HOULTON, Maine — Two months ago, Sharon Wood’s mother lost her cat of 15 years, Boots, who died after a short illness.
Wood had purchased the cat for her mother, who lives in Houlton, from a family that had kittens to sell, and intended to do the same when she decided to get another cat last month.
“It was my friend who suggested that I check out the area shelters,” Wood said. “It was really something that I hadn’t thought too much about over the years. I had always purchased animals. But then I got to thinking that my mother is getting older, and maybe she didn’t need another animal that was going to require a lot of energy or live quite as long.”
She searched for about two weeks before she found the perfect 8-year-old calico cat from a nearby shelter.
“She just loves him,” she said. “I am very happy”
Adoption is something that more shelter officials want people to consider, especially when it comes to cats. That is especially true at the Houlton Humane Society, where the shelter is crowded with the animals.
“We always have more cats than dogs,” said CJ Virgie, a shelter official. “We were so full right through to Feb. 1 that we had to put the cats in double cages. It isn’t the kind of thing we want to see.”
The Houlton Animal Shelter, operated by the Houlton Humane Society, is set up to accommodate around 70 cats.
She said that the situation was ameliorated when 20 of the cats were sent down to southern Maine, and another 10 to 15 are scheduled to leave in the near future.
“We had no room at all, even though we were doing double caging and we had a number of cats in foster care,” she said. “We had to move them just to make room for the cats we pick up from our member towns.”
Despite the effort, she said that four cats had come into the shelter on Feb. 8.
“So now we are full again,” she said.
The situation is different at the Central Aroostook Humane Society in Mars Hill, according to Crystal Patterson, a shelter employee.
She said that while they always have more cats than dogs, they currently have just 35 cats, which is fewer than they have had in the past.
“The winter is always the hardest because people who find stray cats don’t want them running outside in the winter,” she said. “Especially when it is brutally cold. So if they can’t keep them in their homes or find a friend or neighbor to take them, they bring them to a shelter.”
Patterson said that the Mars Hill facility currently is hosting about 35 cats and two dogs.
“We are nowhere near as full as we have been in the past,” she said. “It is nice to see.”
Back in Houlton, Virgie said that residents who fail to spay or neuter their pets contribute to the shelter’s capacity.
“That leaves a lot of cats in the community running from house to house,” she said.
Virgie said that she and a friend have helped to lessen the problem through a spay and neuter program accessible to low income people.
“We have done over 1,300 cats since December 2014,” she said. “It is working out well.”
For more information about how how to adopt animals or support the Houlton Animal Shelter, call 532-2862 or check the group’s Facebook page.
For more information on the Central Aroostook Humane Society, call 764-3441 or check out that group’s Facebook page.
