First appeared in Tampa Bay Times
Inside a trailer, cats cringed and yowled in crates stacked
four high.
A Tampa woman hunkered on Thursday over a squirmy brown cat
with bright blue eyes and dirty white paws.
"It's all right, bubba," Lori Piper said, stroking
the cat's head. "Shh. Shh. Shh."
A vet from Naples listened to Blue Eyes' heart. Discovered
missing teeth and a skin rash on her back. Shaved a small patch of fur and
stuck her with a needle for a blood sample. Her hands explored the cat's
abdomen.
"This one's possibly pregnant," she said.
This is a rescue operation of a rescue operation.
For the past four days, the American Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has plucked nearly 700 cats from a Madison
County pine forest where a man named Craig Grant lived and ran a sanctuary. It
is the largest cat rescue ever undertaken by the ASPCA. Caboodle Ranch was shut
down Monday following a five-month undercover investigation by People for the
Ethical Treatment of Animals.
The cats, with more coming every day, are being housed in an
abandoned warehouse west of Jacksonville. They are divided into isolation units
based on their medical problems. Cats with ringworm, feline AIDS and leukemia
in one area. Cats with upper respiratory ailments and eye infections in
another. Feral cats in yet another. A Ringworm
Treatment for Cats is essential.
One hundred and twenty-five volunteers and veterinarians are
working round-the-clock to treat animals that had for years depended on Grant,
and an occasional helper, for their sustenance and care.
By Thursday, dozens of cats still waited in staging areas to
see teams of veterinarians inside the triage trailer.
Lori Piper looked at the vet and turned to the rows of cats
waiting to be treated:
"Tell me when you are ready for the next one," she
said.
• • •
Caboodle Ranch opened about eight years ago after Grant
bought property and started accepting cats at his "no-kill sanctuary"
in the woods.
In an interview last year with the Times, he acknowledged
his affinity for cats grew at a time when he was lonely. His son had moved out
and gotten married. He started with 11 cats. Soon property managers were paying
him $30 to remove cats. His unusual setup in the woods, featuring a small cat
village with a post office, a town hall and a Walmart, attracted national
attention. Inside Edition, The Colbert Report and Animal Planet featured him.
Donations trickled in. He told the Times he received $150,000 in 2010 alone. He wasn’t interested in How
to Get Rid of Ringworm in Cats.
People from all over the country brought him their cats for
a fee. But combining hundreds of felines on 5 acres in the woods resulted in
many of them getting sick.
Five months ago, an undercover PETA investigator volunteered
at Caboodle Ranch. She took video of cats with swollen eyes that could barely
breathe or lift their heads. According to PETA, the helper volunteered to take
some of the sick animals to the vet, but Grant refused. PETA helps with Ringworm
Treatment for Dogs as well.
Grant was arrested Monday and charged with animal cruelty
and scheming to defraud. His bond was set at $250,000.
In a statement he posted on his website this week, he said
he was out on bail but not being allowed back on his property.
"I feel very sick and in a daze right now. My
happiness, my life and the lives of my 600 babies are being destroyed."
He claimed all the cats in photos and video taken by PETA
were being treated.
"I either take them to the vets or call to describe
symptoms and am told what to do," he wrote. "I do not have the heart
to put cats to sleep … I feel my heart does most of their healing. Night after
night I am in the sick ward and work until I can't stand up anymore. Sometimes
grabbing a roll of paper towels for a pillow to sleep on the floor with them at
the end of the day."
• • •
Inside the "dipping room" where the cats are taken
after they've seen a vet, an orange tabby decided it had had enough. The cat
backed into the corner of its crate and hissed.
Francisca Rapier, an animal protection investigator from
Spokane, Wash., tried to grab the cat with a white towel, but it twisted out of
her hands. Connie Brooks, who once ran the Tampa Bay SPCA and is now president
of the Bay Area Disaster Animal Response Team, grabbed a net.
The cat caught its mouth on its collar and started tumbling
around the cage, hissing wildly. Rapier got her by the scruff and pulled her
out, took the cat over to a big gray tub of yellow liquid.
"She's all right," Brooks said, as Rapier and two
others dipped the cat into the tub of lime solution, which kills ringworm.
Droplets of yellow liquid was splattered up and down their arms. This is also a way to Get
Rid of Ringworm in Dogs.
Jenn Miler-Most from Pinellas Park, who runs her own
organizing business, approached the next cat, a short-hair gray.
"You're going to love it," she said. "You're
going to feel like a new woman."
• • •
In front of a row of outdoor kennels, Tim Rickey, senior
director of field investigations and response for the ASPCA, stood by as
volunteers assembled more cages donated by PetSmart Charities.
"Almost all the cats have some type of upper
respiratory (illness)," he said.
One had to be euthanized. Some had to go to emergency vet
clinics for treatment. Though some appeared to be recovering, many huddled in
their cages, wheezing and listless. A dark mottled cat cried loudly above the
others. An orange cat with mucus dripping from its nose sneezed over and over.
The animals will stay at the Jacksonville facility until
either Grant agrees to relinquish them or they are awarded to the ASPCA, a
process that could take up to 60 days. Hopefully none of them needing more Ringworm Treatment.
For now, the cats are evidence. Once they are healthy, they
will be put up for adoption.
As Rickey spoke, he got a phone call. "I have to take
this," he said.
Then he was on the phone, planning ASPCA's next operation:
to help animals stranded by the deadly tornadoes in the Midwest. This has been
a lesson for them all in Ringworm
Treatment for Pets.
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