Friday, July 25, 2008

Cataholics

These stories are all from this month (July)!!!

(More about the video on the right later in the post. It's a bit loud, you may want to turn down the volume a tad before playing. Wild!)

117 cats, raccoon, rabbit found in Omaha home
Some of the cats were dead. This is a woman who had previously had 200 cats taken from her home. I wonder if the raccoon and rabbit just sort of sneaked in disguised as cats thinking nobody would notice. The other cats would... ;-)

Woman Says She'll Fight For 80 Cats Removed From Home (followup on first story) They started with 117 and 80 were removed so there must have been 37 dead ones.

Woman, 64, Taken From Home With 50 Cats
Only 50 cats? Well, this time they didn't count the 24 dead ones they found.

Woman Found Dead With Nearly 70 Cats
This was an elderly woman involved with the Cat Network doing trap/spay or neuter/release. Apparently the "release" part was not done. This seems to be the isolated case among the others where the cats were all healthy.

50 cats found inside condemned home
This time there were 2 young girls apparently living in the condemned home with the cats.

Tehachapi Home Raided, 60 Dogs and Cats Found
In all, they were able to save 15 dogs and 37 cats. They found 14 dead dogs in trash bags in a freezer.

Animals, Dead Kitten Found in Buffalo Home
Only 15 animals this time. It would not even be worth mentioning except for the dead kitten.

29 Dogs, 15 Cats Removed From Home
A 1,150-square-foot house

Man pleads not guilty to 50 counts of animal cruelty
50 cats rescued, most of them were malnourished and had upper respiratory infections and had to be euthanized.

Informational links:
CFA: hoarding
wiki: Animal hoarding

Animal-hoarding behavior should not be confused with people who truly ARE rescuing the cats and are helping them. Sometimes the hoarders start off with the best intentions, and continue with them, but what happens is that the hoarding compulsion makes them dysfunctional (and maybe delusional) and they are no longer able to see the situation reasonably. Animals become neglected to the point of abuse. The whole purpose of giving them shelter is defeated. Sometimes the hoarders are not able to even let go of the dead animals. They keep them in freezers, or even allow the other animals to eat them.

Below is some expanded coverage of the Russian cat lady who had over 130 cats in a tiny apartment. I have to admit, I really understood her reasons, it would be hard to turn a cat out into the Russian winter, and what do you do when people start leaving kittens on your doorstep? I developed some empathy with her after watching. Looks like she's really trying to take care of them -- but looking back over our years, we had up to 4 cats at once, all with health issues and personal issues, occupying lots of time, losing lots of sleep, spending a fortune on medical stuff, plus foregoing even the thought of a vacation that's not a "staycation" (the new buzzword). What a commitment it would take for a houseful!

People probably think we are crazy cat people. We have 2 cats left and try to take really good care of them. I am resisting all urges of adding any more, and not allowing MrB to trap me into taking in any more. But you know how it goes. Cats happen.

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8 comments:

DrDon said...

God do I hate the word "staycation." Why does the media feel the need to come up with some cutesy phrase for everything?

For the record, I thought the title of your post was "Catholics" at first. Must be some connection there, though I'm not sure what it is.

Blueberry said...

I considered using "Cataholics and Dog Mas" as in "dog moms" but thought the "Mas" would be taken differently. Of course, mas means more in Spanish... so there's another meaning that's not far off topic.

DrDon said...

That would've been a great title!

Michael Bains said...

These folks really need to consider the overseas markets for all that kitty meat. China's gotta be importing Cat what w/ the Olympics and all!

{flinching}

Errr... Actually I heard a story where the Chinese government is "asking" restauranteurs not to serve cat or dog during the Olympics. They don't want Western visitors all freakin' out, I guess.

Ellie said...

The Russian Cat Lady is doing a pretty good job. They all look happy and healthy. But I can imagine the neighbors comment about the night time. YEOW!

Th' Rev said...

That kind of hoarding really creeps me out,especially the dead animals in freezers part...
On a lighter note...Are you coming to the party tomorrow?If nothing else it'll be fun.
I got some new ink today as well...woo-hoo!

Blueberry said...

We might stop by if we can drag ourselves out on a Sunday night. Sometimes it happens. ;-)

Mariamariacuchita said...

Cats happen! great line and true.