Foreclosure pets on the rise in Arizona

Sister Gannett paper the Arizona Republic has a front page story on how pets are affected by the foreclosure and subprime mortgage crisis.

Reporter Samantha Hauser writes:

Foreclosures in metropolitan Phoenix continued to rise in May, with 3,402 foreclosures filed, up more than 14 percent from April, according to the Information Market.

Shelters across the nation also are seeing an increase, according to the Humane Society of the United States, which has no affiliation with the Arizona Humane Society.

The problem is most acute where foreclosures are common and the general economy is struggling. States such as Arizona, California and Florida are being inundated with foreclosed homes, and subsequently, their animal shelters are being flooded with pets.

I've written about this several times in the past.

There are grants to help shelters that find themselves overwhelmed. But it's really going to take a turnaround in the economy to get things back to normal.

Big cat update

Princess Chunky is really Prince Chunky and his owner has stepped forward.

The 44-pound kitty was found wandering around a Voorhees, N.J., apartment complex. He is a victim of the foreclosure crisis.

Chunky's owner, who has not be publicly named, is a senior citizen who lost her home to foreclosure, is now staying with friends, and couldn't afford to take care of her two cats.

Read the Philadelphia Inquirer article that appeared on the Dallas Morning News Web site.

Camden County Animal Shelter officials said that there have been 20 formal applications to adopt the feline.

When found the cat was determined to be a male, but that was later changed — and changed again.

Shelter Executive Director Jennifer Andersch said:

"Is it possible this cat is so dang fat that even though everyone's looking at it things are hidden? It's possible. We keep looking at this cat's behind and it looks like a girl to us. But nothing looks really normal on this cat."

No further comment is necessary.

Worsening times affects pets, too

It seems the economy is continuing to take its toll on Americans. The price of gas at the station near me is at $4.06 a gallon.

The housing foreclosure crisis, which we've talked about before (here and here), is still affecting people who cannot find housing that accommodates their companion animals or, simply, cannot afford to take care of them.

The American Humane Association has some tips for homeowners, mortgage lenders and shelters that may be impacted by the crisis.

They are even offering grants to shelters and animal welfare organizations so the agencies can help care for the animals who are collateral damage in these hard times.

Some of the tips for homeowners include asking family, friends and co-workers to care for your pets while you relocate and surrendering your pets to your local animal shelter.

The association urges people not to just abandon pets or set them free. State criminal animal-cruelty laws may apply, if even you think you've left enough food and water for your pets.

Mortage crisis still affecting pets

Back in January, I blogged about an article telling how animals are being given to shelters or abandoned when their owners lose their homes.

It seems like every day I see a couple more articles on the subject.

Here's one from the Greenwich (Conn.) Time.

Pet abandonments are part of a growing trend in California, Ohio and other states hit hard by the subprime mortgage crisis, said Nancy Peterson, an issues specialist for the Humane Society of the United States. The non-profit organization has established a Foreclosure Pets Grant Fund to collect donations and subsidize shelters taking in pets that have been surrendered or abandoned by those losing homes.

"It's a problem I've seen in Boston, Denver, Colorado, Sacramento and other cities," Peterson said.

A Google search for "housing crisis pets" came back with about 276,000 articles.

And it is from the subprime mortgage debacle and fewer rental properties allowing pets.

This is sad on so many levels.

Update on the big cat update

I keep finding more articles about the 44-pound cat, whose real name is Powder.

This from the Courier-Post in Cherry Hill, N.J.

The cat's owner, Donna Oklatner of Voorhees, N.J., lost her home to foreclosure earlier this year. She had two cats, a dog and a rabbit.

Oklatner moved from friend to friend, finally moving into a friend's condo with Cody, her dog. Another friend kept 10-year-old Powder and the 2-year-old rabbit Honey Bunny. That friend's sister took Powder's sibling, Puff.

That arrangement worked until last weekend, when a trip out of town forced [the friend] to send Powder back to Oklatner. But because the friend she's currently living with has asthma, Oklatner says she turned the cat over to friends who promised to deliver him to the animal shelter themselves.

Oklatner said she was devastated to have to give up her pets.

My thoughts on Sally

I got an e-mail yesterday about my article on Sally's visit to a Marist College classroom on Tuesday. The writer expressed concern that the article didn't address the state of the economy and the fact that people may not be able to afford to feed their pets.

Sally is the terrier mix dog found abandoned in a clothing donation bin in a parking lot in Hyde Park Sept. 15.

The writer said maybe the person who left Sally was afraid of being charged with a serious infraction of the law if they were to "do the right thing" by dropping her off at a shelter. The writer was thinking specifically of the elderly and urged me to, in the future, consider including information on what people can do when they can't afford to care for their pets any longer.

I responded that I understood the point the writer was making, that there are instances in which people can no longer afford to keep their animals. I have blogged several times about the foreclosure crisis that has forced many families to make difficult decisions about giving up their pets.

But one thing must be kept in mind about Sally: the dog was starved long before it was tossed into a metal clothing bin. Medical tests found there was no underlying condition that would have caused such an extreme case of malnutrition.

When found, Sally weighed 16 pounds. At approximately 2 years of age, she should have weighed 36 to 38 pounds. She looked, as I described in an article, "as if someone had taken a dog’s skeleton and wrapped it in light brown fabric."

I don't think it's necessary to explain to any rational human being — someone who still has feelings — that it would be better to, say, tie a dog up to a fence, out in the open, where there is some traffic, than throw it into a container in a remote portion of a parking lot from which it could not escape. Where it could very possibly have died, had the person whose responsibility it was to collect the donated clothes not been on schedule.

I think the thing to keep in one's mind in this situation — and the reason the Dutchess County SPCA feels this falls under the heading of criminal activity — is that the dog was essentially starved for a very long time then thrown away to die, alone and unwanted, in a metal container. It would have been a horrible, unjustifiable death.

She was in a metal bin in a shopping center parking lot exposed to the summer sun for about a week. No food. No water. No way to escape.

Sally was, as DCSPCA Executive Director Joyce Garrity said, "horrifically disposed of like a pile of old clothes."

There is No. Possible. Excuse. for this type of action.

What happened to Sally was not, under any possible explanation, anything other than a despicable act of depraved indifference.

I watched Sally trot up and down the aisles of a Marist classroom, going from person to person — curious, loving and trusting. Cocking her head at a photographer's camera, as he clicked the shutter. Barking at shadows moving by the classroom door window. Being a dog, in the only world she knows.

Trusting. Forgiving.

And then I look at my dog, Kate, sleeping next to me on the couch as I write this.

She trusts me.

I hope, though I try not to anthropomorphize animals, that she loves me.

I cannot imagine a situation in which I would leave her to die, alone and hungry and unwanted.

She trusts me.

That is my burden. And I gladly accept it.