Shelter works toward having all cats free-roam

ANDERSON, Ind. (AP) - Animal Protection League would like all of its sheltered cats to be cageless, but just five days after emptying most of the cages, the shelter is seeing the feat will be harder than it thought.

Maleah Stringer, director of Animal Protection League in Anderson, said in the first five days, 34 cats and kittens have ended up at the shelter.

Stringer said she's wanted to go cageless with the cats since she started in 2009.

"I had various people tell me I'm crazy, but we've already determined that I am kind of crazy, so I decided to do it any way," she said.

Cats fare better when they are able to roam around a room and socialize rather than being in a cage for long periods of time, Stringer said. Many of the cats were getting respiratory infections and sick in other ways when they were in cages.

"For them to stay there 24 (hours a day), 7 (days a week), it's a miserable life," she said.

It's also easier for the cats to adjust to a new home if they are adopted, which helps the return rate of adoptions at the facility.

"Oftentimes, when cats stay in a cage that long, they get basically kind of institutionalized," she said. "So if they do get adopted, they have a really hard time adapting to a home, to large spaces."

The room is filled with cat toys and chairs for volunteers to come in and pet the cats. Donors helped pay for the cat toys and towers, but the shelter is always looking for more donors.

The room will be easier to clean for staff as well, since they won't have to clean each cage individually. Hannah Blalock, volunteer, said she sees that the cats are happier already.

This isn't the first initiative to let cats roam at the Animal Protection League in Anderson. A two-story purple barn on the property has served as a haven for about 40 cats.

Now, about 40 additional cats are roaming free in the large cat room inside the shelter.

In addition to the large cat room inside the shelter, APL has two smaller cat rooms for cats who are infected with feline leukemia virus or feline AIDS and one for those who have been exposed to the viruses. Feline leukemia virus can be transmitted from infected cats to other cats through saliva and nasal secretions.

Even the cats who are sick, being cageless makes them happier, Stringer said.

"Even though these cats were infected and feline leukemia positive or AIDS positive, actively positive, they were thriving and healthy," she said.

Many of the cats in the infected and exposed rooms were from a couple of hoarding situations, Stringer said.

Stringer said she thinks it will be months at this point before the cats are truly able to be cageless, as the first five days showed her. Overcrowding is a frequent problem at the shelter in Anderson.

In the first five days of the cageless change, 13 dogs were also brought into the shelter. With a total of 47 animals coming into the shelter in those days, Stringer isn't confident the staff at the shelter will have the time or space to make her cageless dream a reality before October when their busy season lessens. Eventually, the only cats in cages at APL would be for new cats who are adjusting and cats who don't get along with other cats.

"In four or five days, our theory has been blown," she said.

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Source: The (Anderson) Herald-Bulletin, http://bit.ly/28O6sqZ

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Information from: The Herald Bulletin, http://www.theheraldbulletin.com