News

Game On! Fun for the Young and the Young at Heart!

Who says learning can’t be fun?

Cats of the Boardwalk has a collection of interactive games for all ages! Search the boardwalk for cats while learning the steps of Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR). Discover why keeping our beaches clean matters to cats, wildlife, and people. Or test your skills trying to trap a clever feline — it’s harder than you think! Visit our new game section.

For younger players, chase a laser pointer, find a cat hiding in a box, or try to pet one — if you’re quick enough!

Some games teach, others are just for fun. All celebrate the curious, playful, and sometimes unpredictable world of cats.

Ready to play?

• Find the Cats

• Boardwalk Cleanup

• Cat Trap!

• Laser Pointer

• Which Box?

• Pet the Cats

Because helping cats starts with understanding them — and sometimes, that starts with a game!

Updated: ‘Sir H.A.L.’ M.I.A. Because He’s Going to the V.E.T.

A boardwalk tomcat who very likely sired many litters behind the Yachtsman Resort has been removed, finally no longer adding feral cats to the boardwalk’s burgeoning population. But “Sir H.A.L.” is not the only unneutered feral there.

Laurie Peterson, founder and president of Cats of the Boardwalk, was thrilled to get the chance to neuter a male – especially this sleek black “Sir H.A.L” – from the 14th Avenue Pier colony. She plans to try trapping there again soon with one of the felines’ feeders, which COTB calls “The Cat Whisperer,” in order to lure more unneutered ferals away.

Like all the feeders, The Cat Whisperer risks getting a $101 fine. Yet, he stubbornly and compassionately garnered the trust of the majority of ferals after years of feeding them. He works with Laurie who uses his feeding schedule as an opportunity for trapping, neutering and returning (TNR). It’s impressive to watch The Cat Whisperer call out the ferals’ names and to see them running his way.

“The biggest obstacle to trapping cats at this location is finding ones hungry enough to fall for the bait.” — Laurie Peterson, Cats of the Boardwalk

However, challenges remain. “The biggest obstacle to trapping cats at this location is finding ones hungry enough to fall for the bait,” Laurie says, while pointing to the empty plates and half-eaten piles of cat food scattered on both private and city property there. Feeding cats anywhere on public property at the boardwalk is illegal and subjects feeders to law-enforcement action.

The other challenge is colony location. She is not permitted to trap on city property and won’t set up traps on private property unless she has received permission first. She considers the process an opportunity to spread the word about COTB while she reaches out to property owners, many of whom are responsive and compassionate.

Laurie hopes to educate the general public about the work she does to manage the colonies. Additionally, she wishes more of this colony’s feeders will contact Laurie at COTB to coordinate their feeding schedules for better trapping results.

She’s been attempting to isolate more adults behind the Yachtsman for the past year. She was successful removing kittens last week, however, one kitten and its momma still remain. In addition to “Sir H.A.L.,” Laurie thinks there are at least three more tomcats at this colony she needs to TNR.

To assist COTB with the ongoing mission to trap, neuter and return (TNR) cats and rescue kittens, please click to volunteer, adopt, donate or buy a COTB t-shirt which also supports efforts.

Dehydrated and Starving Kitty Starts a New Chapter

A docile juvenile tabby – found by a recent transplant to Myrtle Beach – is no longer abandoned and all alone in the Walmart parking lot off Seaboard Street. The dazed and hungry small cat has been picked up by an animal control officer to be driven to the Grand Strand Human Society (GSHS) where it will be fostered and socialized before adoption.

Found on Thursday, October 15, Kitty spent the night at the home of Laurie Peterson, founder and president of Cats of the Boardwalk, who watched over, cuddled and catered to the kitty. It appeared to appreciate a safe and secure place to rest.

Thanks go out to both April, who found the kitty and called COTB, and to animal control’s Officer Trott, who brought it to GSHS to begin its new chapter. COTB and Officer Trott work together to save kittens, as well as provide trap, neuter and return (TNR) services to adult cats, and educate the public about their efforts.

