Langley Advance
Tuesday, January 09, 2007 10:55 AM
Animal welfare: Cat shelter fills to the rafters
CARES cat shelter is full, but the door is always open for critters most in need.
by Darren Fleet
They are clumped together like runaway youth, and look out at visitors with suspicious eyes.
The cats, six of them, huddled atop a donated cat scratching tower, are just a few of the abandoned cats that have ended up on CARES's doorway, at 6840 Glover Rd.
One of the six, a grey domestic named Rafter, got its name when it hid in the veterinarian's ceiling tiles after being rescued from a barn in Langley. It took 10 days to coax him down.
"This is what happens when cats are thrown away. It takes them a long time to not be afraid of people," said Donna Healey-Ogden, a board member and volunteer for Canadian Animal Rescue & Extended Shelter (CARES).
CARES is a no-kill animal shelter that has been successfully caring for and re-socializing cats for adoption since 1994. Last year, it took in 520 cats, spayed and neutered 457, and adopted 510 into new homes.
"There is no need to ever kill a cat," said Healey-Ogden, who has nursed cats on the brink of death back to health.
The facility is equipped with a quarantine centre, eight runs (kennels), a geriatrics room for old cats, an intake room for new arrivals, and a medical room. It also has a partnership with Langley's PetsMart, which adopts out CARES felines.
Over the recent holidays, the centre averages about five adoptions per week.
CARES is staffed by about 60 cat-loving volunteers, and many have made the shelter a part of their everyday lives.
Volunteer Carol Briner, a retired chartered accountant, bears a special mark of a cat-lover - scratches on her cheek in the shape of whiskers, which she received from two abandoned kittens temporarily fostered into her home.
CARES has capacity for 90 animals, and has been operating at maximum for several months. If people are able to hold onto the cats they find or no longer want, the centre encourages them to do so as long as possible, and the animals will be placed on a wait list.
"We cannot overfill, because then you get disease," Briner said.
Volunteers often take animals into their homes, some as many as five cats at a time.
The centre averages about $7,000 a month in vet and food bills, and is supported by private donations, community partnerships, and Langley City and Township grants.
Its current location has been leased to it by the Langley Heritage Society, for which Briner and Healey-Ogden are thankful.
"Every cat that comes through here has at least a $100 vet bill," said Briner, "and some a lot more."
One cat specifically, Lucky, wearing a protective cone around his neck, has required several operations to repair the open and gangrenous wound it arrived with at the shelter.
"We called him Lucky because he is lucky to be alive," said Briner.
The centre is able to care for cats in Lucky's situation, due to the generosity of Dr. David Marlow at Brookswood Veterinary Hospital, she added.
If interested in volunteering call 604-532-5632 or visit www.langleycares.com.
An appointment is required to drop off a cat.
published on 01/09/2007