Not a good week for the homeless kitties.

[captainsblog]

Our neighbor has been desperately trying to place at least two of the four cats now residing, with her granddaughter, in her soon to be former home. We've had a number of hits and misses about possible places for their handover, and as of today, our local SPCA has agreed to take two of them in. The granddaughter will be watching the other two, at least for now.

One of the places I'd mentioned as a possible option was another SPCA in a rural county near here. A longtime client of mine called me, a few years back, after his wife had become involved with them as a model of the no-kill shelter. The clients helped with some renovation work to get cages and a large "great room" for adoptions set up, and I went out there a couple of times, both in lawyer and volunteer mode, to get their board minutes and procedures updated and to bring out Emily and some other kids from church to help with cleaning, feeding and helping with adoptions, which seemed to be drawing a lot of traffic.   More recently, I saw they'd opened a satellite location in one of the Buffalo-area malls near us, and the cats there all seemed happy and well cared-for.

Unfortunately, it looks like someone from the organization had a secret identity:



Around this time last week, the State Police and our county's SPCA conducted a raid on the rural one's locations, both the main one and the mall one.  Authorities cited "deplorable" conditions at both, which led to at least a few of the hundreds of cats being put down, and while these conditions did not match my recollections of either location from 1-3 years ago, I recognized the syndrome when reading about how things went from well-intentioned to, well, this:

At best, they described her as a devoted animal lover who knew every cat by name and provided them all with veterinary care care but simply got overwhelmed by the numbers. At worst, they described her as a difficult personality who frequently turned down legitimate adoption offers and lost many volunteers and staffers through her own mismanagement.

"I'm not sure she wasn't a hoarder," said [a former volunteer].

"All I can say is, the numbers got out of hand completely," [a former SPCA board member] said in describing the cat situation. "The deal was, they were like her kids. She was overprotective."

The biggest bone of contention seemed to be over the conditions into which the group's leader was requiring before she'd permit an adoption:

[R]esidents who stopped by said that many prospective and deserving families were refused the right to adopt any of the cats because [the director] was so picky. They said that anyone interested in adopting a cat was turned down, for instance, if he or she wouldn't promise to keep the spayed cat indoors at all times.

That's a hard promise for people to make, especially in a rural community where people are used to seeing cats and kittens of every stripe and color in farms and fields....

I've been involved in my profession, and our family has become personally familiar, with at least five different rescue groups handling different animals and breeds, and I'm sorry to say that this sort of controlling behavior is very common. The groups are so afraid of animal researchers and abusers that they overthink the situation and turn down, or take back from, perfectly reasonable adopters without anything resembling probable cause. In theory, at least two of the five animals now in this house could be taken from us, with no notice, hearing or compensation, if the adopting organization deemed us unworthy even after years of love and care.

As it happens, I'm getting my glasses replaced at the nearby mall tomorrow. I've heard the satellite is running again there, only now under our local SPCA's control and with fewer restrictions on adoptions. While I never saw anybody there who I remembered from my early work for the group, and I certainly won't see any of them tomorrow, I'll still take a moment to look out for, and offer kitteh prayers for, the souls there who they tried to save- perhaps a few too many and a bit too well.

Comments

[firynze]

I've seen a number of places that require you to assert you'll keep the cat indoors, though. It doesn't seem entirely unreasonable to me. But then, you don't know what other restrictions may have been placed...

[throbinson.livejournal.com]

It's common for the animal rescue organizations and county humane societies in our area to include a stipulation in their adoption contracts that cats must be kept indoors at all times. That suits me now, but I know for many people, their cats are indoor/outdoor pets. The rescue claims the right to snatch their kitties back from anyone who doesn't comply... I'd think they'd prefer to have them in a loving home.

[liddle-oldman.livejournal.com]

Certainly sounds like a hoarder to me. Poor thing.

[tilia-tomentosa.livejournal.com]

Ugh, poor kitties!

[floundah.livejournal.com]

Sad.

[headbanger118.livejournal.com]

Yikes. Other than that all I can say is does Kimmy know she has an action figure?