A couple had just finished having dinner at a Langley restaurant and were leaving when they noticed the cat carrier next to a dumpster.
When they investigated, they saw a big white and black cat was in the carrier and a note was attached.
“Senior unable to keep, please take to spa or C.A.R.E.S,” it read.
It happened a few day ago, just across the street from the PetSmart store on the Langley Bypass, which operates an adoption centre with the Canadian Animal Rescue and Extended Shelter (C.A.R.E.S).
“We took the cat to our vet, and he was a very unhappy guy, spitting at us,” C.A.R.E.S. president Carol Briner said.
“I suppose if I was dumped beside a trash bin, I would not be amused.”
The cat was “in pretty good shape overall” and had been declawed, Briner said.
His shots were updated and he was given the name “Miles” after the Milestones restaurant where the couple who found him were dining.
Lately, C.A.R.E.S. has had to shut down intakes, forced to turn away cats and kittens because of a lack of room.
But it makes exceptions in emergency cases.
A recent weekend adopt-a-thon by C.A.R.E.S found homes for 21 cats and kittens and put the shelter one step closer to re-opening it’s intakes.
“We’re getting there,” Briner said.
If C.A.R.E.S. can find homes for five or six more adult cats, it could re-open intakes, she said.
The shelter normally houses between 65 and 70 cats.
C.A.R.E.S was formed in 1993 when a group of animal lovers wanted a shelter for stray, abandoned and unwanted cats.
In February of 1998, C.A.R.E.S. began an alliance with PetSmart in Langley.
All Canadian shelters are struggling with what the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies (CFHS) called “Canada’s Cat Overpopulation Crisis” in a report issued in March.
“Every year, the population of homeless cats grows, and more and more cats flow into already crowded animal shelters,” the report said.
“Shelters … are overwhelmed with the number of cats in crisis.”
It estimated that less than half of cats admitted to shelters are adopted.
“Many never make it to a shelter, and die painful deaths outside.”
