Someone in a neighboring jurisdiction called my organization, fishin' for info on no kill shelters. She had had a visit from animal control last week. What should she have said?
Okay, as I talked with her, it became clear that she was really looking for low cost speuter help. Turns out, that between her own cats and her own life issues, she has been working for the past two years to get a small urban colony under good management. She knows of several other people in the local area who are feeding and semi-adopting several of the cats. There's one female cat who is a "red hot mama" however, and that cat had kittens. So someone reported to animal control that there were stray cats around; animal control looked to see where the cats were congregating, and visited our caller.
I asked if she told the officer that she was working to deal with the problem on her own. She said it didn't seem to matter to him. I urged her to get back in touch with Alley Cat Allies, and to see if she can move more quickly to get things under control (i.e., get at least 70 percent of the known cats speutered).
But, is there something that she could have said, that might have made things end on a more positive note in her visit from animal control? We get this kind of call often; it's an example of how our current laws tend to put the onus on the *more* responsible individuals, and it ticks me off!
Okay, as I talked with her, it became clear that she was really looking for low cost speuter help. Turns out, that between her own cats and her own life issues, she has been working for the past two years to get a small urban colony under good management. She knows of several other people in the local area who are feeding and semi-adopting several of the cats. There's one female cat who is a "red hot mama" however, and that cat had kittens. So someone reported to animal control that there were stray cats around; animal control looked to see where the cats were congregating, and visited our caller.
I asked if she told the officer that she was working to deal with the problem on her own. She said it didn't seem to matter to him. I urged her to get back in touch with Alley Cat Allies, and to see if she can move more quickly to get things under control (i.e., get at least 70 percent of the known cats speutered).
But, is there something that she could have said, that might have made things end on a more positive note in her visit from animal control? We get this kind of call often; it's an example of how our current laws tend to put the onus on the *more* responsible individuals, and it ticks me off!
