LETHBRIDGE- It’s a full house in the cat room at the Lethbridge Humane Society.
For Manager Barb Grodzicky, finding homes for the four-legged friends is a full-time job.
“We’re always at full capacity it seems, especially with the cats. As fast as we adopt them out, there’s twice as many waiting to come in.”
The need to re-home or rescue is year-round, but there tends to be a spike this time of year, Grodzicky added.
“People notice it more because it is cold and they will tend to try and pick them up and get them somewhere, so the need does become greater in the winter.”
The kitten room at the Humane Society is full of furry felines under the age of one – a trend that seems to be increasing this year.
“We have had a lot of kittens, a lot of litters of kittens… We didn’t used to get so many litters.”
Grodzicky said there is a bigger picture to the influx of cats all over the city.
“Everybody is running at full capacity all the time, and the big thing is that people need to spay and neuter their pets. It’s not going to fix everything right away, but the more cats that are spayed and neutered, even if they are outside, they aren’t able to have babies.”
Capacity at the Humane Society is supposed to be around 65 cats, but currently about 80 are being kept, with additional cats in foster homes.
“It’s the hardest thing in the world to say no, but we come in and we look around and we say, where are we going to put them,” Grodzicky said. “We can’t fit any more in, we can only fill the space that we have.”
Grodzicky said they try to work with people who find cats or are surrendering them to hold onto them until they have an opening, but the best way to ensure more room in the long term is to spay and neuter your pets.
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