Local ARL is crap

Reading Eagle

In the article above, if your blood isn’t boiling or you’re just sickened by what you read. Imagine my feelings with the fact that I’ll soon be having four cats in one house and two are know escape artists. The worst is they tried to deny even having the cat in latest incident; proving to me, probably to many others, they knew it wasn’t a stray and they were trying to cover their animal hating butts. This is the Animal Rescue League of my county but I think PETA at this point has a better track record at this point on the treatment of animals.

24 hours to decide if an animal is needed to be put down is not a thing but here they have tried to make it a thing. Very few animals will be fine in that short amount of time into new situations like being caged by a bunch of strangers. So after this last incident, they’re upping it to 48 hours. I doubt they’re going to follow it anyway and just kill pets because they’re incapable of understanding how to handle them. It took much more than 48 hours for my one cat to adjust to his new home with a resident fat cat with food aggression. In that time, this place would have deemed un-adoptable or even “”aggressive”” and have to be put down; he refused to eat and was extremely defensive from stress of his prior situation to the point of force feeding Xanax to get him eating.

Anyone having similar incidents in their area. I want to know because such bs should not be a thing. It’s starting to sound like it’s policy to be killing off cats and maybe even other pets for no reason whatsoever except they just don’t want to deal with it.

a reply to: misterhistory

Anyone who owns 4 cats needs to be micro-chipped.

a reply to: misterhistory

My horrible county in Georgia just voted to keeping killing animals they catch despite a huge uprising at the council meetings.

I helped close the one in Tampa after rescuing very sick animals/I still have them. They still suffer from the abuse of the vets there.

I have spent most of the day trying to keep a newly formed no kill shelter here open by contacting Purina etc for donations.

I am sad and exhausted.

Do the people at the ARL know anything about cats at all?

It is not unusual for them to be aggressive in strange surroundings because they can be defensive out of fear. Generally, 48 to 72 hours will melt most properly socialized cats and make them agreeable again.

But 24 hours just isn't enough.

a reply to: TheConstruKctionofLight

Who said I’m not

a reply to: ketsuko

The second cat I took in needed more than a week of hard work and a more seasoned cat owner to get him properly adjusted and many times where I was just too overwhelmed by the cat’s behavior and wanted to send him to someone else who could spend more time with him. His previous owners moved from another state to a local county and were going to put him into the Lancaster ARL because they couldn’t handle his behavior after shifting him around a lot with people they knew in the area.

It took my cats about a month to fully accept each other after bringing home two stray kittens to our big Highland Lynx. They weren't vicious to one another though I understand that's common with cats, but they tussled a bit and def fought over the litter boxes for a bit.

Now they're like charlies angels.

24 hours? 48 hours? LOL.

PS this is why we always have the strays we find fixed for about 25 a pop at our local UCAN. The 2 strays we hadn't intended to keep however no one claimed them and we had room at the time. Now we don't have room but we do have enough money to fix the ones we find and set them back out but at least they can't add to the problem.

-Alee

a reply to: NerdGoddess

I am not talking about getting along with other cats. I am talking about not attacking humans. They may not be warm, may still be timid, but most will stop attacking you within three days or so if they have been properly socialized. Now if you're talking about them being properly integrated into a household with other cats, that takes far longer.

I'm just talking about them not attacking you in a place like a vet clinic when you are boarding them.

a reply to: ketsuko

Oh I misunderstood the whole article I thought this was about them having issues with other cats, not the other people! Oops thank you!!


Still quite sad for those cats.

PS I just re read the article and I'm not sure how I confused that, they even said the cat was put down because it was so supposedly aggressive they couldn't put food or water in it's bowl...... Yeah I'd probably be testy too if I had been catnapped and dropped in a scary prison I'd been in before with no understanding of why.

-Alee

a reply to: misterhistory

I heard the story on WEEU this morning. I saw a Facebook post two weeks ago by some woman from West Lawn, I think alluding to her cat being put down at the ARL.
It is a shame what is happening there. I adopted one of my dogs from there.

a reply to: misterhistory

Here's the thing. If your shelter cannot afford the staff, the equipment, or the space for all the cats and animals besides, that need some help, then guess what? The damned place should not exist. If all they are going to do, is kill cats which express behavioural problems, rather than sitting with them, normalising them to the presence of strangers, and gaining their trust, like any mook who has even SEEN a cat would be able to do with an arm up their back, then the shelter is not worth a God damn.

Furthermore, scanning the chip of a dead animal is a bit bloody late, if you ask me. The lil fluffball should have been scanned when he showed up at the place, not after being shot full of poison and left to die.

But theres one more thing... Pet owners, specifically cats, but any roaming pet, including dogs... Get your animal in a collar with your phone number on it. Make them readily identifiable to anyone in your neighborhood as your pet. How terrible must the family that took the poor fellow to the ARL, feel about what happened? They probably thought that if they took him there, he would be safe, someone would come for him, that if he was chipped, they would find his owners and return him to them, safe and sound and pleased to see his owners again.

But instead? They delivered the cat into the arms of people who would murder him for the sake of convenience.

Absolutely disgusting. Shelters that kill animals in ANY scenario other than to cease their physical pain in the event of catastrophic injury, should be closed down, their founders arrested for animal abuse. Its better to let the poor buggers fend for themselves, than send any animal to such a place, with the risk that they might be killed for no reason!