Woman Lives in Van with 120 Dogs

ARDMORE, Okla. -- There is an old woman who lives in a van -- she has so many dogs, she doesn't know how her lifestyle can withstand.

Animal rescue organizers don't understand how 71-year-old Catherine Titus has been able to care for more than 120 dogs, either, while living out of an stripped van in rural Wilson, Okla.

"The dogs mean everything, but it is definitely overwhelming for her," said Scott Sutherland, director of Southern Oklahoma Animal Resources (SORE), an organization that facilitates low-cost spay/neuter initiatives.

"She loves the dogs, but she has to be taking care of herself, too."

Titus, who is unemployed, survives off the $700 Social Security check she receives each month. Five hundred of those dollars go toward the dogs, who were all strays she took in several years ago.

The rest is used to feed herself.

Initially, Sutherland said, Titus, who used to work for the Humane Society in Texas, had around 35 dogs that stuck around her van after she continued to feed them.

The dogs continued to breed and grow in number, eventually depleting the majority of Titus' funds and energy.

She heard about SORE two months ago, Sutherland said, and called him, seeking urgent help.

"She said, 'I can't live like this any more. I have all of these dogs and I don't know what to do.' I went out there, met her, saw all the dogs, and it was just a mess. We couldn't even tell how many there were," he said.

None of the dogs, which were mostly Lab mixes and in the 20- to 30-pound range, had any shots, or were fixed. They had never visited a veterinarian, but appeared well-fed and, aside from cases of sarcoptic mange, in good health. Titus had also treated them herself, Sutherland said, with penicillin shots she occasionally administered.

Even though she recognized the need for assistance, Titus wasn't willing to give all of her dogs up. She allowed Sutherland and his team to remove approximately 76 dogs, which were later spayed and neutered.

Around 40 dogs remain on Titus' empty lot, Sutherland said. SORE hopes to have all of the dogs removed within the next few months, a variable dependent on Titus' willingness to release them.

The surrounding community does not have many state or city run animal care and control resources to fall back on, says Karin Morrison, director of Compassion Seeds, a private organization that provides animal re-homing and foster services.

"We try to do as much as we can, but this is a totally different area," Morrison said, remarking on the high abandonment and stray numbers in the community.

"We have gotten calls from people wanting to help from Germany to Maine, but no one here is stepping forward. We can't do it all on our own and people don't care."

The closest animal shelter, Ardmore Animal Care, Inc., is a private facility, which admits nearly 8,000 pets a year, its director, Kim Lee, told Pet Pulse.

Though the shelter is based one-and-a-half hours away from Titus' lot, Lee has brought her dogs food on several occasions. Lee also "tried to get the dogs out of there," she said, but Titus would not surrender them.

SORE has been working "non-stop" to reason with Titus over the past few weeks, and to also catch her dogs, which Sutherland described as "shy."

Only 15 of the dogs are presently available for adoption. The rest will "need a little more time" until they have received all necessary medical treatment and are properly socialized. They are not aggressive, