In Hard Times for Humans, Hardships for Pets, Too

[DainBramaged]

At New York City’s main animal shelter, monthly calls to the volunteers who can help people keep their pets through tough financial times doubled, to 225 from 115, between January and September.

“We knew how valuable the program was, but now something like this hits, and people can’t afford vet care,” said Richard P. Gentles, the director of administration services for the shelter, Animal Care and Control of New York City. “Some can’t even afford food.”

Volunteers who work for the shelter’s four-year-old Safety Net program provide struggling pet owners with low-cost boarding or pet-training services, food donations, lists of apartment buildings that allow pets, even legal help if a landlord is trying to illegally evict a pet owner.

As the country’s financial crisis has deepened, more pet owners are asking the shelter for help.

Sadie Judge, 50, has been living with friends and relatives ever since she got sick and lost her teaching job at Brooklyn College as well as her apartment.

“I kept saying, ‘At least I’ve got my kitty cats,’ ” Ms. Judge said. But in early September, without her permission, she said, her roommate’s boyfriend took her four cats, Michael, Michelle, Molly and Gunzu, to Animal Care and Control, on East 110th Street between First and Second Avenues.

Ms. Judge said that after learning from her niece where her cats had been taken, she was told that she had 24 hours to get them out or they would be put up for adoption. But she had nowhere to take them. She was in tears when she happened to look up and see the Safety Net poster. Within two days, her cats were in two separate foster homes, and she hopes to get them back when she finds permanent housing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/18/nyregion/18pets.html

[roody]

1. Please consider fostering an animal or two if you can. eom

[no1dolo]

2. Not only that but...

there are many animals whose owners can no longer afford the proper care they need. That's why United to Help, Inc was started. So many animals are going without medical care due to their owners' financial concerns.