To assist COTB with the ongoing mission to trap, neuter and return (TNR) cats and rescue kittens, please click to volunteer, adopt, donate or buy a COTB t-shirt which also supports efforts.

It’s Official: COTB Receives Non-Profit Status

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) now recognizes Cats of the Boardwalk as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization, effective September 8, 2026. With the determination, COTB becomes available to receive grants and take advantage of attractive non-profit rates on basic services the organization needs.

Donations made on or after September 8 are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. PayPal emails a receipt for each donation, which donors should keep for their records. Charitable contributions of more than $250 via check or cash should receive related documentation required by the IRS, provided COTB has the donors’ addresses.

For those who have already supported founder Laurie Peterson and her cause through donations, kindly note if you require tax documentation from us, please reach out to Isabelle@catsoftheboardwalk.org.

Catsoftheboardwalk.org’s “Shop” purchases (i.e. t-shirts) are payments for goods (i.e. t-shirts) and are not considered donations by the IRS.

To assist COTB with the ongoing mission to trap, neuter and return (TNR) cats and rescue kittens, please click to volunteer, adopt, donate or buy a COTB t-shirt which also supports efforts.

4 kittens by 14th Ave. Pier Out of Harm’s Way Before Winter

Kittens trapped earlier this week are now warm and safe at the Grand Strand Humane Society to eventually be adopted, thereby bringing the number of cats helped to 44 this year.

On Monday, October 12 and Tuesday, October 13, the founder and president of Cats of the Boardwalk Laurie Peterson and her husband Ron removed four kittens from behind the Yachtsman Resort with the help of “The Cat Whisperer,” a gentleman who has been feeding the ferals and strays at the beach for about 7 years, despite it being illegal to feed cats at the boardwalk.

Myrtle Beach Animal Control Officer Trott picked up the four kittens from the couple to bring the furry babies to GSHS where they will be placed in foster care to socialize them before being placed for adoption. There are in excess of 40 cats which call Myrtle Beach’s Boardwalk and Promenade their home. COTB and Officer Trott work together to save kittens, provide TNR services to adult cats, and educate the public about their efforts.

To assist COTB with the ongoing mission to TNR cats and rescue kittens, please click to volunteer, adopt, donate or buy a COTB t-shirt, which also supports efforts.

COTB By the Numbers: 40 Cats Year to Date

Since the beginning of the year, COTB has achieved yet another milestone with 40 cats rescued or fixed-and-returned to their colonies along Myrtle Beach’s shoreline.

Founder and president Laurie Peterson and her husband Ron, have been rescuing, trapping, neutering and returning (TNR) Myrtle Beach’s “cutest tourist traps” to their colonies since November 2025. Over those last 11 months, COTB helped nearly 70 cats.

Laurie and Ron have made it their mission to reduce the burgeoning population of unwanted felines at the boardwalk and beyond. This includes finding them vet care when needed, of which the city’s stretched-thin duo of animal-control officers are not always aware. The officers’ TNR runs are focused on city property, while Laurie supplements their efforts by trapping on private property.

“The support of the community has been awesome,” Laurie says, noting without their support she would not be able to continue the mission at its current pace. Passersby will often ask the couple “what are you doing?” when spotted at the beach with cages and food. “That’s the opportunity to educate the public,” Laurie happily adds.

To assist COTB with the ongoing mission to TNR cats and rescue kittens, please click to volunteer, adopt, Donate or buy a COTB t-shirt, which also supports efforts.

Updated: Injured ‘Heart’ to Return to 76th Ave. N Colony

A female feral cat with an injured front paw is now on the sandy road to recovery.

Since Friday, Oct. 2, Cats of the Boardwalk (COTB) volunteers had been trap-training at the 76th Avenue North colony in an effort to familiarize the cats with the trap. Training involves placing food in an unset trap for a few days so cats can get comfortable with it.

The goal was to isolate “Heart” — a feral cat named for the heart-shaped pattern on her coat. Residents alerted COTB after noticing her struggling to move, raising concerns about a potential broken paw that would severely hinder her ability to hunt or escape danger.

