A former animal control officer is so passionate about the need to spay and neuter cats that he’s found a creative way to literally draw attention to it.
The “Cattoo Challenge” happened by chance, according to Daniel Ettinger, an instructor for animal welfare professionals and host of the “Keep It Humane” podcast. Back in December of 2023, Ettinger was teaching a course about how animal welfare is connected to human health and welfare at the Military Police School in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. Attendees included miliary police officers, veterinarians, veterinary technicians and social workers.
In the session on hoarding, Ettinger grabbed a dry-erase marker and scrawled a picture of two cats on the whiteboard. The idea was for attendees to calculate how many kittens the cats would have without spay/neuter surgeries to prevent reproduction — which would illustrate how quickly a caregiver could become overwhelmed by an influx of kittens.
“I go over to the whiteboard, and I just draw two cats on the board — stick figure drawings — and then we start doing the exercise,” he recalled. “One of the students just happened to say, ‘I’m going to get your cats as a tattoo.’”
Ettinger smiled at the nice sentiment but was surprised the next day when he was flying home to Southern California and got a text from the student. Sure enough, he and another student had taken a photo of Ettinger’s drawing of the two cats and had them tattooed on their legs.
Another student wanted to follow suit. So a couple of months later when he was teaching another course, Ettinger went along to get ink of his own. While they were getting matching tattoos of the original cats, Ettinger wondered aloud about what would happen if he came back and someone else wanted to get the tattoo together.
“The student was brilliant,” he said. “He was like, ‘Since you’re teaching about spay and neutering and hoarding and all that kind of stuff, why wouldn’t you just have the person draw a kitten and you can add the kitten to your leg to help tell the story on why it’s so important to spay and neuter?’ And that’s how it was born.”
The Cattoo Challenge
The Cattoo Challenge is simple. Whenever someone gets a tattoo — aka cattoo — of the original two cats, they send Ettinger photo proof and a drawing of a kitten, and he gets it tattooed on his left leg. So far, 27 people have gotten the cattoos, so Ettinger’s left leg offers a permanent testament to the importance of spaying and neutering pets.
It’s easy to get involved, since he posted a photo of the original cat drawings on his website at: keepithumane.com/cattoo. Most people scribble a photo of a kitten, but in an instance where a participant didn’t want to draw their own, one of Ettinger’s daughters drew a kitten that now adorns his leg.
He thinks it’s cool that so many people have already accepted the Cattoo Challenge and hopes others will get involved because spaying and neutering pets is so critical to addressing pet overpopulation and reducing intake at animal shelters.
“I would say spay and neuter is the heart and everything else are the arteries and the veins,” he said. “That’s how I think is the best way to look at it.”
He noted that female kittens typically reach sexual maturity when they’re just 4-6 months old, so one litter of kittens can lead to exponentially more. In 2025, 58% of the 3 million cats who entered U.S. animal shelters were 5 months old or younger, according to Shelters Animals Count, a program of the ASPCA. Additionally, only 23% of cats entered shelters spayed or neutered last year.
Spaying and neutering cats and dogs also provides health benefits, Ettinger added. For instance, spaying prevents uterine infections and decreases the incidence of breast tumors, while neutering prevents testicular cancer and some prostate problems, according to the ASPCA.
People who want to help support spay/neuter efforts but aren’t ready to get a tattoo can still support the Cattoo Challenge by donating to the Bissell Pet Foundation’s “Fix the Future” program to support spay/neuter clinics, Ettinger noted.
A Cattoo Challenge Participant
Temma Martin, founder of the Utah nonprofit Operation Pawpulation, which offers low-cost spay and neuter surgeries for dogs and cats, is a proud participant in the Cattoo Challenge. When there was a “flash tattoo” fundraiser in the summer of 2024 for the nonprofit Angel Paws Utah, she felt it was the perfect opportunity to simultaneously support two good causes.
After having the original cat drawings tattooed on her right forearm, she drew a picture of her family’s rescue kitten, Flash, for Ettinger to add to his leg.
“If anybody says, ‘Oh, that’s cute,’ I start a conversation. ‘Let me tell you what it means,’” she said. “And sometimes it leads to something meaningful like, ‘My neighbors have a pet that needs to be spayed or neutered.’”
She’s grateful that Ettinger found such a special way to help raise awareness of the importance of spaying and neutering pets.
“I feel strongly that it is time to bring spay/neuter back into the forefront of the animal welfare conversation,” she said. “Spay/neuter is the key to lifesaving. It’s prevention, and it allows shelters and rescues and individuals and fosters to focus very limited resources on the animals that are already here.”
Operation Pawpulation recently celebrated its first anniversary, and has spayed and neutered over 1,800 cats and dogs. Martin has already been shocked this “kitten season” by how many cats — both pets and unowned “community” cats living outside — have been pregnant.
“In the last month, every female community cat has come into our clinic pregnant, lactating or in heat. Some days every female cat was pregnant,” she said. “We’re also seeing owned cats coming in pregnant. Some who go outside clearly met up with intact males, but many people who ‘rescue’ a couple of sibling kittens from someone giving them away, or keep a mama cat and son from a litter, find themselves with a female impregnated by a relative. Clearly cats don’t care.”
She noted that the nonprofit United Spay Alliance offers a free online tool where people can search by zip code to find low cost spay/neuter services across the United States.
Ettinger is grateful to people like Martin who have participated in the Cattoo Challenge and hopes others will join the cause. In the future, he plans to sponsor a cattoo and said people can enter a drawing for a free cattoo by expressing interest through his Keep It Humane website.
Ultimately, he hopes the Cattoo Challenge continues to spread awareness of how spaying and neutering pets can help save lives — and he’s touched that others want to get involved despite his artistic abilities.
“All of it’s pretty cool,” he said. “It’s super endearing that people are putting my horrible artwork on their body.”
