NC State’s Feline-Friendly Focus Expands With Registered Veterinary Technician Dedicated to Cats

Sometimes, the difference between a calm cat and a frenzied feline during a veterinary appointment can be the thickness of a towel.

Just ask Danielle Tsukuda, a registered veterinary technician hired at the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine specifically for her feline-friendly ways. Because Tsukuda knows the fluffy, gray tools help cocoon and comfort cats, ordering 100 of them for use in the NC State Veterinary Hospital was one of her first contributions after arriving last year to advance the college’s new Feline Health Center.

A calming towel-wrap is just one of many tricks at her disposal. When a patient is in need, all clinicians have to do is “activate the cat signal” and summon Tsukuda with a call.

“There are several supervisors in the Terry Center who, if they get a message, ‘Hey, we have an anxious cat. We can’t get it out of the kennel.’ They say, ‘Call Danielle,’” Tsukuda says. “I’ve built a lot of relationships here with staff and faculty so people know they can direct people to me.”

A growing awareness that cats’ needs are very different from those of dogs is one reason NC State created the Feline Health Center in 2023. Many small animal veterinary hospitals are set up in ways that can stress feline patients, and the center set out to find a specialized registered veterinary technician to serve only cats and to mentor veterinary students, faculty and staff in all ways whiskered. 

Tsukuda, who has completed the Fear Free Veterinary Certification Program and also is a certified Cat-Friendly Veterinary Professional through the Feline Veterinary Medical Association, was hired in May. Center co-directors Dr. Alex Lynch and Dr. Margaret Gruen could not be more thrilled with her and her work.

“Danielle has a natural confidence with cats,” says Lynch, an associate professor in emergency and critical care. “She can recognize the situation and be like, ‘This room’s kind of noisy. Let’s go into a quieter area,’ or ‘This towel is kind of thin. A thicker towel would actually be more useful and comfortable.’ That she appreciates the smaller details makes a big impact.”

Tsukuda is getting comfortable being in the role of teacher for the first time, taking her cat-friendly techniques and tips from the trenches to veterinary students during their primary care clinical block. She also created a card and flyer with her name and contact information — the renowned “cat signal” — so care teams hospital-wide can get in touch.

“We’ve really been impressed with just how proactive she’s been,” Lynch adds. “Danielle takes the job seriously and really puts in the effort to find a good solution to every case. I think the students are going to learn a ton from her.”

One area where Tsukuda now leads is the care of cats being treated through the college’s Feline Hyperthyroid Clinic. The cats receive radioactive iodine on Mondays and stay in isolation in comfortable cat condos, donated by Beck Hallmann, in the NC State Veterinary Hospital until Thursdays.

“I take my time with these clients and ease any worries they have, especially because they’re leaving their cat for four days and that’s kind of scary for them,” she says. “I sit down with them and say, ‘I’m the one who’s going to be caring for your cat all week. They’re in good hands. I’m going to be calling you every day to update you on how they’re doing.’”

On a recent Wednesday, Tsukuda was performing 30-day rechecks on cats that had been treated for hyperthyroidism. One patient was Dinger, aka “Ding Ding,” who belongs to college faculty member Dr. Allison Kendall, an assistant clinical professor of small animal internal medicine.

“Having Danielle is just so great for the cats, the clients and for our students,” Kendall says. “It’s good for our patients to have such a feline-friendly hospital but also good for students, because when they go out into practice, they have learned how to have a feline-friendly area. It’s good we’re training the new generation so they can go out and share that knowledge.”

In another cat-friendly exam room, the sound of ocean waves from a machine greeted Tsukuda as she opened the door to Andrew DeSanctis and his cat Luna. The 9-year-old animal needed her blood drawn and was reluctant to leave her carrier. Tsukuda offered a treat on a stick for the cat to lick and then gently opened the door.

“You a little scared?” she asked Luna. “Hi, sweetness. Hi, sweetie.”

Then she brought out the big gray towel.

“It helps because kitties do like to feel protected and sheltered in some way,” she said. “It allows them the opportunity to hide if they want to and allows us to handle them more gently. They are also for safety. If we had a cat that would scratch or turn around and bite, your hand is less likely to get injured through a thicker towel.”

Tsukuda, a Massachusetts native, has always loved cats. She adopted her first, Noodles, when she was 4. She currently shares her home with Kyoki, Onyx and Taji, the last of which is tattooed on her arm, and said she would have more if her husband weren’t somewhat reluctant. 

Before arriving at NC State, Tsukuda worked at a feline-only private practice in Cary, North Carolina. She also has held roles at the Raleigh-area clinics Safe Haven for Cats and Morrisville Cat Hospital and at a kitten nursery in San Diego.

“I think working in a shelter environment has helped me a great deal, because a lot of those cats are coming from uncertain backgrounds and are scared,” she said. “What makes something feline-friendly? It’s not just one thing. It’s how you interact with the cat. It’s about the environment around you. It’s about the noises around you, the smells. It’s just looking at the whole picture.” 

And sometimes offering a song. Tsukuda said she often sings to cats because it calms them and the other people in the room, too. Her tunes put some humor into a stressful situation, she says, because cats can feel if humans are angry or stressed and become further agitated.

“I just make up a song as I go,” she said. “We have a kitty this week whose name is Bagheera, for example. And if we were drawing blood on Bagheera and she was having a tough time, I’d be like [singing], ‘Bagheera, can you hear me? Bagheera, you are so sweet.”

Unsurprisingly, Tsukuda’s voice is sweet, too.