“Residents alerted COTB after noticing her struggling to move, raising concerns about a potential broken paw.”

While two other colony cats took the bait from a set trap on the night of Tuesday, Oct. 6 (and have since been fixed, vaccinated, and returned), Heart evaded capture until 1 a.m. Wednesday, Oct. 7. Alerted by a resident, COTB founder and president Laurie Peterson and her husband Ron drove over in the middle of the night to retrieve Heart who was relaxed inside the trap she’d been cautiously eating from for days without the trap being set.

Though newly abandoned and learning to trust caretakers at feeding time, Heart remained unapproachable, making foster-home convalescence impractical. Fortunately, however, nursing her back to health won’t be necessary.

As of yesterday, Heart has been spayed, and the vet confirmed her paw injury will heal naturally on its own. COTB plans to return her to her colony today — because after all, shouldn’t home be where Heart is?

Updated: 28th Ave. N Litter Removed for Adoption from a Demolition Site

Four gorgeous kittens, one of which got caught in a hole on an abandoned property last week, are one step closer to adoption.

Cats of the Boardwalk’s founder responded to a plea from a Facebook contributor’s post on Wednesday to discover more cats needing help. The post described a situation in which a litter of kittens had been spotted near an abandoned utility access hole in a lot, which is slated for construction.

On Wednesday, founder Laurie Peterson and her husband Ron, encountered the Facebook contributor and another local resident at the scene at 28th Avenue North off of Ocean Boulevard. The contributor’s neighbor became a hero by immediately descending into the hole to lift out a beautiful kitten who then quickly scampered off and returned to its litter.

Today Laurie and Ron trapped and removed all four kittens from the dangerous site while keeping a promise she made last week to return with traps. The litter’s momma didn’t take the bait this time, but she is still targeted to get fixed. Laurie left a trap behind for her.

Including the trapping of these four kittens, COTB has helped 64 cats since Laurie started trapping last year. There are at least four more colonies COTB aims to help. To assist COTB with the ongoing mission to TNR cats and rescue kittens, please click to donate, volunteer, adopt, or buy a COTB t-shirt, which also supports efforts.

Boots Chose Us

By: Jonathan Deane Taylor

Stray cats aren’t always found at the beach.

Sometimes they appear right under your feet.

Or, in our case, underneath the Corvette in the driveway of our secluded Myrtle Beach cul-de-sac.

My wife, Issie, and I have an ongoing disagreement about which one of us has better hearing. On this particular August morning, she won.

She was sitting with her coffee, watching the steam rise from the cup and contemplating whether she should turn it into an iced coffee like the ones we get near the beach. But something kept distracting her.

Crying.

She could hear it, but she couldn’t tell where it was coming from.

She tried to ignore it for a little while. Eventually, she couldn’t.

“What is that?”

She got up to investigate. I poured myself a fresh cup of coffee and followed her outside.

Danny was already there.

Danny is our oversized, gray, furry mini-Maine Coon with a remarkably calm temperament. He looked at us, then toward the Corvette.

And stared.

His eyes were fixed on the opening underneath the car where we had removed the lower air dam.

We looked.

There she was.

At first, all we could really see was a little patch of white rising and falling with each nervous breath. Against the rest of her jet-black body, it was impossible to miss.

She was tiny. Just ounces of kitten tucked beneath a sports car, with this enormous furry beast staring directly at her.

It was about as unexpected as snow in Myrtle Beach.

This wasn’t part of a plan. We hadn’t encountered her during one of our walks near the Boardwalk. We hadn’t gone looking for a cat that needed help.

She was simply there, in our driveway.

Where was her mother? Were there other kittens? How had she ended up underneath our car?

We didn’t know.

Danny, meanwhile, apparently decided that because we had arrived, reinforcements were now in place. He inched closer.

The kitten backed away.

Issie started issuing orders.

I went for food.

A few minutes later, our mysterious little visitor was out in the open, eating tuna while Danny supervised.

