A strange sight in downtown Erie on Friday night turned into a rescue mission for dozens of cats in need of care.<\/p>\n
A man was spotted walking through the city pushing a cart loaded with crates full of cats. The crates contained dozens of animals.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when The ANNA Shelter stepped in.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I get these calls, they are strange or funny, and one of the girls said, \u2018Is this real life?\u2019 and I said, \u2018This is our life,\u2019\u201d said Ruth Thompson, Executive Director of The ANNA Shelter.<\/p>\n
According to Thompson, the man was overwhelmed but wanted to make sure the cats were safe and properly cared for.<\/p>\n
\u201cA gentleman just realized he was in over his head, doing the best he thought,\u201d Thompson explained. \u201cMaybe not a situation we would have put ourselves in or the way one of us would handle it, but in his mind, it was the best thing to do. He was kind to us, he was cooperative to everything we were doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thompson emphasized that the man had no intention of abandoning the animals.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had no intentions of just dumping them,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cHe wanted help for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Volunteers and staff immediately began caring for the cats, providing food, medical treatment, and temporary shelter.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing able to take them in and get them to that final stage just gives you the best feeling,\u201d said Alysha Mallon, the cat manager at The ANNA Shelter.<\/p>\n
Several of the cats are already being treated for minor upper respiratory illnesses, while others are awaiting spay and neuter procedures before becoming available for adoption.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cats are very friendly. They are so sweet,\u201d Mallon said. \u201cA couple of them have some upper respiratory [issues] and we have them on antibiotics. A few of them are on the spay and neuter list, so they will be up for adoption later this week.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shelter officials said the situation also serves as a reminder that pet owners who are struggling have options and resources available.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we don\u2019t have the physical space, we are going to offer you resources,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cWe do spay, neuter, free food, we do medical care, we will do what we can to assist.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once the cats complete medical treatment and get clean bills of health, they will be ready for new homes.<\/p>\n
According to Mallon, \u201cThe cats are very friendly. they are so sweet. A couple of them have some upper respiratory and we have them on antibiotics. A few of them are on the spade and neuter list, so they will be up for adoption later this week.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A strange sight in downtown Erie on Friday night turned into a rescue mission for dozens of cats…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196074,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[15062,11338,33412,695,136,138,137,87071,59531,4345],"class_list":["post-196073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-adoption","tag-animal-rescue","tag-anna-shelter","tag-cats","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-spay-and-neuter","tag-veterinary-care","tag-volunteers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}