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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pielorinho" data-source="post: 3024965" data-attributes="member: 259">I worked for a humane society for six years (last Friday was my last day--I'm still in shock, even though it was a deliberate and amicable parting and I'll keep volunteering for them).  A couple notes:1)  Vraille, it sounds as if you're handling the situation very well.  I only wish everyone were as conscientious as you.2) Suggestions for killing the cats in various ways may be legal where you live, or may result in a felony animal cruelty charge, especially if you kill an owned animal in a way that causes suffering.  Animal welfare advocacy aside, you (I mean the impersonal "you" here, not Vraille specifically) need to be perfectly, crystal clear on the law before you decide to take matters into your own hands.3) I'm pretty surprised that the odor from five cats' droppings would be so strong that the animal control person would need to wear a mask.  That sounds to me as though her entire house might be full of cats, the classic animal hoarder type.  Are you certain it's this few animals, or are you judging by the animals you see?4) Things may be different where you live, but 'round our parts, animal control loves photographic evidence.  If you can get a disposable camera and take pictures of her cats on your property, that can be very helpful.5) Someone suggested removing the tags from the cat before taking him to the animal shelter.  This is a bad idea, for several reasons.  First, it creates a liability for you:  doing this is pretty illegal, and will probably constitute fraud (since most shelters have you sign a form attesting that you don't know the animal's owner).  Second, it's a terrible thing to do to the shelter staff:  if they end up having to euthanize an animal, and then the owner comes in later to find out their pet was euthanized, you can bet that owner is going to scream and wail at the poor shelter employees, maybe threaten their lives, maybe threaten to call the police on them, maybe start writing to city council with half-truth-filled screeds against the shelter.  Don't put the shelter employees in this situation.6) Finally, although some no-kill shelters will take in any animal, most are what's called "limited-access":  they only take in animals that they're pretty sure they can find a home for, and only take in animals when they currently have an open cage. The folks that run the open-access shelter--i.e., the folks that never turn an animal away--have a pretty thankless job.  I dunno how relevant that is, but I figured I'd throw it in anyway <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />.Good luck getting this awful situation resolved!Daniel</blockquote>

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