The return of the prodigal cat

Today is a WONDERFUL day at our house.  Nearly 5 weeks ago, one of our two cats, Taio, went missing.    He is home today.  MUCH thinner, but seeming otherwise healthy.

So, in light of this very happy event, today seems like a good day to blog a bit about the local Tierheim, and how it compares to animal shelters in the US (though I fully admit that the last time i was in one in the US was almost 20 years ago, so perhaps things have changed).

When we went into the Tierheim looking for our new pets, we said we wanted cats and were asked if we wanted totally indoor cats or not.  In the US it is very much frowned upon to let pet cats outside, and we are fine with keeping cats in and said an indoor cat.  The employees got very stern looks and said there WAS one older cat who was declawed that we could look at.  A bit of discussion turned up the interesting (to us) fact that the attitude here is that it is cruel to the cats to keep them indoors all the time and under normal circumstances cats will not be given to owners who will not, or cannot let them out (so, if you live in an apartment with no direct exit, then you are out of luck!).

The cat area of the Tierheim is it's own building.  There are about 8 cats rooms, each about 6'x8' and each with an enclosed outdoor area about 6'x5'.  The ceilings are high and each room also has a large, multi-level climbing tree and several shelves along the walls with cat beds on them, litter boxes for each cat, etc.  They are really nice, big, spaces.

When we were adopting there were 3-4 cats per room, on a recent tour with Girl scouts there were 2-3 per room and only half the rooms were in use.  When we asked, we learned that the maximum is 6 cats per room, but that is rare.  If they are full they may ask people surrendering pets if they can wait a week or two and if not find another shelter in a nearby town.  They said a cat rarely stays longer than 3 weeks.  It seems they are a no kill shelter---with no real pressure from overcrowding to do so anyway.  I attribute this largely to the German tendency to follow rules!  There are probably a lot fewer pets whose owners neglect to spay and neuter them here than in the US.

Cats are where we spent the majority of our time, but the shelter also has dogs, rabbits, guinea pigs, donkeys (yes, really!), birds, etc.  It is really a pretty cool place.  Next time the scouts go back I will try to get some photos for you.  In the meantime, we are thrilled to have our Taio back again.  His sister, Fergie, seems pretty happy too.

I hope your Tuesday was half as good as mine,
Hadley