And that was pretty much it.

We didn’t need a family meeting. We didn’t make a list of pros and cons.

She was home.

We named her Boots.

From Tiny Tuxedo to the Muscle from Myrtle

Boots adapted astonishingly quickly.

She had arrived at an age when she was still very young, but already discovering the world on her own. Somehow, at exactly that moment, she found a house, food, people willing to protect her—and Danny.

Danny became much more than the enormous cat who had first stared at her from across the driveway.

He became her protector.

Then her playmate.

Then her teacher.

Boots had all the instincts of a growing cat. She needed to stalk, chase, pounce, attack, retreat and try again. Danny became her chalkboard. She practiced on him constantly.

And eventually, the student surpassed the teacher.

Boots grew fast.

And hard.

She became one big muscle.

She could launch herself into a tree almost effortlessly. She raced through the house. She attacked toys—and occasionally Danny—with the intensity of a cat several times her size.

We started calling her the Muscle from Myrtle.

Danny remained our Prince of Peace.

Boots became the Duchess of Destruction.

Before long, there wasn’t much question about who was running the house.

It was Boots.

The Cat Who Doesn’t Want to Be Cuddled

Boots has never become a conventional lap cat.

Pick her up and she may complain immediately. Try to cuddle her and she’ll make sure you understand that this arrangement was not her idea.

But if she finally gives in, something remarkable happens.

Underneath all that muscle and attitude is one of the softest cats we’ve ever touched. Her black coat is extraordinarily dense and smooth, almost like velvet, broken only by the crisp white markings of her tuxedo.

She may object to being held.

She may insist she’s leaving.

And then, sometimes, she’ll stay.

That’s Boots.

Everything happens on her terms.

There Was Another Kitten

We eventually realized Boots hadn’t been alone.

She had a brother.

He grew up around our cul-de-sac, and we continued seeing him after Boots became part of our family. We tried to get close enough to help him, but neither we nor anyone else was ever able to catch him.

So we watched two siblings grow up along two very different paths.

Boots had regular meals, veterinary care, shelter and a family. Her brother remained outside.

As they grew older, the physical differences became easier to see. His coat looked rougher. His tail wasn’t as full.

Boots became strong, glossy and muscular.

For a while, she still ventured outside and occasionally encountered him.

We installed cat doors in both the garage and kitchen so Boots could come and go. It took her a couple of months to understand exactly how they worked.

Once she figured it out, that was the end of that problem.

In and out she went whenever she pleased—sometimes batting at the little door as though it were a punching bag.

Occasionally, she would see her brother.

At first there seemed to be some recognition between them.

Then less.

As time passed, the two kittens who had begun life together became strangers.

Sometimes a Cat Finds You

We think a lot about rescuing cats as something people set out to do.

Sometimes it is.

You find a cat. You make a plan. You trap her, bring her to safety, take her to the veterinarian and figure out what happens next.

But sometimes there is no plan.

Sometimes you’re drinking coffee on an August morning and hear crying outside.

Sometimes your cat stares underneath your Corvette.

And sometimes a tiny black-and-white kitten crawls out, eats some tuna and quietly makes a decision that changes everybody’s life.

We didn’t go looking for Boots that morning.

Boots found us.

And she chose exactly the right driveway.

The Cat Who Followed Us Home

By: Jonathan Deane Taylor

My wife and I moved to the Forestbrook area of Myrtle Beach in 2018. We came here to retire, and we specifically wanted to be near the water. We pictured starting our mornings with long walks on the Boardwalk, getting ourselves ready for whatever the day might bring.

Five miles from the ocean seemed close enough.

But we were also worried about storms, so we deliberately bought on the other side of the Intracoastal Waterway. We liked having that little bit of a buffer between us and the Atlantic.

It was our first house together. A quiet cul-de-sac, a spacious backyard, an oversized front lawn. It felt like exactly the place we had been looking for.

We started seeing stray cats on the Boardwalk almost immediately.

