- Come over and say hello to me.
What's up, how's it going?
We are here at the Happy Cat Sanctuary in Long Island.
As you can see, there are a lot of cats here.
There are a couple hundred cats.
So what you see right here,
it really only scratches the surface.
This is the tip of the iceberg.
This cat's kissing me.
Kissing my face.
- So come out here and see the outside.
- Oh, my God, holy sh...
I can't wait to see hundreds of cats hanging out
licking each other and jumping on each other
and all of that.
I have really bad cuteness aggression but if I...
I don't even know what's gonna happen
whenever I see like 200 cats.
I think I'm just gonna explode.
A lot of these cats come from really, really horrible
conditions, backgrounds. A lot of them have been
very severely abused.
These are going to be, you know, some severely traumatized
cats, and I guess, you know, my biggest question
for Chris is like, how do you sort of work
to turn things around for the ones who have
sort of suffered the most.
I'm gonna go knock on the door, gonna meet Chris,
and he's gonna show me around.
I am gonna lose it.
I am so excited.
- Hey!
- Hey, Chris!
- What's up, guys? Come on in.
- Nice to meet you.
Right now I'm looking at maybe like 50 seats?
- Oh, more than that.
They're here to live their lives out.
They all came from different places,
you know, different stories.
Hey, Ben, you want to see the next room?
Come on, we'll go see it.
- I definitely do.
- Don't worry, they'll follow you.
- Come on, let's go.
Let's go, guys.
Wow, OK, so we've got even more seats over here
and all the way up to the ceiling.
That's amazing.
- Yeah, well, the whole idea is to give enough space,
like triple of how many cats we have.
Well, it took me three years to do the entire sanctuary.
- And clearly you have a real passion for these animals.
- Yes, I really love what I do.
- Where does that come from?
Like what drives you to take
such great care of these animals?
- Oh, God, well I know when I lost my son,
that really kind of took me to it, you know?
Well, in 2006, I lost my son
tragically on a motorcycle accident,
and I worked as a conductor for New Jersey Transit,
and I came upon
these 30 sick kittens in these boxes
along the railroad, and it was after my son had passed
that I had run into these kittens,
and I took them all out of the boxes
and brought them home and nursed them back to health,
and it was at that point that I just decided
not to go back.
- Sure.
- And I started you know, rescuing cats.
And there's Enoch.
I named him after my son.
One of the issues is these other sanctuaries
that are out there that have cats roaming in unsanitary
areas, you know, my sanctuary here is all concrete
and has the draining and everything, the proper system
where it all gets washed down.
- This place is so well maintained and beautiful,
and I mean, honestly, if I were a cat,
I would love to live here.
- Do you want to see the outside now?
- Yes.
- Yes I feel like the outside...
- The outside sounds good.
- Would you describe it as the sort of
the main event of the sanctuary?
- Yeah, it really is.
- Follow me.
Come with me.
- This is kitty yard.
Kitty palace here.
- You know, I wish I could see.
This is amazing.
- Most of the space is theirs,
and I created everything for the cats.
- Would you say taking care of these cats
has been a good way for you to in many ways
cope with the trauma of losing your son?
- Oh yeah, absolutely.
It's, you know, it, you know, it's just...
It's hard to describe the gratification that I get
from being able to do what I've done for these cats
and to continue to do it.
It's a great feeling.
- Yeah.
- Well, it's just amazing.
I don't think I've ever seen just so many, like,
happy, free cats, you know, ever in my life.
It's really amazing what you're able to do
for all of these animals.
It's really inspiring just to see so many happy cats.
- Well, I hope I can inspire as many people
as possible to do even a fraction of what I do
to help the animals.
- Do you see the cat legs up there?
Just sticking out?
That cat is relaxed.
Cats that have, you know, sort of
dealt with a lot of traumas
in their lives, and you think,
"Oh, this cat has been through so much,
it can't be saved."
- There's no cat that can't be your friend.
It's all about giving them the time
and giving them what you want.
- Oh, yeah.
Chris, I want to thank you so much for having me here.
It was a pleasure.
I loved seeing what you do,
and I'm excited to see what you do in the future.
- Thanks, you're welcome, you're welcome.
Take care, all right?
- Take care.
All right, I'm gonna go hang out with my new friends now.
See you guys later.