Ques about humane society... Horrible situation

I need to appologize right off the bat... I'm really angry with this situation but for that reason I'm trying to figure out if it's just the one here, or if it is a bit of a trend. I actually had to cool off for a few days before even posting.

But anyway... Do these places not keep any sort of records? Or even use common sense? Or is this just something where the location near us made a huge mistake and its not likely to happen in the future or at other places?

We had a mother cat have kittens underneath a tool shed outside of my work in a fenced in enclosure. The kittens still had their eyes closed and were far too young to be moved anywhere. We called our local humane society and asked them what we should do for the time being because it's a high traffic area and we didn't want someone visiting our building calling in and having the mother removed. We were advised to just check in on them and make sure the mother had food so that she didn't have to wander too far. We were also assured they wouldn't send anyone out to our work to have any cats picked up and even made sure they had a description... And that in a few weeks they could be moved to a safer location - one of the employees was going to take them all home, and had found homes for all of the kittens.

What happens? They got a call from someone hiking by that there was a female cat wandering around in our back lot, they sent out a truck who took the mother on late Sunday night, and Monday morning all of the kittens were dead. They even let us know over the phone that yes they had come out and picked up the cat. And no, they didn't keep records about things like that.

WTF?!?!

wow. even if they don't keep those records, it would be obvious that she's a nursing mother... must be kittens somewhere... maybe we should look somewhere...


that would be most people's train of thought... (i hope)

You would think... But NNNNOOOOOOOOOOO....

The fact that there were food and water bowls near by might have been an indicator as well. Oh wait... Or the note on the gate that was posted up not to disturb the mother and her kittens, they were being taken care of...

I'm really sorry to say it, but after this fiasco they've lost all support from me... And actually from my work as well, who puts a lot of money into local charities... It was our regional manager who found them dead, she came into our area of the building crying to try and let everyone who'd been taking care of them know before anyone else found them.

They were pretty nasty on the phone with us... We tried to find out about the status of the mother cat and they won't tell us anything... Now they're just getting annoyed with all of the phone calls.

They do this ALL OF THE TIME down at my office job. We have a lot of cats that people just dump off. The city shelter comes out and sets up traps and traps them. We recently just found out about this and well we were informed that the cats that are trapped, are taken there and PUT TO SLEEP, no questions asked since they are ALL marked "wild/feral cats". I along with a lot of people down at my office job know first hand that a lot of those cats are very nice, tame, used to be someones pet, etc. Most of the people at my job do help out taking care of them when it comes to feeding, watering, sheltering, supplies for them. In the winter we've made sure to make shelters for them and have even brought in old towels and blankets for these cats. In the summer we let them in our office that has AC. Like today, we kept the main door cracked open in case any of the cats happened to stop by and want to cool off. We had a few visitors.

I can see in a sense to keep down the cat population, but like you said... some of these cats do have kittens when they are trapped. We found that out first hand when some of our momma cats went missing with a few others of out daily cat family. We haven't seen any of them since and it's been a few weeks now. A few days later after we noticed that most of the cats we had been feeding and taking care of had just vanished we heard kittens crying under one of out trailers. Sure enough 7 kittens. Crawled under there, got them and now they are being taken care of by a few friends of mine.

I'm happy that we were able to save the kittens, but now knowing what is being done down at my job really irks me. They don't even give those cats a chance to see if they are even friendly, have a chance at being adopted, etc. I'm for shelters but some of the things they do really bug me. I'm more for personal rescues who run off from donations and foster homes... not the big named or super known ones who are mass kill shelters.

We don't have a cat problem at work... This was the only stray we'd ever seen there... Our work backs on to a forest and large river, if anything it's deer and raccoons that we get most of the time....

They left the mother and baby raccoons alone - apparently they weren't an issue, but this sweet nursing mother cat who had obviously been a pet was.

They also had to cut a deadlock bolt and metal chain (they let us know they would not be replacing the chain either) to get into where they were, they had to have seen the note we'd put up.

*shakes head*

that story makes me so upset... just to see that they had complete disregard for your instructions, the sign and phone calls, etc... grrr!

We have 2 animal shelters here and a couple no kill rescue/shelters. All of them have their good points, like they screen potential adopters, some do home checks, etc. but they ALL have one common flaw... they're greedy all the time and heartless most times.

