good news:
oliver has gone back to the kitty sitter's to be fostered until his original adopter is settled into her new home. should only be a couple of months. makes me so happy that he won't be spending those couple of months locked in our spare room. he's got a nice big condo to wander around, and according to the kitty sitters, he's lounging around the place like he's always lived there. i miss him, but i can visit often. i'm just so glad i know there will be a permanent place for him to go soon. let's hope when he's settled, it can really be his 'forever' home.
other news:
i went to hamilton animal control last sunday, and brought home lola (formerly kiara.) these are her petfinder.com photos from when she was in the shelter.
she was a stray kitty who came in with another cat, who they put to sleep, only because he was black. (i know...i can't believe it either.) she's about 6 or 7 years old, and is polydactyl, meaning she has lots of extra toes. i just love how her feet look like bear paws, or baseball mitts. so adorable. the other cat they killed was neutered, so they assumed she was spayed, but when i took her in for a check up, my vet couldn't find a spay scar. she has an appointment to be fixed and get the rest of her shots on wednesday. they may open her up and find she's already spayed, but it's better to be safe than sorry. lola is a very, very sweet kitty. she is a lot like oliver in the affection department. not sure what she's like with dogs or unfamiliar cats as i haven't introduced her to the other animals yet. i'll let her recover from her surgery for a spell before i see how it goes with everyone here. if she does well, she can stay, but if not, i'll be looking for a home for her.
the employee who does the rescuing for the shelter didn't have the heart to put her to sleep, so she had been at the shelter since august. she's one of the lucky ones.
i posted some photos i took of the other 'lucky ones' on flickr, and below is what i wrote for the description. it's a disturbing and sad story...
Normally, all animals at HAC are put to death unless they are claimed by their owners, or taken in by a private rescue service. HAC does not offer adoptions from their facility.
When the split happened between the SPCA and the city (they actually built a wall straight down the middle of the building they shared) HAC signed a "non-competition" agreement with the Hamilton SPCA for adoptions. The original idea was that the SPCA would get their animals for adoption from HAC. For whatever reason...this doesn't happen. It is a rare occasion that the SPCA shows its face on the animal control side. As of today, the SPCA hasn't taken a single animal from HAC since April. That means straight through spring, summer and early fall (the busiest times for any animal shelter) not one animal has been removed from HAC and taken to the SPCA to be put up for adoption.
The SPCA says they are a 'no kill' shelter, but they are directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of animals by not following through with what they agreed to do when the split happened.
A very kind employee at HAC is trying to save these doomed animals by setting up a Petfinder site for them in hopes that they can be adopted through a third party rescue. When a cat comes into HAC, it has 72 brief hours to be claimed, or rescued. Otherwise it is euthanized. This means cats (and dogs, and rabbits etc) of all ages, sizes and temperaments, needlessly killed because of overcrowding, and a misguided agreement between two facilities who are both supposed to be there to help the animals.
Euthanasia takes place every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning. A vet is paid to come in and perform this duty.
When it comes down to it, the sheer number of animals is what overwhelms any shelter, but Hamilton seems to have a particularly high volume of strays and "owner surrenders." The only solution to this is spaying and neutering. Unfortunately, the cost for this procedure at most vets is beyond the means of the average pet owner, so it is put off, and more and more kittens are born every year...only to produce kittens of their own, who produce kittens of their own...and so on and so on.
The Hamilton SPCA built a small vet clinic on their property, but for some unknown reason, the clinic is not open to the public. They use the clinic for their own animals, and nothing more. If someone wants to have their animal fixed at a discounted price, they have to go all the way to Newmarket to the OSPCA Low-Cost Clinic. Quite a hike from the hammer. If there is a city anywhere that could use a low-cost clinic, it’s Hamilton.
I could suggest all the usual things to try to make changes in a system that is clearly broken, (writing letters or petitions, protesting etc) but when it comes down to it, those animals need to be out of the shelter, and into loving homes.
Take a look at the Petfinder site, and you'll see the current animals that the HAC employee is trying to save. Check back in a couple of days, and most of the animals you saw will not be on the site anymore. After 72 hours, they will be dead, and there will be a whole batch of newcomers, waiting for their deaths.
Lola was an exception, as are a few other cats you will see on the site that say “Urgent” next to their names. The kind employee there just doesn’t have the heart to mark the X on the cards of those cats. But their time is slowly running out…
Thanks for posting this and thank you for rescuing Lola!
ReplyDeleteI'd like to add, that the chairman of the SPCA is also the vet that is paid to kill the cats next door.
Sounds like a conflict of interest to me. :(