Pogonip put up a comment yesterday about a cat hoarding tragedy in the Columbus, OH area. Apparently someone in Gahanna, OH had collected, for lack of a better term, 166 cats.
GAHANNA, OH (WCMH) –Wednesday, more than 160 cats were taken out of a Gahanna home.
“We did remove 111 alive cats, 55 deceased unfortunately,” said Kerry Shaw with Columbus Humane, formerly called the Capital Area Humane Society.
Columbus Humane said it’s one of the worst cases of animal hoarding it has ever seen.
“The cats were in deplorable conditions and some have serious health risks right now, serious health conditions,” said Shaw.
Unfortunately, this has overwhelmed the Columbus Humane Society’s capabilities right now.
Columbus Humane, which operates a shelter at 3015 Scioto Darby Executive Court on the Far West Side, was so overwhelmed with the cats from Gahanna that they had to shut down operations to the public Wednesday, Shaw said.
Veterinarians were examining the 111 live cats to evaluate their health, gather evidence and determine their future, Shaw said.
Pogonip was hoping that any of you all in the area might be able to help out. Specifically:
Hello, I remember from reading this site before that readers would organize to help pets all across the country.
I lived in Columbus, Ohio for years and still keep up with their news. Earlier this week, in suburban Gahanna, one hundred eleven cats were rescued from a collector. The local shelter is so overwhelmed they’ve had to stop accepting turn-ins. They can use all the help they can get. Details and updates can be found at dispatch.com and nbc4i.com.
So if you live in the area and were considering adopting, from the Columbus Humane Society, now might be a good time to consider doing so from the Columbus Human Society to ease their sudden overcrowding problem.
Open thread!
rikyrah
I hope that they find homes for them.?
Barbara
I will never understand animal hoarders.
Another Scott
@Barbara: It’s an illness. :-(
Cheers,
Scott.
debbie
@rikyrah:
I have a couple friends in rescue/transport who will not stop until the cats all have homes.
Patricia Kayden
Sad situation. Glad that they were able to rescue so many cats though and hope they can become healthy and find loving homes.
Ruckus
How can one person have 111 cats and 55 dead ones in their house? I know this is an illness but still, that many cats, the stench, the mess, how?
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: Like you said, illness.
Ruckus
If OO is checking, yes I did live in Gahanna, moved out 12 yrs ago this month. I checked and it wasn’t my old address. About 3 miles south from where I was. There were a lot more hoarders of stuff than I’ve seen in other places, one guy had over 25 Plymouth Horizon/Dodge Omni wrecks in his yard. It was full, door to door, bumper to bumper. This was not as weird, or horrible as the cats but really that piece of crap car?
Ohio Mom
Hey Pogonip — haven’t seen you here in a while. Wondering how you have been (if you are reading this).
I would have asked yesterday, but didn’t see that thread.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus:
That’s some weird shit.
Ohio Mom
Since this is an open thread, here are a couple of miscellaneous things I learned from Ohio Dad’s heart valve replacement surgery:
That hibaclens liquid soap they give patients to shower with the night before is nasty stuff. If you launder the washcloth with bleach, the stain not only sets but spreads to other stuff in the load too.
Don’t wait until the last minute to buy a shower chair and a pulse oximeter at CVS. They charge three times as much as anyone else.
I said these were miscellaneous!
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Even worse, my boss owned one. On the way to work one day I passed by him stopped by the side of the road, broken down, if you can imagine that. The oil pressure sender had broken and pumped oil out. He was almost crying and so distraught that he hadn’t been able to see the cause. He had been a racing mechanic it a prior life so this took some time to sink in to me. I took him to buy a new sender and oil so he could fix his piece of shit car.
debbie
@Ohio Mom:
Are you and OD back home already?
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: The year I started law school, my parents bought me a computer and my brother a car – an old Omni with a four speed manual and a dead parking brake. The two cost the same; we had different needs, so it seemed fair. I got the better part of the deal except that I did have to teach my brother to drive a stick.
SectionH
Pretty sure the Cincinnati cat rescue group I have a friend in is pretty overwhelmed itself (and she’s taking a really needed break from fostering after several years of over and above fostering on top of her own cats. But I will still pass the word along asking her to do the same.
Question for Pogonip: is the Columbus HS a good place to send money to? I know some local one are good, some not so. In which case finding a good private group which for instance will guarantee to take x-number of animals might be better bang for the buck.
Ohio Mom
@debbie: Yes, OD had been home since Thursday night.
And by home, I mean home. It turns out that someone has to be with the discharged patient 24/7 for the first week. It is like being snowed in, except I do run out on quick errands once or twice a day (don’t tell anyone). We figure that as long as OD stays in bed, he should be safe — he is on a blood thinner so falls are a big risk.
It is a big relief to have him home.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
It wasn’t that those crapmobiles were absolutely horrible in their day, it’s just that their day was over well before they went out of production in 1990.
debbie
@SectionH:
You might want to look into Stop the Suffering. They’re rescue/foster/transport.
debbie
@Ohio Mom:
Glad to read this and hope his recovery is smooth and speedy.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: My brother’s one had a reliable VW engine. Everything else fell apart around it.
Ruckus
@SectionH:
It’s been, as I said 12 yrs since I left but if I remember correctly, they were pretty good. It sounds like now might be a good time to donate even if they were just OK.
Ohio Mom
@debbie: Thanks!
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Not sure what year/engine this one had. But yes the quality was, shall we say, low.
SectionH
@Ruckus: “Pretty good” will do. Like so many others, I’ve been feeling overwhelmed by so many causes I want to give to, and not that much money. On the pet rescue front, I do give a bit to the San Diego HS because, well, we found our most recent adoptee through them (well, actually the Escondido one before the merger, who were doing a lot with not much money).
Ruckus
@SectionH:
I know that part about not much money. Six yrs ago I was out of money, out of a job and out of a home. A friend took me in for a year, I got a job 2 weeks after I left there that I still have but I had to start SS as early as possible so that I could eat, otherwise…….
So now I’m still working and trying to catch up with the GWB/republican recession, which of course I will never do, and because I took SS far earlier than I had wanted to my SS income isn’t what it should have been. Just in case you haven’t figured out I hate republicans. Fucking assholes really are trying to kill us. And they just ramped up their attempts.
Ohio Mom
Oh, leave Tommy alone. He may not be the most socially adept person but he shouldn’t be a punchline. Save that for the purposely evil among us. Punch up, not down.
Pogonip
@Ohio Mom: Fine and dandy, thanks!
Pogonip
@SectionH: I haven’t lived in Columbus for a long time —though I still keep up with their news—but CAHS always seemed like a pretty good groyp.
Pogonip
@Ohio Mom: I hope Ohio Dad gets well soon!
SectionH
@Pogonip: Sorry if I missed you’re no longer local there, but “pretty good” still works for me. I don’t live in the midwest region which includes Columbus, Cincinnati and Lexington (and I think the cities all have more in common than their surrounding territories).
A bit of money sent.