Woman takes dying female feral cat to shelter to be euthanized but they release her next day after unnecessary surgery

by Michael Broad · December 7, 2019

Was this animal shelter trying to reduce euthanasia rates when they put a dying female feral cat through unnecessary surgery and returned her to the streets?

Two useful tags. Click either to see the articles: Toxic to cats | Dangers to cats

Dying female stray cat. Screenshot.

Nob Hill, Albuquerque, USA: Days before Thanksgiving this year, a woman, Tamara, saw a female stray cat who looked very poorly and old. She felt she had to do something and decided that the only way that she could help was to take her to the Animal Welfare shelter to have her euthanized.

Looking at the video, that was certainly the correct decision. The cat was emaciated and had reached the end of her life, sadly.

Video

You can watch a video or read the text (the words taken from the video as I don’t have access to this news story).

Useful links
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Note: Sometimes, after while, embedded videos like this one are pulled by the maker. This means that they disappear. It is beyond my control and I am sorry if this has happened.

It appears that the shelter’s veterinary staff treated the cat as a regular feral cat and decided to spay her. They opened her up and realised that she had already been spayed as no ovaries were found and there was scaring on the abdominal wall.

Surgery: No ovaries found. Scaring on the abdominal wall. Presumed spayed.

The shelter returned the cat to Tamara’s neighbourhood the next day. In other words the shelter staff handled the cat as if she was part of a TNR program.

I realised to my horror that they had put that ill, emaciated cat through surgery.

Tamara trapped the cat and took her to a veterinarian. At that time the cat weighed 4.3 pounds.

Emaciated, severely dehydrated, suspected cardiovascular shock. – veterinary clinic’s report.

The vet immediately euthanised the cat. Tamara thinks that the shelter wants to keep their euthanasia rates low to boost their no-kill statistics. But the shelter denies this and says that an error was made. They also say that they operated because there were no signs of the spaying operation. They say that to release the cat so soon after their unnecessary surgery is within guidelines.

SOME ARTICLES ON ‘NEGLIGENCE’….