As of: February 26, 2024, 10:25 a.m
By: Lisa Fischer
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Elisabeth Stempniak looks after the velvet paws in the animal station with a lot of empathy.
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Loved, petted, protected: an 80-year-old woman is doing an unusual job at the animal sanctuary in Überacker.
She is a volunteer cat petter.
Überacker/Olching - One scratching post next to the other, with baskets of all sizes and colors in between, shelves with cat accessories on the walls: At the end of the long room, Elisabeth Stempniak sits in an armchair, a cat toy in one hand, and she is stroking one with the other hand Cat just snuggling against her legs.
No, this is not a special cat room in the Olchinger's apartment.
The 80-year-old is sitting in Überacker, in the animal friends Brucker Land cat house.
Because Elisabeth Stempniak does a special voluntary work there.
Very happy
She calls it “volunteer cat petter” herself and knows that some people make fun of her for it.
But not from the Animal Friends team and chairwoman Andrea Mittermeir.
“We are very happy to have people like Elisabeth.
Some of the cats that come to us are wildborn.
They have to get used to people first.”
Elisabeth Stempniak has years of experience as to the best way to do this.
“I had cats myself for 60 years,” says the 80-year-old.
She had to put down her last cat two years ago.
The woman from Olching then decided not to get another cat for reasons of age.
Not without a velvet paw
But the senior couldn't live without her velvet paws either.
And since she herself had repeatedly taken cats from animal shelters, she soon came up with the idea of asking Tierfreunde Brucker Land.
“When I visited the cat house for the first time, I said: If I have to cry now, then that’s it,” reports the 80-year-old.
But the fear did not materialize.
The volunteer cat petter stops by Überacker twice a week.
There are days when four or five cats are running around on her and days when everyone is sleeping.
The woman from Olching knows exactly that and when you have to leave the animals alone.
“If I go and want to pet it, but the cat turns its head away, then I let it and don’t force myself on it,” says Elisabeth Stempniak.
Forcing petting would have no effect on the shy or (still) wild four-legged friends getting used to it.
Get to know contact
Like the gray and white young kitten that sits and sleeps relaxed near the Olchinger.
Apparently she doesn't mind the mere presence of people.
But touching is not allowed.
“Unfortunately, she was ill for a long time and only knows contact with people by giving them tablets.” But the volunteer does much more than entertain cats.
Once she took over an urgent drive to the veterinary clinic in Germering.
“I went from Olching to Überacker, packed up Milli, to Germering and everything back again,” says the 80-year-old.
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Budgies at home
Animal Friends boss Andrea Mittermeir adds: “She also goes to pick up donations, go shopping and takes care of selling cakes at parties.” And the 80-year-old, who worked for a long time in human resources at a large Munich publishing house, was very creative.
“When I retired, I said I really needed a PC.” She has always enjoyed graphics and design.
And so in July she printed the Animal Friends logo on wafers, which she used to decorate 60 home-baked muffins.
And when Elisabeth Stempniak comes home from Überacker, it's not completely quiet in her apartment: the budgies Butzi and Bazi have recently been living there with her.
You can find even more current news from the Fürstenfeldbruck district at Merkur.de/Fürstenfeldbruck.