Mutts on animals in need

The comic strip Mutts, written and drawn by Patrick McDonnell, is breaking my heart this week.

McDonnell is doing a series of shelter stories, so far focusing on pets left behind in foreclosures.

I've been blogging about the mortgage crisis affect on pets for over a year now.

Like I said, it breaks my heart.

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.

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.

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.