On November 19th, 2014 there was a large house fire in Richmond. Unfortunately, the house was completely destroyed and the remaining structure was bulldozed to the ground. We quickly found out that this was a hoarding situation, and were told that there was anywhere from 15 to 30 cats in the house, with some estimates coming in at 45 cats. Two of our team members were at the house that night checking out the situation! The firemen had told us that when they got there and broke through the front door, that tons of cats came running out. So we knew we needed to be there bright and early the next morning. We left kibble out for the night and hoped the cats would settle.
Thursday morning, a team of 4 of us got there with 6 traps, tons of canned tuna, crates, carriers, blankets and were ready to go. It just so happened that that Thursday morning had to be the coldest day so far this winter. It was -22 when we got there. As we pulled up, we saw one lone cat sitting in the snow. We didn't have high hopes.
So we got the traps ready and started filling them with stinky tuna in hopes that more cats would come out of hiding. As we were setting, you could feel the eyes on you... Everywhere you looked you saw another set of eye. It was at that point that we realized our hands were going to be full with this rescue attempt.
5 hours later, we had trapped 8 cats. Unfortunately when a trap catches a cat, it makes a rather loud noise, and usually scares the rest off. It takes time for them to gain the confidence to come back to the food. The 4 of us were complete frozen at this point, and decided to call it a day. We left tons of food for the cats, and would be back the next morning.
Turns out, someone volunteered to try and again for a couple hours that night and successfully caught 2 more that night!
10 cats in one day! So amazing, and yet so sad.
Over the next week and a half, volunteers went out daily trying to catch the remaining cats. As of today, 19 cats have been caught!! The best friend of the gentleman's whose house burned down kept one cat, leaving us with 18.
As anyone can imagine, bringing this many cats into care is expensive! We need to vet all the cats. And let me tell you, these cats were not in great health when they came in. The first batch of 6 went to the vet 2 weeks.ago. The list of illnesses included: pneumonia, upper respiratory infections, eye infection, ear mites, ear infections, broken teeth, worms, possible pregnancies, etc etc etc!!! This was just 6 cats!! We have 18! Can you imagine.
Sadly, out of the 18 cats, only ONE was neutered! The rescue must now pay for 17 cats to get spayed or neutered.
We have been treating all the cats with antibiotics for their multiple infections. All have been dewormed once so far. All have also received Revolution to treat the ear mites, and protect against other parasites.
While most of these cats have been in care for a few weeks, they are still a little nervous. But there are some that are little love bugs! We are making progress every day with them. Often cats that are in hoarding situations are quite feral, or semi-feral. It takes a lot of time to gain the trust of these cats.
We have named the cats: Calla, Orchid, Bluebell, Trillium, Lotus, Dahlia, Iris, Lilac, Eclipse, Puma, Carly, Murray, York, Anubis, Colonel, King, Timber and Theo.
I will post pictures of each cat shortly so you can see what they all look like!! And I will be following them closely with the blog.
If you are interested in helping with these cats, we would love for these cats to be sponsored! Sponsoring includes covering the vetting fees. But any donation would be greatly appreciated. Please contact rescue@oscatr.com to make a donation.
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