PAWS waiving cat fees, rushing to clear shelter

WASHINGTON — At least 50 cats were found in the home of a Henry County man after he was hospitalized last week, according to area animal shelters. The man, who is around 90 years old, was using the house as a makeshift animal shelter, but people involved in rescuing the animals said his health issues prevented him from adequately taking care of them.

Animal care organizations in the area are now rushing to make space to take in the extra felines. PAWS & More in Washington announced last Thursday that it would waive fees for the next 20 cat adoptions, in an effort to make some room.

“Our shelter is currently at capacity, so we do not have space to take any right now from the hoarding situation,” PAWS Shelter Director Amber Talbot said. “Our goal was to get as many placed over the weekend and early week as possible, so we can start taking cats late this week.”

Talbot said for the moment, a volunteer was taking care of the animals at the house with clean food and water, litter boxes, and other needs. Cats requiring more critical care were taken to vet offices.

While that removes the cats from imminent danger, she said there were few places for them to go in the state as usual coordinators currently have their hands full.

“The Animal Rescue League is Des Moines … are not going to be able to help us right now because they’re also dealing with two major situations,” Talbot said. “This is one of those things where we’re really hoping everybody can just band together and help.”

The number of waived adoptions is based on the shelter’s limits for taking on cats at one time.

“We said 20 is the goal for right now because we have about 20 that our intake room,” Talbot said. “It’s where our cats are quarantined and evaluated before they go out into the adoption room. So we have about 20 that are waiting to move into the adoption room, but the adoption room is full right now. So we’re just a little bottlenecked with space.”

Talbot said many of the animals were more adjusted to the outdoors than people and could fit in nicely at farm homes. Plenty, however, could still find forever homes as house cats, once they come to the shelter and adjust to people.

Talbot says PAWS was coordinating the rescue with other shelters in Burlington and Iowa City. The lack of establishments closer to Mt. Pleasant has not made matters easy.

“Hoarding tendencies increase when they are in areas where there’s not animal services,” she said. “This gentleman was trying to rescue the cats, he was trying to be the shelter himself. And it’s just really sad to see when surrounding communities and counties don’t have animal services, this is a direct impact of that.”

Getting the shelter cleared is a tall order, but staff said it was feasible, citing a successful campaign to empty the adoption floor in 2020, early in the pandemic.

"There is no way we could say no when (a) community member called us from the house, asking us to help,“ a Facebook post from PAWS said. ”There are some challenges with this rescue operation but we’re confident that we can overcome them together, and get these poor cats out.“

While adopting a cat is the most direct way to help, Talbot said those unable to do so could still contribute by signing up to foster kittens, or donating to the shelters involved.

“I don’t know that there’s any resources or financial support that’s going to come along with the care of these cats,” she said. “We are not expecting support getting these guys ready for adoption, so if people can’t foster and they can’t adopt, I would say that just donating would be big.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com