Staff from the Harris County Animal Cruelty Task Force have rescued three cats and 15 dogs from a home in the Pecan Park neighbourhood of Houston, Texas, USA after a neighbour reported the matter to them.
“Such sad eyes. You are loved and life will be better from here on out. Donation has been made. Do y’all need fosters? Are the three cats bonded?” – Facebook commenter Karen Clarke
Extraordinarily, the cats and dogs were in an outside area, uncovered and fenced, on short tethers tied to stakes fixed into the ground. Accordingly, they had very little room to move, reports the Houston Humane Society (HHS) who are also involved.
The cats are described as beautiful and the dogs as cute. Rescue centres are getting a lot of incoming calls from potential adopters regarding the animals. One person said that she’d adopt the three together. They may bonded. I am sure we will hear.
They will be made available for adoption after they have been urgently treated by veterinarians. The dogs have long nails and fleas. They are being evaluated medically with respect to possible spaying and neutering, vaccination shots and teeth cleaning.
The owner of the animals was not, apparently, at the property when the animals were seized. Contact with the person has not yet been made apparently by the rescue services. He or she will attend court next week. At the court hearing the Houston Humane Society will make an application to take custody and ownership of the animals from the individual.
This will allow them to become owners and therefore adopt them out to new homes when appropriate. The Houston Humane Society has a Facebook page were you can read up on this story and donate if you want to.
In that Facebook post they say that the 15 dogs and three cats were rescued from the same “block” where two people were killed during a shooting on Monday last week.
Comment: I have picked up on the story because it is the first time that I have read about domestic cats being tethered to stakes and forced to live outside permanently without protection from the elements and without, apparently, proper watering and feeding. It’s bad enough when dogs are treated like this but when cats are treated like dogs and suffer the same abuse it is unusual.
I hope that I will be able to find an updating report on this so that we can see who this person is and perhaps understand a bit more about them. We don’t even know the person’s gender.