Cats, time to think differently about them

What we are finding in this amazing world of animal welfare is that everyone has a cat problem.  In the shelter world there is a “cat season”.  This is the time of the year when cat intake goes through the roof and there are way too many cats than there is space for.  This results in alarming euthanasia rates at traditional county/city run shelters. What does it look like? Well to give you an idea – Jan, Feb, Mar months typically see an intake of around 49-55 cats a month, during kitten season and summer months it shoots up to around 200-279 a month.

Why?  Kittens.  Spring is when kittens begin arriving.  The question we always ask ourselves is when it will end? Some years it starts around March other years later like May, and continues all the way through to the fall.  

The traditional shelters who are not no kill will euthanize cats to make space for new ones coming in because there is just no room at the inn, so to speak. 

In recent years, lead organizations such as the ASPCA, HSUS, Best Friend Animal Society, UC Davis Veterinary School and countless others have suggested that it is time to change what shelters are doing.  

What I think most people don’t realize is that unless a community is no kill, cats and kittens have a better survival rate if left in the community.  But what about cats finding their owners?  People think they should take a cat to a shelter so it will find its owners or a new home. But the truth is only about 2-4% of cats turned in as strays find their owners.  Last year only 22 cats were reunited with their owners here at LHS out of 854 stray cats turned into LHS.   The good news is we don’t euthanize for space, but the bad news is in the counties and other shelters, between 49% and 71% were euthanized last year.  If you live in Danville that number shoots up to 94% euthanized which equates to 2,354 cats’ lives lost.  No cat or dog should have to die just because the shelter doesn’t have space. 

What the lead organizations suggest is that shelters stop taking in cats if they intend to euthanize healthy cats to make room.  They should not take in kittens if all they intend to do is euthanize them.  They also suggest that people need to leave adult cats alone if they find them around their property.  66% of lost cats will find their way home if left alone.  Which is much better than the 2-4% that find their owners from shelters.   

What do you do then as a community member?   You have choices if you find kittens.  If they are really tiny they are best left with their mother, let them be and check on them, if you don’t see a mother the mother might be around hiding until you leave.  

 If they are older, the best choice is to notify the shelter in the area you found them and you can then foster the kittens until they are old enough to be adopted out.  Due to their undeveloped immune system, young kittens are most at risk for disease and even at the best of shelters. People say they don’t have any place to keep them but kittens are happy in a second bedroom, laundry room, bathroom, closet or basement.  They would live in a tiny cage for weeks in our shelter, living in any room in a home is far better and healthier. 

The second thing that you need to consider is that if you find kittens, there is an unfixed mother in the area producing litters.  Try to catch the mother and get her fixed.  Many of the counties and here in Lynchburg have programs to make that affordable.  Otherwise you will end up with more and more kittens over the years and this just perpetuates the current problem at the shelters. 

The exception to everything being suggested above is that if the animal is in distress or needing medical care or a public safety issue it should go to an organization who can help them.

So let the cats find their way back home instead of taking them to the shelter, leave tiny kittens where they are because there is likely a mother around, and if you find older kittens, foster them.  But the only solution to the amount of kittens and cats we have in our community is spay/neutering. 

Give us a call and we can help get your cat fixed so they stop producing unwanted litters.