Home foreclosures taking their toll on pets as well

Animals sometimes being left behind when families forced to move away

Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2009

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by REID SILVERMAN Barbara Whipkey, president of St. Mary's County Animal Welfare League, with Stanley, one of three abandoned kittens found in a bucket in front of the True Value Hardware store in Leonardtown last month. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

The housing crisis has been hard on human residents who struggle to make payments or have to find new places to live.

But man's best friend and other pets often need new homes as well and can lose their lives if they don't find them.

In rare cases, some families simply abandon a once-beloved pet in a shuttered home to die a slow death of dehydration and starvation if not found in time.

Barbara Whipkey, president of St. Mary's Animal Welfare League, said her group took in a filthy and terrified terrier mix found in an empty home in Lexington Park about two years ago after tenants moved out.

Maggie went on to be adopted, but such stories do not always end so well. Late last year, a Glen Burnie cat was found dehydrated and emaciated in a home two months after its residents were evicted. Diagnosed with liver failure as a result of the deprivation, Calvert Animal Welfare League had the cat, named Thomas, put down days after getting him, according to Jodie Watts, feline manager for the group.

"I think my guess is that, in [the owners'] mind, they assume that someone will come in, find the animal, take care of them," Whipkey said. "I'm not sure whether they believe that's a better ending than taking them to the county shelter, which is definitely not the case — the county shelter is a much better place to take them. They're going to be fed and watered. Leaving them there in the home is not a good situation. I don't know if it's embarrassment at turning them in. I'm not sure if it's [because they think] the county shelter is a death sentence, which is not the case at all. I really don't know what goes through their mind."

Real-estate agent Darlene Silvestro found Thomas while showing the house to clients.

She remembered him as affectionate — and very thirsty — and brought the cat back to Prince Frederick in her car with her clients. She was disgusted that he was abandoned and surprised that other agents had not seen him.

"Throwaway pets. That's what you ought to call it. That's what they're doing," she said.

Michele Rockhill of St. Leonard is an agent in the same Prince Frederick office where Silvestro works. Rockhill is active with local animal welfare groups. She said she has not personally encountered clients having to give up their pets, but knows it is a problem because no-kill shelters throughout the region have hit capacity.

She is fostering a 7-year-old dog for the Calvert County Humane Society that was dumped in a neighborhood while suffering from "massive ear infections. The reason that I got this most recent dog, [whom] I call Angus, is because every foster home was full and that's the way it is for CAWL, for the Humane Society, for PAWS for Animals, Best Friends — whatever group it is, they're overflowing. It's a shame but that's what happens. And many times people don't want to give up animals, but if they've lost their home and moving into rentals that don't accept pets, what do you do?" she said.

Early this year, Calvert County animal control officer Tim Lewis was called to a home in the White Sands community in Lusby after evicted homeowners left a Rottweiler penned up outside in a kennel. While the dog's owner, who was out of the area, said in a telephone conversation with Lewis that his sister was caring for the dog, neighbors and real-estate agents reported the animal was often without food and water. In the end, the man signed the dog over to the county, which had the animal put down after it lunged at those caring for it. Isolation and neglect had likely made the dog aggressive, Lewis said.

"It was a sad story all around. It doesn't matter how you looked at it, it was sad. It was a dog that could have been great and they just threw him in a kennel," he said. "It was really sad. What happened is I'm sure they didn't do much with him and it got aggressive. That's what happens with people too if you leave them alone too long."

Recently Lewis has talked to residents concerned about "fish and cats, turtles and dogs. I think we had a fish a ways back. Sadly enough, you'd think people would be kinder. Wouldn't they think, ‘I have a fish in a tank, I have a dog out back,' and take them with them?" he said.

Jean Stuller, director of operations at the Charles County Humane Society, said the group's Waldorf shelter has seen fewer people coming in seeking to adopt animals, presumably for financial reasons.

The group keeps some animals for the long-term but those it cannot house go to Tri-County Animal Shelter in Hughesville where they might be destroyed, she said.

"Last week we had two cats turned into us because the owners were living in cars. We've had more animals turned in to us with that reason, that owners had lost their homes. I do see adoptions are down quite a bit and that's probably because of the crisis," she said.

Patuxent Animal Welfare League, a network of foster homes serving Southern Maryland and Prince George's and Anne Arundel counties, is out of room for new animals because adoptions have slowed drastically, according to cat manager Mary Baldwin.

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