Indianapolis shelter has too many cats

[cassiesmom]

Indianapolis Animal Care & Control has too many cats and issued a plea today for adoptions.


A pet owner turned over more than 60 cats to the shelter, sending it over capacity for felines, according to a news release.
Many of the surrendered cats have upper respiratory illnesses.
Shelter officials want to control spread of the illness by having the cats adopted. Many of the sick cats will require antibiotic treatment.
"Often, we find the stress of the shelter environment makes animals get sick more easily and more severely," said Administrator Leslie Fatum. "The conditions of these cats are easily treatable with some medicine and some tender loving care. Treatment would be inexpensive and easy to administer. Due to the speed of transmission, if you adopt a sick cat today you could be saving many cats from catching that illness."
IACC is located at 2600 S. Harding St. Adoption fees are $60 and include spay or neuter surgery, all age-appropriate vaccines except rabies. Hours are Monday through Friday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesdays the shelter is open until 7 p.m. and Saturday hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Call (317) 327-1397.

Copyright 2006 IndyStar.com. All rights reserved

[Lizzie]

Since these cats can't travel in their condition, they are going to have to go to all local foster and permanent homes - that's going to be really tough for such a high number and already sick. I haven't seen it listed on CriticalPetsRescue yet. Where did you see the plea?

[catmandu]

Our Heart Breaks When We See Things Like This.
Why Do People Not Handle Thier Resposibilities?
We Pray As Many Of Those Cats Can Be Helped As Is Humanly Possible.

[kb2yjx]

Those poor cats and through no fault of theirs!!! Hopefully, good homes where they will be loved forever will be found !!!

[lizbud]

When the woman turned over 60 cats all at once, it flooded the shelter
with cats. They are overburdened right now. The cats they showed on the
news this evening, all looked great. There was one little orange kitten that
looked right at the camera. :D If I saw him in person, I couldn't walk away. :)

[cassiesmom]

Where did you see the plea?

Lizzie, I saw it yesterday on www.IndyStar.com

I feel helpless about it. What I don't understand, where were the 60 cats before the person turned them over to the shelter? Were they in one individual's home?

[lizbud]

Yes, they belonged to one person. I'll see if I can find a link to the story.

Here's a link,

http://www.theindychannel.com/newsarchive/10812768/detail.html

I think any overcrowding in shelters leads to more infections because of
the added stress on the cats. The ones they showed on film were healthy.