“So the public knows the truth of Simon’s story”
From the SPCA Serving Allegany County,
Given the misinformation that is being spread we wanted to give the public an update on the cat, Simon, everyone has heard so much about lately. We are going to give a timeline of events, so the public knows the truth of Simon’s story.
– August 23, 2023 – A stray orange long haired cat shows up on someone’s porch in Andover and the person posts on Facebook: the cat is famished, has lots of burrs, people friendly, must have had a home at one time…message me if you know him.
– October 11, 2023 – The same concerned citizen in Andover posts on FB and contacts the SPCA Serving Allegany County regarding the same stray orange cat that had been showing up on their porch and the cat wanted to get into the house, but the homeowner could not let the cat in, due to having their own animals in the house. At the time, we were at full capacity and did not have room to take in any additional cats, so we added the stray orange cat to our surrender list. The cat remained outside at that residence for weeks.
– November 1, 2023 – At this time, we had space to take in more cats and contacted the concerned citizen, who was on our surrender list, and who had the stray orange cat hanging on her porch. The person responded that they had not seen the cat in about a week.
– March 10, 2024 – The same concerned citizen who contacted us back in October 2023 regarding the stray orange cat on their porch had posted on Facebook that the same orange stray cat was back and again looking in her windows. The person, whom the stray orange cat kept showing up to their house, made multiple attempts to find the owner of the stray cat, including Facebook posts and checking around the neighborhood for an owner.
– March 18, 2024 – The SPCA Serving Allegany County received contact from the person who had previously contacted us about the stray cat: “Hello, the stray from last Fall is back, very hungry and full of burrs.” Note: The SPCA Serving Allegany County had NOT received any contact of any kind from anyone missing an orange cat in Andover.
– March 19, 2024 – The stray orange cat named Simon was brought to the SPCA by the good Samaritan, and they filled out the relinquishment form. The SPCA Serving Allegany County performed the standard procedure upon intake, the cat was scanned for a microchip, none found, no tattoo, no collar, or tags on the cat to help identify and establish ownership. The cat was obviously very thin, weighing only 12.6 lbs., had burrs in its fur and was severely matted. Because of the severe matting we could not tell if the cat was a male or a female, he also was infested with ear mites. The condition of the cat upon intake was typical of a stray cat that was living outside and not being cared for properly.
– Simon was examined by a veterinarian and the Doctor had to sedate the cat in order to shave all the mats off. The cat was then determined to be an adult neutered male cat and the cat breed was a Maine Coon. Adult Maine Coon males could weigh up to 25lbs – again Simon weighed only 12.6 lbs., the veterinarian, who is a medical professional gave Simon the body condition score of 3 out of 9, which is considered poor. We provided all of his vaccines, flea & tick treatment, de-worming, ear mite treatment, microchip, FeLV & FIV combo tested him.
– After the 5-day hold required by New York State Agriculture & Markets law, Simon was ready for adoption and he was adopted out for our standard adoption fee for an adult cat of $80.00.
– April 2, 2024 – The SPCA Serving Allegany County is contacted by a woman in Andover claiming Simon, who has since been adopted, is her cat Chester. That same day, this person showed up at the shelter demanding we give her cat back. We advised that we no longer have the cat. We asked if she had ever contacted the shelter when her cat went missing, and she admitted she did NOT. This was 15 days after the stray cat was surrendered to our facility. Our investigation revealed that she had only posted him missing on her personal Facebook page on March 28th, and she advised us that he had gone missing on March 9th. The investigation concluded that she had waited 20 days to post her cat missing and never contacted the SPCA until 25 days after her cat went missing.
– We asked the person ‘how would we have known anything about your missing cat or how we would know it really was owned by you’? She stated she posted him on Facebook weeks ago. This turned out to be false. As the only post she could produce was made on March 28th and she stated to us that “everyone in town knows this is her cat as Chester roams around Andover, and I let him come and go as he pleases”. She also advised us that she bought him from a breeder for $1,900.00 and she did NOT have him microchipped. We also asked if she was aware of the condition of her cat and she said yes, since he is outside roaming around and he gets matted & burrs in his fur. We explained the cat was very underweight, infested with ear mites, the matting of fur and his overall condition was poor, if we had known upon intake who the owner was at the time, a cruelty investigation would have been launched.
– The SPCA has been wrongly accused of knowingly ‘stealing someone’s cat’ and adopting it out. These allegations are lies. The truth is, that we have been slandered, harassed, bullied, and threatened for just doing our jobs. To those folks who have threatened to kill or injure us or have threatened to burn our shelter to the ground, please remember the New York State Police are aware of the situation and our security system is robust. Also, please remember we are volunteer driven, and no one here deserves to be threatened for trying to help. It is NOT our purpose to go to people’s homes and pick up stray animals. We do not monitor the internet for stray animals, although we wish we had the time and resources to be able to.
– It is our purpose to take in animals in need, provide them with the proper care and medical attention and when they are ready, we adopt them out to forever-loving homes. It is the pet owner’s responsibility to report their animal missing or lost to the appropriate agencies – which is to contact local shelters, local dog control officers, area veterinarians, police, online posts, etc. We have provided courtesy FB posts when people contact us about their missing pets, and they provide us with the required information. In short, if a stray is turned into us, we will provide the animal the care needed and adopt it out within the confines of the law, which is exactly what we did.
