Peaceable Kingdom cat rescue, like many no-kill shelters, is full to capacity with cats. Visitors frequently ask volunteers, “Why did all these cats end up at the animal shelter?” The answer can range from legitimate reasons to outright animal cruelty.

There are some legitimate reasons for leaving a cat at an animal shelter. For instance, Tom-Tom and Carmen had a happy, loving home until their elderly owner had to move to a nursing home. Family members found the cats and brought them to Peaceable Kingdom. Peaceable Kingdom recognizes that such things happen, and will never turn an animal away in legitimate hardship cases.

However, pet owners frequently ask Peaceable Kingdom volunteers to accept cats for trivial reasons. Venus is a beautiful declawed, affectionate all-black female cat, the sort of pet that is in high demand at adoption days. Her former owners brought her to Peaceable Kingdom, claiming that she “had urinary tract problems, then suddenly attacked the husband.” Peaceable Kingdom reluctantly took her in, although volunteers could see no evidence of urinary tract problems or aggressive behavior.

Peaceable Kingdom’s adoption policy specifically states that a person who adopts a cat must take responsibility for the cat’s medical needs. Unfortunately, if an adopted cat turns out to have some type of medical problem, the people who adopted the cat often try to return it. An affectionate tabby named Flopper fell victim to this type of situation. Flopper’s owners found out after adopting him that he had feline AIDS. Cats with feline AIDS can live almost as long as healthy cats, with proper veterinary care. As long as they are neutered, they pose no danger to humans, and little danger to other pets. Flopper’s owners requested a trade-in for a healthier cat upon returning him to the shelter, a request the volunteers promptly denied.

Some pet owners, whose requests to leave cats at the shelter have been denied, respond by leaving them without anyone’s knowledge or permission. In one case, someone left a taped-up box with an attached note reading: “Leaving these cats on your doorstep was a very difficult thing for me to do. I am sorry for the problems it may cause for you. I hope the enclosed donation is helpful.”

Buck was left in a carrier at the shelter without even a note. Buck is a brown and white cat who, years later, is still struggling to get over the experience of being abandoned. Note or no note, leaving cats in this manner is illegal under Pennsylvania law. Public ignorance of this law has been a problem for Peaceable Kingdom and other animal shelters for years.

Worse yet are people who approach shelter volunteers face-to-face, show them a cat, and threaten to abandon, hurt, or even kill the cat if the shelter does not accept the animal. Threats of abuse leave shelter volunteers little choice but to take the cat. However, even threats of abuse are not as upsetting to the volunteers as actual acts of abuse.

Two of the worst abuse cases ever to come to Peaceable Kingdom were an abandoned family of Siamese cats and a cat that was thrown out the window of a moving car. The Siamese cats were locked in an unheated garage with no source of food or water in the middle of winter. Some of them lost ears and eyes as a result of frostbite. The cat that was thrown from the car came to the shelter with three broken legs, earning her the unusual name of Times Three. In abuse cases like this, Peaceable Kingdom volunteers will do whatever they can to keep the cats alive and safe.

The reasons people choose to leave their animals at a shelter range from legitimate hardship cases to outright animal abuse. Public ignorance of what constitutes animal cruelty is an unpleasant truth. Shelter overcrowding is everyone’s problem, whether they own pets or not.