Does this seem plausible?

[catnapper]

I was on my way home from a meeting this afternoon. I noticed a cat shelter and actually turned the car around. The shelter was the neatest place - a real home dedicated soley to cats! There was one room in the back that was an office - the rest was solely cats!

I got talking to the woman who owned the rescue. She said that the shelter wasn't yet 3 years old, and already they had over 1,300. WOW! I was impressed! Thats not what blew my mind... what blew my mind was this: she does not take cats in. She CHARGES $300 per cat to take the cats. They have to be vetted and up to dates on shots. They have to be fixed. If they are not vetted, fixed or up to date on shots she won't take them in!

Excuse me, but if I found a cat on the side of the road I'd try to find a safe no-kill shelter for it. I wouldn't go so far as to take the cat to the vet's incurr the expense of shots and such, only to then hand over the cat plus an additional $300!! (If I did go to all that expense and hassle, I'd end up keeping the cat myself!)

Now, does that policy seem plausible? How many people are willing to hand over $300 for a rescue to take their cat? Most people just let their cat loose in a field if they no longer care to keep it. Most people who find stray cats aren't ready (or able) to absorb hundreds of dollars for their good deed of finding a no-kill shelter for their little stray. How could they have so many people willing to give $300?? And how much was the cost of adopting one of those cats? Dummy me didn't think to ask until I was already twenty miles away.

But then she added real insult to injury... I told her that I volunteer for a rescue, and that the fee wouldn't float in my area. She asked where I am from. She shrugged and said "Oh well, thats more blue collar than here". I swear her nose wriggled in disgust at my area. So here I am wondering if perhaps my "blue collar" area is just as poor and trashy as she hinted, or if she's just lucky to have landed herself in a ritzy area willing to spend the money.. and that she's sorely out of touch with reality!

[Jods]

$300 I'd think she was lying.

[caseysmom]

She sounds like a snob!

[Lacey]

I want in on that woman's racket! That's right around $130,000 a year just to take in the cats! And since she makes the folks do the vet stuff ahead of time, she's got to be making a pretty penny. And there's no telling what her adoption fees are. But whoo-eey! (Yes, the southern is showing today, folks).

It really doesn't seem plausible to me. I mean $300 to take in the cats. Plus the folks dropping the cat off has to have all the vet stuff taken care (if Mowg's first vet trip was average, that'll run 'em another $200+), so we're talking around $500 just to get a cat off your hands. Sounds like this ladie's in a neighborhood ripe with suckers!

[jazzcat]

Maybe this a rescue for the elite who grow tired of their kitties or "change their decor" but still want to ease their guilty mind about giving them up.

[rg_girlca]

I have never, ever heard of anything like this.

Does not seem plausible at all.

Who in their right mind would pay someone $300.00 to take their cat or a stray.

[Tubby & Peanut's Mom]

We live near a very wealthy part of town, and unfortunately, I could see some of these people paying $300.00 to get rid of their cat. Say you have a $3,000,000.00 home and you have a cat that starts peeing inappropriately. You are just way too busy with all your charity work and your kids are just way too busy with their friends and school activities and you hubby, well he's just way too busy for anything (probably figuring out how he's going to pay for a $3,000,000.00 house) who is going to take the time to figure out why the cat is peeing and try to work with it to stop it. Just way easier to have the live in help take the cat to the vet and then drop it off at the shelter with a check. A measly $300.00? No problem, just get the cat out of here!

Sad to say, I see people like this on the road everyday. I hate to judge a book by it's cover, but some of these people you can just tell that's how they are just by the way they drive and how you're just a pesky fly that happens to be in their way. Because, after all, the world revolves around them, don't you know.

I find it unlikely that she would have gone through that many cats at that price, but I don't think it's completely beyond the scope of reality, especially after how she treated you, Kim.

[moosmom]

That reminds me of a rescue organization here in Michigan called HEADS (Helping Every Animal Down River Society). They INSIST that any cat they take in has to be spayed/neutered and up to date on all their shots. Their asking adoption fee is $100-150 per cat!! Yet they are a non-profit organization. Excuse me, but it seems to me that all they are making is profit considering they don't have to put out for any vet expenses.

I just don't get it. But I think Debbie is right. The wealthy are in a class all by themselves. 300 bucks ain't nothing to them.

[Grace]

Originally posted by rg_girlca
I have never, ever heard of anything like this.

Does not seem plausible at all.

Who in their right mind would pay someone $300.00 to take their cat or a stray.

Someone with a guilty conscience - that's who. Not the stray part, but their own cat. They need to get rid of it - for whatever reason; they feel guilty. So they shell out the $ $ $ to appease their conscience.

[catnapper]

I just looked them up on the internet. Their kitten adoption fee is (get this) $180!!! They say that once you get the cat fixed they will refund $100 of that. An adult cat is $80. We only charge $60 for an adult, and $55 ofr a kitten, with $20 returned after spay/neuter. PLUS we offer a 2 for 1 special when we go to adoption events. You adopt two kittens for $55.

[daisy]

My husband is in the Northeast Philly area (19136 zip code) and his mom is dying of cancer. He hasn't yet decided whether to take Bandit, his mother's cat, home with him to California, or to relocate him to a no-kill shelter in the area. I'd like to give him an option one way or another. (Bandit is very old and we're not sure how well he'll take the 3000-mile journey by car; here in L.A. we have three young cats and they will not take kindly to a newcomer.)

If you'd rather keep your info private, just pm it to me.

Thanks,
daisy

[wolfsoul]

Wow, she had to have been lying. If rescue work could possibly in that amount of money, everyone would be doing it! She sounds like a compulsive lying snob. I can't think of ANYONE who would pay $300 to get rid of their cat. Most people wouldn't even buy a cat for $300 -- I certianly wouldn't! Around here, the shelter is overrun with cats and kittens, and they are a mere $40-80, depending on shots/altering.

[QueenScoopalot]

I'm a bit leery of the whole scenario. How is this woman able to adopt out that many cats in 3 years time? I hope and pray she isn't selling off a large number of them to labs for experiments. I'm not sure if it's legal in PA. up in Mass. it isn't, but some of the surrounding states do have labs that buy from brokers, sad to say. I'd be doing a lot of snooping myself.

[Deirdre]

I am stunned by your posting. I cannot fathom what that woman was actually thinking....or NOT thinking. To be quite honest, it sounds like a
simple way out for those who have the 'means' to rid themselves of
an animal, like it is a piece of their everyday trash. I am assuming that
the $300 price tag eases their minds and frees them of the guilt and responsibility that comes with owning a pet. How sad to take a life like that for granted. I can only imagine how their kid's were raised! The bottom line is, not only is the woman who runs the shelter to blame, but her 'clients' should be ashamed. I am a proud owner of 2 abandoned kitties, and have found homes for countless others.....all while floating the vet's bill's myself. I do not ask for money. I simply know that it makes me happy when a stray
gets his/her shots, gets a check-up, gets a bath, and gets a HOME!

[catnapper]

I'm glad it seems off to everyone else too! At first glance it is very impressive that they placed 1,300 cats in three years. Thats about a cat a day. At the last adoption event we had 6 or 7 adoptions. The adoption event two week prior only had one adoption. We're far behind in adoptions and far less expensive! And we pay to have the cats tested and vetted. Something DOES smell fishy.

But I have to wonder how many of those cats went to new hones, only to be return with the $300 fee and another cat chosen in replacement!

Oh, and while I was on the second floor, I looked on the windowsill was a PUDDLE of poo. I told them and she went up to clean it up... but how healthy could the kitty be to leave a puddle?