Retiree builds miniature Adirondack chairs for cats at Utah sanctuary

Curtis McIff turned retirement woodworking into comfort for cats at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah, building miniature Adirondack chairs and daybeds for animals that have often come from shelters far from southern Utah. After years of volunteering with dogs, McIff shifted his attention to Cat World, where Best Friends says cats from shelters across the country receive special care and are prepared for new homes.

McIff said the idea grew out of work done at home. He had made full-sized Adirondack chairs for himself and his wife, then scaled the design down for their own cats before deciding to make versions for the sanctuary. So far, he has built 40 miniature Adirondack chairs and 10 daybeds. His first six chairs went to the Colonel’s Barracks, the largest building in Cat World, where each room is painted a different color and the chairs were matched to fit the space.

The attention to detail matters in a place built around animal comfort and recovery. The Colonel’s Barracks, which dates to 1997 and was part of the former Wild Cat Village before Cat World took its current name, has room for about 100 cats that need extra help with behavior issues. Best Friends says McIff’s chairs and beds have been a hit with the cats, and McIff said, “It does my heart good to see them facing the sun while lying in one of my chairs.”

His project sits inside a much larger operation. Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, set in Angel Canyon near Kanab, is the largest sanctuary of its kind in the nation and houses around 1,600 animals on any given day, including dogs, cats, horses, goats, pigs, rabbits, birds and others. The sanctuary occupies more than 3,300 acres in a red-rock canyon, and the broader property is commonly described as nearly 3,700 acres when leased land is included.

Best Friends Animal Society, the organization headquartered there, works with more than 6,000 shelters and rescue groups across the country and has long tied its mission to a no-kill goal. In 2016, it set a target of ending the killing of dogs and cats in shelters by 2025. By 2024, the number of cats and dogs killed in U.S. shelters had fallen to around 425,000, a sharp drop from more than 1 million when the campaign began. McIff’s chairs are small, but they reflect the larger point of that effort: a shelter system is not only about intake and placement, but also about the daily quality of life that helps animals heal.