We weren’t particularly cat people back then. Issie had had a couple when she was younger—a white cat named Neige and a black cat named Max. There was also Sammy, a Siamese her parents cared for. I’d had Lilly, a tabby.

But we’d never shared a cat together.

With Issie being allergic, the subject had never really come up. So when we saw cats on our walks, we’d admire them from a distance. We’d point them out to each other, remark on how cute they were, and keep walking.

Then came October.

We had been in Myrtle Beach long enough to experience our first real change of seasons. The mornings were getting cooler. The heat was beginning to break, and there were days when a cool breeze came off the ocean. Our Boardwalk walks were becoming even more enjoyable.

One morning, a cat started following us.

We hadn’t seen this one before. It was a beautiful, furry gray cat—almost like a Maine Coon, except normal cat-sized. We immediately decided it was a female. She was too pretty not to be, apparently.

She was soft, fluffy, incredibly friendly, and she kept meowing at us.

We stopped.

We gave this beautiful little creature our complete attention for a moment. Then a moment became several minutes. Eventually we said goodbye and continued our morning walk.

The cat followed us.

More meowing.

We looked back and laughed. We stopped again. More petting. We started walking again.

Still following us.

Around the path just north of the Second Avenue Pier, among the palms and petunias, another couple approached. They were tourists, in Myrtle Beach for the week, and naturally they stopped for the cat too.

We started talking.

They’d seen her before. In fact, they’d seen her several times during their vacation. They pointed out the tipped ear, something we knew very little about at the time. It meant she’d been trapped, fixed and returned. She was, essentially, one of the Boardwalk’s community cats.

But this cat didn’t seem feral to us.

Not even close.

She wanted attention. She wanted affection. She wanted to be around people.

And this couple had apparently decided that we were going to do something about it.

“You should take her.”

They kept working on us. They’d watched her for days. She needed a home. She was obviously friendly. She didn’t belong out here.

I looked at Issie.

Issie very deliberately did not look at me.

I was already gone.

Somewhere during those few minutes, I’d become attached to this beautiful gray ball of fur I’d never seen before in my life. I kept looking at Issie until, finally, her eyes met mine.

I didn’t have to say anything. I begged with my face.

She knew.

Then she said it.

“She needs a name. We can’t take home a cat without a name.”

That was it. We were taking the cat.

The other couple immediately suggested “Fluffy.”

Issie and I looked at each other.

No.

We were not Fluffy parents.

Not here. Not now. Not ever.

The husband had been especially enthusiastic about convincing us to take the cat, and he was a genuinely nice guy. So one of us finally asked him, “Hey, what’s your name?”

“Dan.”

Issie and I looked at each other.

“THAT’S IT!”

We were completely, psychically synchronized.

Danni.

We would name this beautiful little gray girl Danni, after the stranger who had somehow talked two people who weren’t really cat people into taking a Boardwalk cat home with them.

We said our goodbyes, and I scooped Danni into my arms.

Our five-mile walk got cut short that morning. Instead, we headed back to the Jeep carrying a surprise neither of us had any idea we wanted when we’d gotten out of bed a few hours earlier.

We took Danni home.

A few days later, we brought our new little girl to the veterinarian for a checkup.

And that’s when we learned that perhaps we should lose the “i.”

And replace it with a “y.”

Danni was Danny.

We couldn’t have known it then, but bringing Danny home that October morning changed much more than our daily routine.

That friendly gray cat with the tipped ear introduced us to a world that had been right in front of us all along. We began noticing the Boardwalk cats differently. We learned what that tipped ear meant. We learned about community cats, TNR, rescue, feeding, fostering and the people quietly looking after animals most visitors simply walked past.

And somewhere along the way, two people who weren’t particularly cat people became very much cat people.

We had moved to Myrtle Beach imagining retirement mornings walking along the ocean.

Five miles away seemed close enough.

As it turned out, it was exactly close enough.

Because one October morning, on a path through the palms and petunias just north of the Second Avenue Pier, a furry gray cat decided to follow us.

And eventually, we followed him.