Abandoning Cats Outside a Vet Hospital is a Cowardly Act
When you watch the surveillance video you can see the woman sneak up to the veterinary hospital in her car and quickly walk up to the outside of the hospital and dump the cats before hastily returning to her vehicle. The cats are a mother cat and three kittens, estimated at 10 weeks-of-age.
Of course it was done at night when there was a much better chance of not being spotted. It was done furtively and secretly. The whole event smacks of guilt and cowardess. This woman must have been too ashamed to take her unwanted cats to a shelter and honestly explain what went wrong because something must have gone wrong if you have cats that you want to get rid of.
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I mention that she should have gone to a shelter because taking these unwanted cats to a veterinary hospital was careless and ignorant.
The manager of the hospital explains:
“But we can’t bring unknown animals into the hospital,” Posey said. “It could be feral, attack the staff, carry diseases.”
Posey explains that if people are intent in abandoning their cats they should do it correctly and contact the Humane Society of Greater Dayton and Animal Resource Center of Montgomery County (this abandonment took place at Miamisburg).
As it happens, the hospital staff contacted animal control and they picked up the cats. They’ll be held at the Animal Resource Center where they will hopefully be adopted.
The cowardly woman (sorry to be so frank about her behaviour) is a white and she drove a Chevrolet Suburban or an older SUV.
She committed a criminal act. “Abandonment is a criminal violation”, says the director, Mark Kumpf, of the animal shelter.
My vet always takes them in and finds them homes with the caveat that he will spay and neuter for free. The vet that called animal control is also a coward and even more selfish than the despicable woman who dumped the innocent feline family. I do TNR and have a private rescue. I get cats and families of cats dumped on me all the time. The individual cats and kittens often have some sort of problem that makes them undesirable for adoption. Families are way easier to find homes for. I have adopted out 61 cats in 10 years…all S/N’d combo-tested, microchipped, vaxed, etc. I charge a fee but since I’m in competition with the shelter and Humane Society I only charge a quarter or less of my costs. I’ve TNR’d over 130 and currently care for 60 + cats in 5 colonies and 2 sanctuaries. It has been and continues to be a hardship…financial and otherwise. It’s a constant stress on how to pay the bills. I’ve been without CACH for 3 yrs, running hot water since 5/2014, the washer is broken AGAIN. That’s just for starters! I’m in no way interested in being a martyr and desperately want BASIC normalcy back in my life. As much as I try to get my numbers to a manageable level people keep dumping cats!! Every time I find another dumped innocent cat, I curse the responsible person to hell…upside, downside and crossways!! And think to myself ‘I’ll bet they have hot running water!!’. People who dump should stop selfishly thinking of themselves and consider whose life they a impinging upon. They need to own up to the responsibility that is wholly theirs!!
Bless you, Kit. And, I so understand. I don’t run a shelter but adopt out through a rescue group. However, I have had countless cats/kits dumped on my deck over the years because people know what I do and that I will take on the responsibility that they escape from. I, too, have cats inside and outside as well as manage 3 feral colonies that total around 75.
I understand your financial struggles. Even though I get discounted pricing for neutering, shots (yearly vaccinations too that require a re-trapping of all), etc. for my ferals, it’s still costly. My domesticated cats also have to have yearly vaccinations, health checks, and flea control. And, it seems like something is breaking down here every week. I’m keeping up, but my sacrifices are many.
But, it’s all worth it to me. Never a second thought, never a regret.
I commend you and wish the best for you and your cats.
Thanks, Dee!! I know that I am soooo not alone! I know stories similar to mine…and yours and any org or person that is the target of dumpers. Many people go deeply into debt cleaning up the ‘mess’ caused by selfish people. And, think of cats who suffer the worst fate. There is a meme on FB that I sometimes share “Do rescue long enough and you will hate people, too!” I think I’m there!!! That said, I will continue to marvel at fellow rescuers.
This woman’s behavior was appalling. It happens quite often outside the headquarters of the rescue group I work with. They adopt out as many as they can or find fosterers. Those deemed unadoptable are housed there and they have been pretty successful in finding farms that will accept some ferals.
That situation is urgent and takes priority over any of the current fosterers’ desires to adopt out their own for a while. I stepped aside, also, with the two remaining kits that had been already planned to be adopted out the following week. That’s just the way it has to be so rescue groups can stay viable and not get over their heads.
Even though I can’t condone this woman’s actions, there are so many more worse things that happen to unwanted cats than this.
Hi Dee, your last sentence is harrowing. Thanks for commenting Dee.
I agree, it’s not natural, but some vets do take them in temporarily. A lot depends on how much space they have.
I remember one time – it was the evening of 9/11 in a small town an hour from NYC. I was visiting friends in their home. A strange dog came in outside. It looked friendly, but alone and it had a collar, but nothing on it. We didn’t really know what to do, a friend didn’t know any neighbors with a dog. She went to ask around. I wondered if the dog could’ve belonged to someone who worked in the World Trade Center and didn’t come home. A lot of people there commuted with NYC. None of us was in a position to take a strange large dog home, we’ve had cats. There was a 24-hour vet hospital in the walking distance, so my friend went there to talk to them, and they said they’ll take the dog and see if they can find an owner.
I do agree about the woman’s behavior.
I don’t think it’s natural either, but I’ve found that people have very weird ideas about what goes on at a vet’s office or an animal hospital. The sneaky way she just dumped those cats shows me how ignorant that woman is. She was obviously more concerned about what people thought of her than what was best for the animals, and that didn’t matter anyway because she was caught on camera. I hope those cats find good homes.
Maybe this woman thought if she abandoned the cats outside a vet hospital they wouldn’t be euthanized. I’m not making excuses for her. That was a really dumb thing to do, but it’s obvious she didn’t care about the cats in the first place.
That’s a good point Serbella which I overlooked. Although I don’t think it is natural to abandon cats at the vets. Perhaps if she was trying to avoid euthanasia you could argue her behavior is all the more disreputable because she knows the possible outcome of her actions.
Being someone who is constantly ‘dumped’ on, that reasoning really gets my hackles up!! ‘Selfish coward’ is the best description, period. To reason away that they care somehow, makes my blood boil. They are dumping their responsibility on someone else whether it’s taking the cat in, finding it a home, or dealing with the heartbreak of having to take it to the shelter themselves. And, mostly there is no guarantee of a good outcome for the cat. I wish there was some way to prevent certain people from ever having pets in the first place!! ….pie in the sky fantasy, I know!!
My two furry babies were found behind my vets office in a box. She brought them in to socialize the Sphynx she had rescued. We adopted all three. It never occurred to me until this very moment that they might have had a dreadful fate. I will speak to my vet, their grandmama, and see if she would have turned away kittens left behind her office and her opinion.
Well that’s a nice story. Your vet must be good. She genuinely cares for animals it seems.