Frankie’s Friends nonprofit veterinary clinic in New Kensington is seeking help from the public after saving a hoard of 40 cats from a Westmoreland rescue shelter.
Officials declined to name the rescue organization because no charges have been filed against it.
“The cats are sick, skinny — the typical things that we see with a hoarding situation,” said forensic veterinarian Becky Morrow, director at Frankie’s Friends.
With medical intervention, she expects all of the animals to survive.
Her group is seeking cleaning supplies and donations to help with medical care, which will be extensive based on the sheer number of cats.
In Pennsylvania, anyone can form a rescue group and gain nonprofit status to be considered a rescue organization. This rescue involved in this case is located inside a home. Laws can limit the number of animals allowed in municipalities, but humane officers typically have to rely on animal cruelty laws to act, Morrow said.
Westmoreland County humane officers did not respond to TribLive requests for comment.
Morrow said the scenario was complicated because of how many animals were involved.
She was called by county humane officers to help save the animals from a home littered with feces, urine and filth. Some of the cats have neurological conditions resulting from the living conditions.
“Unfortunately, hoarding is common and its complicated,” she said. “You’re going to have more than one issue. There’s a lot of suffering.
“It’s one of the worst causes of animal cruelty, in my mind.”
Cat hoarding, according to the Animal Humane Society, is a compulsion to accumulate animals that becomes more important than the animals’ needs.
It is the No. 1 animal cruelty crisis, affecting up to 250,000 pets a year, the group’s website said.
Hoarding, or overcrowding, can lead to disease, poor sanitation, odor, malnutrition and psychological distress.
“You’re going to have specific infectious diseases based on co-housing and stress and lack of cleanliness,” Morrow said.
“Our goal is to get those that are sick, get them rehabbed and adopted.”
But saving animals from a hoarding situation requires a lot of planning.
“You don’t just go in and take them,” Morrow said. “You never really know how many there are, and you have to have a plan for where to take them.”
Frankie’s Friends, along Fifth Avenue, doesn’t have too much room to accommodate the unexpected.
The group posted to social media weeks ago asking for help from the public to foster cats already being cared for there to make room for the rescues.
For now, the owner of the rescue has avoided legal charges but Morrow said she worked with law enforcement to guarantee pop-up inspections at the home.
“We gave many instructions on how to disinfect and make the place appropriate,” she said.
“The best we can do is rectify the situation and make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Morrow said. “We have to be very diligent because it always worries me that the people that get into these situations are going to go out and get more cats.”