Just recently had a "lost" cat show up at my property. Fairly good condition, healthy, very well socialized, litter box trained, crate trained, very pretty cat. Most likely somebody abandoned it- I get a lot of dumped cats at my rural location because there's a turn-out right below my house which serves as a convenient place for people to pull over and dump cats. Over the 30 years at my location, I've lost count of how many unwanted cats have magically appeared on my doorstep.
Anyway, once I got this cat set up in a crate with food, water and a litterbox, I put a call into Greenhill to look into getting the cat into the adoption system. As I understand it, Greenhill Humane Society has been contracted by Lane county government to deal with lost, abandoned, feral, and surrendered cats. There's no more help available at what was Tri-agency Animal control on 1st Street in west Eugene. As I understand it, Greenhill is now supposed to be taking care of it all.
No one was available to speak to me when I called, so I had to leave a voicemail. In my message, I carefully described what the cat was like, the condition it was in, and that I already had two cats, so I didn't really want another one myself, but that the cat would be highly adoptable because it was both beautiful, friendly and well socialized.
The next day, someone calls me back and informed me that the cattery is "full" and that they couldn't take it into the system. When I told them that I already had 2 cats so it would be very difficult for me to keep the animal, they actually told me to just let the cat go, saying that cats are "very resourceful" and can survive in the wild. Basically they were telling me to re-dump the cat! I'm not making this up, they actually said that... Without even confirming whether this animal was spayed or neutered... No earmarking was suggested nothing like that. Just turn 'em loose. I was incredulous.
This isn't my first experience with this organization. I've lived in this area for 40 years. Over those decades, from time to time, I've had dealings with Greenhill Humane Society. A few of those experiences have been "OK". But, I am not going to lie, a lot of those encounters were VERY negative. Through those decades, Greenhill's had some really psycho employees/volunteers who absolutely should not have been dealing with the public. That said, in even the worst of those lousy encounters, I NEVER had anyone at Greenhill ACTUALLY instruct me to dump a cat back into the wild. My response to the suggestion was, "Hey! I don't know whether this cat is Intact or not. If it's an intact female, it's going start producing kittens in short order!" (I hadn't determined whether it was a male or female at that point- the kitty struggled quite a bit when I first tried to check, so I just let it be and gave it chance to acclimate a little bit before checking again) Basically, Greenhill's response conveyed an attitude of, "Oh well. Not their problem. Nothing we can do about it."
To be fair, the person I spoke with DID tell me that I could check back in a week or so and see if any room had opened up to put the cat in quarantine... this was said to with such a lackluster tone that I figured there really wasn't much point to trying to call back. Listen, I totally get that during the "kitten season" ANY animal shelter is going to be overwhelmed and inundated with many animals needing help. But even at the worst floods of animals being turned over there are certain things they could and should have suggested.
For example:
* They did NOT offer to have me bring the cat in to be scanned for a microchip... So much for chipping being a sure-fire way to find lost pet! I had to go to a private source to get someone to scan the cat for a microchip.
* They did NOT ask me whether I might be willing foster it while they worked to make room for it.. NO suggestion regarding ANY kind of fostering possibility AT ALL with any other group or any private individual.
* They did NOT make any suggestion about posting an "animal found" ad With them or on Craigslist or ANYWHERE else.
* They did NOT ask if I would be willing to take the animal in for a health exam, nor did they refer me to any kind of low-cost venue for such a service .
I will be honest here, I've thought Greenhill Humane Society was a pretty questionable organization for a long time anyway, but now, DANG, I'm completely turned off. And it pisses me off that my Lane county tax dollars go to support that crackpot organization. Seriously, this whole experience has just left a really bad taste in my mouth. What a JOKE. read more