What’s the great idea? Educational coloring books

Who’s doing it? The International Cat Association

What’s involved? Thinking outside the lines about how to share its message, TICA published two coloring books that encourage people to learn about and celebrate cats.

“Our focus has always been on trying to educate people in general about cats and to have people appreciate them,” says TICA Treasurer and Past President Vickie Fisher. “One of the ways of getting the word out there is starting with the children, so I think the whole idea was to get an educational piece out there in the form of a coloring book.”

The 2015 edition, TICA’s Colorful World of Cats, which Fisher wrote, serves as an educational resource on cats and the history of the cat-human bond. It has also been published in Spanish. The 2016 book, TICA’s World of Cats: All Kinds of Purrfect, celebrates the diversity of cats and their owners. “The message basically is that we all have differences, cats all have differences, and they’re all special,” Fisher says.

What are people saying? TICA hands out the coloring books at pet expos, country fairs, and conferences for veterinarians and animal shelter workers, who pass the books along to the children they work with.

“We’ve gotten really good comments on the message,” Fisher says. “A lot of the rescue folks and veterinarians and people in the pet profession, they find that the educational message is very important” to reinforce how to care for cats.

[This article was originally published in the Associations Now print edition, titled "Fun with Felines."]