The Elkhart County Humane Society is putting out an alert about an alarming trend. We're in the height of the stray cat season, and some well-intentioned people are making a deadly mistake.
They're bringing strays into the humane society, and the way they're doing it is downright dangerous.
Humane Society Director Anne Reel has had enough. "I would think that people could use a little common sense," she says.
Instead workers have seen several moves lately that have defied common sense.
Just Thursday morning, Reel says someone showed up with a cat stuffed in a plastic tub with the lid shut. The cat had no air, suffered heat exhaustion and will have to be put down. "The staff are saying we can't believe this is happening again," Reel says.
In another case Reel says a woman put a cat in the trunk of a car then drove around and ran errands before finally bringing the animal to the shelter. Luckily that cat survived. "It was so hot, the animal was having heat distress," Reel says.
Reel also told us about a third case this week where a woman left a cat and her kittens on the porch overnight in a plastic tub with the lid snapped shut. "There were four kittens and a mother cat. Two of the kittens have since died because they had been too far into the process," she says.
It sounds obvious, but if you're going to bring an animal to the Humane Society, transport it in a way that allows the cat or dog to breath!
"It's not rocket science," Reel says. "We all need air and so think about that before you're putting an animal in a container."
Many of the animals that died recently didn't stand a chance in this heat. In Thursday's case, the cat that was brought to the shelter inside the plastic tub reached a temperature of 104-degrees.
We do have some good news to report on another case though. The kitten we first told you about Wednesday that was discovered in the dump in Elkhart is recovering well. They've named him Hefty because he was found in a hefty trash-bag.
He'll be up for adoption in a couple weeks.
