Posted on 06/30/2009 5:35:30 PM PDT by Chet 99
47 cats pulled from filthy mobile home Owner faces 47 felony counts of animal cruelty
Updated: Monday, 29 Jun 2009, 11:20 PM MDT Published : Monday, 29 Jun 2009, 11:02 PM MDT
* Reporter: Maria Medina * Web Producer: Devon Armijo
LOS LUNAS (KRQE) - A Highland Meadows woman is facing one count of animal cruelty for each of the 47 diseased cats that Valencia County Animal Control authorities reported finding in her home.
Valencia County Code Enforcement Director Ruben Chavez said animal control had to euthanize all the cats because of respiratory illnesses.
Veterinarians also suspect the cats had feline leukemia and AIDS.
Because the case still under investigation, Chavez couldn't share pictures with News 13 of what they found, but described in Cheryl Black's home.
"47 cats are everywhere," he said. "In cabinets, in sofas, under the bed, in between the bed."
He said they also pulled cats from inside the mobile home's walls.
"There was a hole in one of the walls, and they were kind of making a residence in there," Chavez said.
Besides the live cats discovered, Chavez said they also found three dead cats.
A Valencia county sheriff's deputy said there was also cat feces on "floors, cabinets, couch and sinks," according to the official report.
"They had pus coming out their eyes, mouth, their ears, their nose some couldn't breathe," Chavez said.
It took animal control officers from Belen, Los Lunas and Isleta to help execute the extraction.
Chavez said they wore protective suits to get through the two-inch pile of feces in the home. What was unusual, he said, was that Black had even named all her cats.
The owner did not give an explanation as to why she owned more than four dozen cats, Chavez said.
It was a sheriff's deputy who stumbled on the cats during a welfare check on Black. Black is expected to appear in court in a couple of weeks.
"It's unfortunate people find themselves in these situations," said Chavez. "But it's even as unfortunate that these animals have to pay for somebody's misconduct."
seems to me that charging this poor and desperately ill woman with 47 felonies for animal “cruelty” is the crime......
What is it about hoarding cats in filthy conditions? Why do people do this? And why cats instead of, say, turtles or aardvarks or velociraptors? What is the appeal to a mentally ill person of having 926 cats crapping all over the place?
Umm, aren't feline respiratory illness often contagious to humans?
When did the “War on Cat Ladies” start?
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I think having just one cat crapping all over the place is more than enough.
Cats can multiply with awesome speed. Take in a pregnant female (even one who may look to young to be pregnant yet), and you’ll have half a dozen cats in a few weeks. Six months later you’ll have three or four more litters as the litter reaches reproductive maturity, giving you a couple of dozen cats. Three more months and you can easily be over 50 cats.
This often starts with a lonely person who has very little money and few or no caring friends or relatives. The first kitty or two are the person’s new best friends, and the only creatures in the world who seem to value and rely on the person, but there’s not really a hundred dollars in the budget to get them fixed (and usually no realization of the awesome speed with which well-fed cats can reproduce). Then comes the next generation, and just keeping up with the food bill is maxing out the person’s budget. One more generation (remember we’re only at around the 9 months point here, from the first cat or two taken in) and the person can usually see that things are out of control. But somehow it doesn’t seem like a good idea to call animal control for help, knowing that they’ll come over and confiscate and euthanize your only friends who trust you to provide them food and shelter, and knowing you’ll probably get hit with fines for animal neglect/cruelty on top of it.
Many of these people identify with the cats — creatures who have no way to provide for themselves, and that society has no use for — and are subconsciously trying to protect the cats from the sort of fate they fear for themselves, — running out of food, and being forced to move to the human equivalent of an animal shelter, where old people that nobody cares about are basically just left to die.
No. And neither is feline AIDS (FIV) or the feline leukemia virus.
Whatever it is, it is definitely a mental illnes, and it isn’t limited to women for that matter. I knew a dude back in new orleans, he was about 33, cut grass for a living, and lived in an un-airconditioned house. In that house he had two small dogs which roamed free and crapped and pissed on everything. He also had about 8 cats in cages that lived on top of layer after layer after layer of soiled newspaper in their cages.
When he slept, he would put news paper on top of himself like a blanket in case the dogs chose to use him as a restroom. This house sat back from the street at least 100 ft, and from the street the stench coming out of the house (door was always open) would knock you out. Some friends and I felt sorry for him, so we cleaned his house removing pile after pile of month old ( or much longer) animal feces and what not. Sadly within about three months after this, the house simply returned to these conditions. He was, quite simply, totally insane.
She’s a hoarder. She has to be forced legally to get mental help, otherwise there is a 100% recitivism rate (ie 100% chance she will do it again). She also msut not be allowed to own any animals until she completes treatment.
And if she lapses or refuses, jail her for a long time.
Really disgusting. These stories never end and I do not understand these kind of people at all. Horrible way to live.
Feline Pneumonitis (Chlamydia) – This is a bacterial infection that causes conjunctivitis and upper respiratory infections.
It is highly contagious and is contagious to humans.
Symptoms include inflamed and watery eyes, sneezing, and coughing.
“She’s a hoarder. She has to be forced legally to get mental help, otherwise there is a 100% recitivism rate (ie 100% chance she will do it again). She also msut not be allowed to own any animals until she completes treatment.”
Just curious - if you keep a couple thousand chickens, are you a “hoarder?”
Never heard of it and I’ve lived with indoor-outdoor cats all my life, in several countries. It must be fairly rare in cats. If it’s the same “chlamydia” that is common in humans as a sexually transmitted disease, I would think cats more often get it from humans than the other way around. Most upper respiratory infections are viral, and most viruses don’t jump species easily.
Just curious - if you ask a stupid question like that, are you an idiot?
Answer: Yes!
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