Now where I live (up in the mountains) there *is* a TNR program so stray and or feral cats are altered then re-released in the location they were found in or in another location if the previous one is not hospitable. However, around here, if you call animal control to pick up a stray cat, they charge YOU $25 a DAY for the care and bording of the cat for dogs it's $50 a DAY. They say "until the animal is adopted, but ironically, you're expected to pay that cost for 3 months, then suddenly you don't have to pay it anymore.
They will put an animal down the first day they receive it if it so much as looks at them crosseyed or barks, showing teeth. I don't know how they are about their record taking/keeping. I know as far as liscensing goes, they are good with their records and will send out reminders to have you pet's liscence renewed each year.
The employees/volunteers are nice enough, if not a bit on the slow/ignorant side and often times they don't know much about animals.

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Originally Posted by Shadowspider

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They will put an animal down the first day they receive it if it so much as looks at them crosseyed or barks, showing teeth.

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In all fairness, most public places are dealing with a high kill rate already, and there are so many really terrific animals who are guaranteed to die that holding back any with even a small chance of agression potential is a waste of resources, and a liability if that animal continues to be agressive in its adoptive home. Some private groups are more able to work with behavioral issues, but the majority, especially large breeds, will absolutely not adopt out an animal with a history of agression towards humans. It sucks...I've euthed some lovely animals with great potential because the risk was too high. But blame the idiots who failed to take responsibility for the animal in the first place...no animal ever comes into the world wanting to wind up at a kill shelter, but human negligence means many of them will.

Well said Jess and my bad. :oops:

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Originally Posted by GirDance

They also had to cut a deadlock bolt and metal chain (they let us know they would not be replacing the chain either) to get into where they were, they had to have seen the note we'd put up.

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Isn't that called tresspassing?

Nope, they're allowed if it's not a residential area and if they believe the animal is in danger there... Now how they ever thought that with food and water out is beyond me...

As for the shelter that puts them down immediately... I'm not 100% sure, but at least here I believe that any stray the *have* to keep for 2 weeks incase the owner inquires about it. Then again, since someone was able to fully describe and inquire about our mother cat I think that's a policy they are no longer following.

The two humane societies here have odd rules, guidelines, whatever. Since there are 3 different no kill "rescues" here as well as the TNR volunteers (generally the people who work with the rescues), the animal shelters are a bit strange, or maybe not. For example, I live outside city limits, up in the mountains. This area is, quite literally, a dumping zone for unwanted pets of all shapes, sizes and species. You'll find everything up here from ferrets to tarantulas (tarantulas are not native to this part of Washington). Since there are so many animals running around here at any given point in time, as of 2 years ago, animal control does not even come up here to remove stray animals anymore. They won't even take reports from this area. If we want, we can call one of the local rescues and if they want to, they'll come out and get them, but only if we secure the animal first.
As far as the first day euth. of animals, that is a common pratice here. If the animal does not have tags or a microchip (when/if they bother to check), IF their facility is already full and if none of the rescues have the room or foster homes for them, they get PTS. Every year entire litters of kittens are PTS because the shelters and rescues are jam packed with them, but the same goes for adult cats as well. Pretty much the only "surplus" pet that does not get PTS on the first day are puppies because the rescues here seem to always have more available room/fosters for puppies than kittens.

Now granted, if everyone is *not* packed to capasity, that's another story but every summer is like killing season because every available space is already full because of the yearly spring litters.

It sucks too because there are a few real good spay/neuter programs here. Well, maybe not the best because no vet will alter an animal here without them first being UTD on vaccs. Now granted, that's a good thing, but if farmer Jo can not afford to alter his 7 cats and 9 dogs, at his own expense, then those free spay/neuter vouchers don't do him any good, thus, a lot of people do not take advantage of them for that very reason. :(

That is an outrage, that they just trespassed on your work's property and take the cat. Completely stupid :( If I did the same thing, I would be arrested.
This all boils down to people not "fixing" (though I somewhat dislike that word, it applies here) their cats. If people must have outdoor cats, neutering and spaying would at least help keep the population down.. shelters are just inundated with strays, and I hate to say it and it is sad, but it is probably just not possible to make sure that they are all not feral and wild. :( I am a cat lover and it upsets me when I have to slam on my brakes driving 55 miles an hour because someone's cat ran across the road. I see them dead all over the roadsides. This like so many human-caused problems with the world, is just SO preventable it is almost ridiculous. My only ability here is to keep my one cat indoors I guess.