Featured feline has a new place for purring
December 4, 2003
BY KIM NORTH SHINE
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Some cats have all the luck.
TO ADOPT
To adopt a cat from a shelter or a foster home, visit www.dearborn-animals.com; www.petfinder.org, and www.michiganhumane.org.
To adopt Mango, the black-and-white cat in the Free Press article Wednesday, call the Dearborn Animal Shelter at 313-943-2697.
Snowflake, the weeks-old white kitten that stared out from the Free Press front page Wednesday, will soon ditchhis cage at the Dearborn Animal Shelter and move into new digs in Warren.
The once-unlucky kitten, which came to the shelter as a stray with a serious respiratory ailment, could have gone home with any of the dozens of people who wanted to rescue it Wednesday, said Elaine Greene, the shelter's executive director.
"People were calling before we got here at 8 a.m.," she said.
Mango, however, one of the shelter's longest-residing cats that also was pictured, received less attention, which is typical.
Greene said people aren't as interested in adopting older cats. Mango, 2 to 3 years old, has lived at the shelter since May and loves to cuddle with volunteers.
Nine other cats were placed Wednesday in Dearborn, Greene said.
"The phones have been ringing off the hook all day," Greene said. "It's probably helping other shelters, too."
Wednesday's Free Press article described a glut of cats in area shelters.
The overpopulation of cats, which shelter operators say is leading to more abandonments, has put shelters across Michigan and the nation in near-crisis mode.
Some shelters are turning away people who wish to give up their cats. Others must euthanize the animals at faster rates. Diseases are growing more prevalent because strays are rampant. And the costs of caring for and killing homeless animals are going up.
Roaming cats and the failure to sterilize cats are in large part responsible for the problem, shelter operators say.
article found here http://www.freep.com/news/metro/cats4_20031204.htm
Kelly B