From: Laure AlleyCat AdvoCat [email protected]
Sent: Monday, January 02, 2012 1:31 PM
Cc: Gilda Caserta
Subject: URGENT, PLEASE SAVE THIS POOR CAT- New Haven: Abandoned gray cat in apt. hallway
URGENT, PLEASE HURRY! The contact is Gilda Caserta
[email protected]
>- please, this cat is nearly out of time living in that hallway. he is beautiful... I can help with transport if someone can help him. Please share with extreme urgency!
Laure
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I received a call from a guy who has been caring for an abandoned neighbor's cat since last August. I will include a long paragraph (edited) of the ordeal. The man is a grad student at Yale and wants to place the cat asap because he's living in an apartment landing with no food or water left for him except for this nice guy. The landlord is fully supportive of the cat's care, but does want the cat to be rehomed. The tenants who abandoned him are still living there; put him/her out when the baby was born. They want nothing to do with him/her. I'm having the caregiver get more info, but we think it's a medium haired gray male. Not sure if neutered or vetted at all.
Please read and let me know if you can help. Kyle is leaving for a three-day conference Jan. 5-8, and I don't trust anyone there to take care of the cat. I am attaching two pictures of Baxter, and it looks like he is fairly young. I have no info on his health.
Please contact me if you think you can help this poor cat!
Gilda
In August of 2011, I found Baxter, who had previously belonged to my downstairs neighbors, on the back, interior stairwell to my building with his food dish and water bowl bone-dry, and an absolutely disgusting litterbox that looked like it had never been cleaned. The cat had obviously been in a lot of distress. The meowing which had only been faint was now extremely loud and frantic (I heard it from the third floor on which I live, all the way across the building).
I found a cat who, once he saw me, retreated as far as he could from me and watched me as I inspected his food dishes. I went and got him a 16 oz ceramic mug of water and some of my own cat Nero’s food. Given that I knew the cat had been outside, I could not allow him into my apartment given that already had a cat whom I did not want to put at risk for any illnesses (not to mention the fact that my lease only allows for one animal).
Later that evening, I returned to find the water completely gone. At first I suspected that the previous owners took it away, but I soon realize that the cat had been without water for days and was extremely dehydrated. He drank the entire 14-16 oz of water in under 12 hours. Simply put, the cat would have died if I hadn’t been there to save him. It appeared that my downstairs neighbors had abandoned him before leaving to go on a trip, and since there was no indication of when they would return, I continued to feed and give water to Baxter. I also cleaned his litterbox.
Eventually, the tenants downstairs returned, yet they had no interest in taking care of the cat. It turns out that when my landlord discovered the situation, they told him that the cat shed on their furniture and they couldn’t keep him in their apartment anymore. Yet the problem in all this was that the cat had no access to either their apartment or outdoors, and so was trapped on a landing and stairwell with no means to provide for itself.
When I spoke to my landlord, he told me that the tenants no longer wanted the animal. He was going to call animal control, but I persuaded him to let me take care of the cat until I could find a no-kill shelter that would adopt him.
It has now been 5 months. In the meantime, the cat has become extremely friendly with me, but I cannot continue to take care of him. For months now, I have tried numerous shelters in both New Haven and the greater Connecticut area, and have gotten positive news from no one. I am heartbroken every time I see this animal, as I know he deserves a better life, The contrast with the life of my own spoiled male cat could not be starker, and it hurts to see how hopeless the situation is for Baxter right now.
I am willing to pay whatever price for the cat to be taken in to a no-kill shelter and be well cared for until he can find a good home. I will pay for his medical bill as well as his food.
I cannot guarantee how much longer the cat will be allowed to remain where he is. At any given point he could be removed by my landlord. The downstairs tenants, whom my landlord has continued to hound about the situation, may decide to take the cat and abandon him outdoors somewhere in order to keep their apartment. It is now winter. As far as I’m concerned, they are the worst kind of people out there given what they’ve done thus far. I do not trust them in the least.
I also need to leave town for conferences, given that I’m a graduate student and already have very little time to devote to this animal.
In short, this cat needs to be taken in now.
Thank you for your time and consideration. I hope you can find room for Baxter at your shelter.
Sincerely,
Kyle
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12/02
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