Wish us luck this week

[spinbaby]

Those of us in cat rescue circles know that the worst situations are, nine times out of ten, people feeding cats without fixing them. We’ve had a situation in our neighborhood for years. Without getting into too many identifying details, we had a really large house where two old people hoarded stuff and cats. They were in the habit of feeding cats on their porch then snatching them up and bringing them in. I’ve been working with them for four years now, getting them to turn over cats in their house to be fixed—sometimes they were agreeable to us keeping them and adopting them out, sometimes they insisted on having the cats back. Meanwhile we did a lot of trapping and fixing the outside cats.

Now one of the couple has died, the other has worsening dementia, and the relative in charge (who I think will inherit the house) is desperate to get rid of the remaining cats. We have three out so far and are hoping for the rest this week, providing the relative can catch them. We’re providing a trap and trapping lessons, but can’t go into the house ourselves because hoarding.

We still don’t know how many cats there are. Of the three we got out so far, two had serious health issues and all were filthy with fleas, but they were all three ear tipped.

[brer cat]

1. What a difficult situation! I hope the others can be trapped

and that none of them are in very poor health. You are an angel for your rescue work!

[Demovictory9]

2. Good luck.

[zuul]

3. You are wonderful!

[2naSalit]

4. Good luck!

[spinbaby]

5. An update

It’s been slow going, mainly because the cats are largely unsocialized and have had the run of a 12-bedroom mansion for years—think Grey Gardens. The relative in charge of things has had a hard time catching cats and also dealing with remaining old person with dementia. We haven’t been able to go in because of the hoarding.

The count so far is six—four nice elderly cats that were all fixed back when their owners were together enough to have them fixed, one middle-aged neutered male I had arranged to have fixed a couple of years ago, and one very young and terrified tomcat who still needs to be fixed. We think there are still six more in the house and that these are likely to be difficult cats.

If anyone in the Pittsburgh area can foster elderly cats, we’d appreciate it—the senior cats are all very nice and well socialized and we need to make room to take care of the younger, less socialized cats.