Update: Animal Hoarding: Close to home

On Friday, I posted a sad story about animal hoarding in Vermont, you can read that post, here.

I emailed the shelter that is taking the lead in caring for these rescued cats, the Kingdom Animal Shelter (KAS), to let them know about that blog post and to see if there was anything else I could do to help them out. The answer was resoundingly, encourage donations! This small shelter, like many all over the country is privately funded. Taking on the responsibility of caring for these cats will most certainly require a lot of additional donations from the community. Please consider a donation today!

You can donate online (as I did). 

Or mail your donation to: 

KAS
1664 Memorial Drive
PO Box 462
St. Johnsbury, VT 05819

The shelter also had some updates to the story:

• They have confirmed that there are additional cats in the house, the team was not able to get all the cats because there were so many of them and so many places for them to hide. KAS is making arrangements to return to the property and set humane traps inside.

• Right now, each cat needs to be evaluated, once this takes place, KAS will be looking for foster homes (preferably in the Northeast Kingdom). If you live in the area and have some experience working with cats that have suffered trauma, are under-socialized and feral, please get in touch with KAS. Those are big shoes to fill, so even if you don't have those qualifications, but you have time to volunteer, I would encourage you to pitch in so others at the shelter can direct their resources to these needy kitties.

• On a hopeful note, KAS reports that the cats are really beautiful, and there’s one tiny cat in particular who is a cream color with orange in her tail. While this little girl needs medical treatment for her eyes, it's nice to know that beauty can shine through even under deplorable circumstances.

Unfortunately this is just the most recent case of animal cruelty and neglect in Vermont. To learn more about VT state law on animal cruelty, how to report abuses, and ways you may be able to help prevent animal cruelty in VT, visit the website of the The Vermont Animal Cruelty Task Force.

Lastly, I would like to encourage my readers to write a letter to the State's Attorney for Caledonia County to ask that the owner of these cats be charged with animal cruelty and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. 

Mail your letter to: 

Lisa Warren

1153 Main Street, Suite 4

St. Johnsbury, VT 05819-2734

Thanks for any and all things you may be able to do to help. Please post in the comments and let me know if you donate, write a letter or simply send good thoughts.