 6 locations for the kitties to be for adoption. We were down to about 50-60 fosters at any given time but we had 1,176 adoptions.

In 2021 it was our goal to finally get our own kitty cafe/lounge open and we should be open July 2021 it’s the Puurrrfect Paws Cafe in Clarksville. We have 50-60 fosters still at any given time and we are at 528 adoptions so far.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It’s never a smooth road with rescue. The struggles are funds and being able to help the kitties and take in medical issue kitties and just having enough money to buy all the food and supplies.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
We are a kitty rescue that pulls from high kill shelters in TN and we pull from Christian County Animal Shelter. We also take in owner surrenders when we have room and fosters available. We get the kitties fixed and fully vetted and microchipped and then up for adoption. We have kitties at several locations in middle TN for adoption – Petsense Lebanon, Petsense Gallatin, Pet Supplies Plus Hendersonville, Pet Supplies Plus Clarksville, Pet Supermarket in Bellevue and The Catfeine Cat Cafe in Murfreesboro. We will have our kitty cafe open in Clarksville, TN in July 2021. We adopted out 1,176 kitties in 2020 and looked forward to helping a lot more this year and the years to come.

We’re always looking for the lessons that can be learned in any situation, including tragic ones like the Covid-19 crisis. Are there any lessons you’ve learned that you can share?
Yes, with the clinics closed in 2019 it was hard to get the kitties in to be fixed. We also learned people were lonely and needed a companion and we were a good outlet for them for finding a companion. We started doing live video and FaceTime for potential adopters to see the kitties and see their personality. We were still able to get a lot of kitties into their forever homes.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: https://www.puurrrfectpawsrescue.com/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kittierescue/