Some houses are just made for cats. Wide open floor space with just the right amount of furniture for sneak attacks. And the windows.

The tall, broad windows that come almost to the floor, and have a sill wide enough to accommodate a cat fanny as a feline gazes out at the flowers and hummingbirds and thinks, "If only."

Lucky for dozens and dozens of cats, Carolyn Taylor's Bosque Farms home has been that house for more than a decade. Her light, bright and impeccably decorated home even has a spare bedroom for the cats in residence.

Having a dedicated play space for the cats has been a must for this Carlsbad native since she began taking in foster cats and dogs 13 years ago, giving them a way station in their time of need before they find their forever home.

Taylor moved to Valencia County in 1985, but it wasn't until 1996 that she became involved with the volunteer animal group HART (Homeless Animal Rescue Team).

"I saw a notice in the paper asking for volunteers. They needed foster homes for large dogs," Taylor said.

An admitted cat person, she decided her fenced-in acre lot would be the perfect place for a large dog in need. And having left the corporate world behind, now working from home as a professional organizer and interior stager, Taylor puts in countless man-hours as the secretary treasurer for HART.

Most of her time is spent coordinating adoption clinics and foster care for animals. HART holds an adoption clinic the first Saturday of every month at the PETsMART on Eubank in Albuquerque. Adoptable animals are also at PetCo for two-week stretches.

"I rotate them out so they don't spend so much time in the cages," Taylor said.

In preparing for both the two-week stints on display and the monthly clinics, Taylor prepares informational cards about each animal so potential owners know as much about the animal as possible.

"I tell them how old they are, if we know. If they are good with kids or other animals," she said. "We also have a screening process and application."

In addition to helping other foster families get their animals adopted to loving homes, Taylor herself over the years has fostered about 15 dogs, and twice that many cats and kittens.

"I usually end up with the litters," she said. "So that can be three to six kittens at a time."

While HART's name has the word "rescue" in it, the organization doesn't go out in the community to claim animals.

"People call us to surrender their animal. We're an option, because we do not euthanize to make room for more animals," Taylor said. "I know the shelter has made a lot of improvements, and they do everything they can with what they have, but ultimately when an animal goes there, you know they really only have so much time."

When people call to surrender their animals, Taylor says, the first step is to find a foster home with one of the HART volunteers.

"But we don't always have room because we are no-kill, and we keep the animals until they are adopted," she said. "If we can't take them, we refer them to Animal Humane in Albuquerque."

When an animal goes into a HART foster home, the organization helps with the cost of spaying or neutering when they can, Taylor said.

"We really need more spaying and neutering programs," she said. "We end up with a lot of the animals that we do because litters keep coming."

While HART is a 501c3, a non-profit organization that receives donations to help defray costs, Taylor says anything the volunteers can do on their own, they do.

"We do our own leukemia test for the cats, which is a saliva test," she said. Apparently there's a method to getting a cat to hold still long enough for an internal cheek swab.

They also do the three-combo vaccination, but rabies has to be done by a veterinarian because they have to be recorded. When they get dogs, they test for heart worms instead of the leukemia.

"We make sure they are healthy when we adopt them out to their forever homes," Taylor said. But before they are adopted, potential owners are carefully screened.

"We ask them a lot of questions that might seem basic, but sometimes people don't take into consideration. If you rent, can you even have a pet? Is there an extra deposit? Do you have adequate shelter in your yard for a dog? Things like that, that people might forget in the excitement of adopting an animal," she said.

But if one potential owner doesn't work out, Taylor says HART keeps the animals until they can find a good home.

"We try to take adoptable animals, but sometimes they stay for a long time," she said. "I once had a dog fostered with me for two-and-a-half years before she was finally adopted."

And one dog accidently found her forever home with Taylor. Domino, a basset Shepherd cross with strangely curly eyebrows, tolerates the temporary interlopers who are her foster brethren with good humor.

"I don't know why no one ever took her, but, she's a good girl," Taylor says while administering an ear scratch. Domino woofs in agreement.

Over the years, Taylor has been able to find foster homes in numerous area communities including Belen, Los Chavez, Los Lunas, Bosque Farms, Peralta, Albuquerque and even reaching out to Edgewood and the East Mountains.

Finding these temporary homes involves a lot of networking and asking, Taylor said.

"For the most part, the foster homes take on the costs of feeding the animals themselves," she said. "I have managed to find a few stores who are willing to give us their broken or open returned bags of food. The volunteers spend an awful lot out of their own pockets."

HART and its volunteers also help transport animals to foster and permanent homes when they can.

"We get a lot of calls, from all over. I made contact with a woman in Hobbs who runs a rescue group. So when I go home to visit, I can bring some animals back up that need to be fostered," she said. "We also have a large network to help transport animals across the country. An e-mail will go out looking for connections. 'Can someone take them another 60 miles or get them an hour further along?'"

Taylor is also a member of the committee that has been working on the animal control ordinance for Bosque Farms for the last few years.

"The goal is to get every animal licensed," she says.

Some people have been critical, saying it's an attempt to control how many animals they have, and how they breed them. Taylor says that isn't it at all.

"This is really to benefit the animals and keep people safe," she said. "To make sure the animals have been vaccinated for rabies and to get them back to their families if they are ever picked up.

"That's really my main goal with all of this ― to help the animals."