GEORGETOWN, Del. - Delaware Animal Services (DAS) rescued 26 cats and kittens from a condemned home in Dover and then teamed up with the Brandywine Valley SPCA (BVSPCA) to get them ready for adoption.
"Our officer was advised by a Dover Police Department along with code enforcement," says DAS Chief Mark Tobin. "When we arrived we found a multitude of feces, urine, it was extremely contaminated. These poor cats were living in miserable conditions."
The cats arrived with varying health conditions, but already half of them have been adopted.
"A lot of them had skin issues, so thankfully skin issues are pretty easy to treat," says BVSPCA Director of Programs Rachel Golub. "Our vet team has worked really well with making sure that their health is good that their skin looks good and that they're doing better."
Golub says BVSPCA has seen more cases like this lately. Chief Tobin says DAS has already seized more than 70 cats this year. He says the summer heat sometimes leads officers to literally sniff out the homes when the heat causes conditions to smell worse.
"We also work with the Division of Aging or other ones because maybe these people just can't have the resources," Tobin says. "We have to balance between the criminal and are they just in some type of state or need of attention."
To prevent future hording cases, Chief Tobin reminds people to spay and neuter and says DAS has programs to help people pay for the service. Golub says regardless of their background, what cats need most to adjust to their new home is time.
"One of the things that we recommend is confining them for the first two weeks to like a bathroom or a bedroom or some place small so that they can get used to where the food is, the litter box and then the people that are coming and going," Golub says.
The home the cats were in was abandoned, so it's unclear if their former owners will face charges.
Click here for the adoption process.
