Abu Dhabi couple’s car repair business helps rescue stray cats: 52 saved so far

Cat coasters, books on cats, and then actual cats prowling around the garage and peering through the windows.

The real bosses of KoolKats, the Musaffah garage run by husband-and-wife Salim Gouasmia and Natalia Sobko, could just be the cats, and you would believe it immediately. Even the name is a nod to Salim’s Scandinavian roots.

As I walk into this little cat haven, the beaming couple begin to share their curious idea of cats, cars and repairs. If you didn’t think those three could fit in one sentence, the couple is here to prove you wrong.

“Cats and cars are really the favourite,” Salim says, and then explains the idea. He had long wanted a second business in cars, where he saw a gap in the market for honesty and fair prices. The couple had also spent years rescuing cats around Abu Dhabi with their own money. So, they asked themselves: Why not build a business that pays for both?

The cat part of the business was not Salim’s idea alone. When he first told Natalia he wanted to open a repair shop, she had a condition. “She said, well, you can’t just open one, because it has to have some more meaningful thing,” he recalls. “You have to promise me that part of that money has to go to our cat-friendly project.”

Natalia would only approve the shop if it was dedicated to cats in every possible way, and not just by word. So, the couple set up a permanent CSR programme, funded by the garage, to support local rescuers and the cats in their area. Then they put the cause in the name, so no one could miss what the business was really for.

The passion and love for cats reverberates in Natalia’s voice as she explains the situation of abandoned cats in Musaffah. "Every day, I get a call from nearby grocery stores reporting an injured or abandoned cat," she explains. The couple tend to the cats of the neighbourhood, taking them to the vet and, quite often, paying out of their own pocket. As Natalia says, she goes around trapping, neutering, and returning the cats to safer spots too.

I meet the boss. Hello, Koolie.

She waits for her food and nods at me rather approvingly. She’s the first official resident and, by the count of the couple’s vet bills, number 13.

She turned up while the building was still being renovated and never left. Once the work was done, the couple decided to make it official. Koolie now has her own house and litter tray, and when the garage closes for the night, she sleeps safely inside.

Her arrival was not without trouble. She went through the full TNR process (trap, neuter, return) along with vaccinations and deworming. Along the way, vets found a hernia that could have been life-threatening. “Luckily we caught her on time,” Salim says.

Koolie has recently gained company. Another cat, who was also severely ill and recovered after the couple’s rescue efforts, now lives in the garage too.

Salim admits he was not always a cat person; he never had a pet growing up. What won him over was the way cats make you work for their affection. “You actually have to earn their trust,” he says. “It’s the same way as human relationships.” Street cats take even longer, he has learned, but the bond is worth it.

The couple’s rescue work began long before the garage. On evening walks around Reem Island, they kept noticing stray cats. Like many volunteers across the UAE, Natalia went on to form a group there to trap and sterilise them.

The goal is population control, so colonies stay a manageable size. Salim says they have seen the results first-hand: sterilised cats settle into an area, have a feeding station, and keep to themselves. In Musaffah, the couple has rescued over 52 cats.

For all the whiskers, KoolKats is still very much a car repair business. Salim, who has years of experience in the industry, says he wanted to address a gap he had noticed in the market. Some garages charged premium prices. Cheaper alternatives did not always offer a comfortable experience, with mechanics often working outdoors in the heat and little provision for people waiting for their cars.

“If something happens to your car, that means you can’t afford a vacation,” he says.

He kept that in mind while working out the business model. The idea was to find a balance: charge enough to cover operating costs and look after staff, without making car repairs unnecessarily expensive for customers.

Yet, pricing was only part of the picture. Salim says one of his biggest frustrations over the years has been how little customers sometimes understand about what’s happening with their own vehicles. He wants to change that by explaining repairs clearly, rather than leaving people in the dark about what needs fixing and why.

Salim’s other love is technology. He is single-handedly coding and designing an automated system for diagnosing cars remotely.

If a customer breaks down, they plug a small dongle into the car. The garage can then read the car’s data from a distance, gather photos and videos, and display it all on a dashboard. An AI analyses the data first, giving the team a head start before a mechanic even looks at the car.

The system draws on Salim’s background in another business, where he develops autonomous surveillance platforms. “All the passions are literally coming together here,” he says.

Salim has little patience for waiting on someone else to solve Abu Dhabi’s stray cat problem. “At the end of the day, it starts with individuals,” he says. His hope is that others will see the value and join in, and that the authorities will eventually follow.

Until then, the couple’s job is to keep their corner of Musaffah safe, clean and welcoming — for customers, for staff, and for every cat who wanders in looking for a home. The family business, it seems, has plenty of hands.

And paws.