Yesterday's paper had an article about people abandoning their pets when their homes go into foreclosure. All the animal shelters are full, as are the foster homes associated with them. A few people have called the shelters about what to do, but many realtors and others are finding the pets abandoned in the empty houses, sometimes dead because of the time lag between the time the people move out and when someone gets there to take possession of the house for the lender.

Abandoned pets have included tanks of fish, a pot belly pig, birds, rabbits in addition to dogs and cats.

A couple of years ago there was an item in the paper about how people abandon their pets when they move out of town rather than move them across country. I responded to that, and as a result our Buddy the Interstate Cat was featured in the Road Warrior column in the local paper. This is that same kind of situation, but sadder because there is a lot more of it going on - a couple of years ago more people were moving here than leaving, and now Nevada is number one in the nation for home foreclosures.



Malcolm the cat enjoys a back scratch from Patty Moore, cat supervisor at the Nevada SPCA. Malcolm, 3, was abandoned by his family after the house they were renting went into foreclosure. He and another cat were brought in by the landlord in a Tupperware box with no air vents.


This breaks my heart, and I wish we could adopt some of these animals but Buddy is extremely jealous - won't let us even talk to other humans much less other animals.