Feline Harmony was founded in October 2009 by Steph Shangraw, in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

I'm a Veterinary Assistant, but my fascination with cats goes back much farther than that. Cats have been an important part of my life literally for my entire life. One of my earliest memories is of my mother placing her cat on the bed next to me when I was afraid of the dark, and telling me that Mouse could see even if I couldn't, and Mouse would protect me; I slept feeling safe, one hand on black-and-white Mouse. As I grew older, I began to try to understand the cats around me -- the improbable physical manoeuvres they could perform, but more importantly, the way they thought and the way they communicated. I read everything I could find on animal behaviour, not only felines of all sizes, and watched, and learned from my mother's cats and from the cats of friends and family, and later from my own when I moved into my own apartment.

I have experience with everything from hand-raising a day-old abandoned kitten through ongoing care of a diabetic to palliative care of the same diabetic, Nermal, in end-stage renal failure--and the grieving of my younger cat Loki when Nermal died. My cats and I previously lived with a short series of roommates who mostly had cats of their own, and the interactions were fascinating and educational.

After a long time successfully solving cat issues for friends and co-workers and family (mostly by being able to see things from the cat's perspective) I decided to go back to college a second time, in hopes of turning a lifetime's love of the feline into a career. To my surprise, I discovered a distinct shortage of openings that are primarily cat-based, although plenty that are primarily dog-based.

So, after graduating with a 3.95 GPA (out of 4.00) from St. Lawrence College's Vet Assistant program I decided to see what I could do about filling that gap.

Currently, I share my apartment with 4 cats: 14-year-old Loki, my too-clever polydactyl who has always had a knack for finding trouble to get into, and who is now on inhaled meds for asthma but is as lively as ever; 6-year-old Trick-or-Treat, who turned up on my doorstep and helped heal Loki's grief over Nermal; 6-year-old Angel who was terrified of everything when she showed up at our door, but has learned to get past it; 6-month-old Cory who was fostered for Kingston Humane Society at 2 and a half weeks of age, and who became Angel's adopted son, so he stayed. Do we have harmony here 24/7? Of course not, not with all these individualistic personalities--and purrsonalities--around! We have however, with patience and understanding and knowledge, achieved a balance, in which everyone has what they need in order to be happy, as best we can arrange it. It works!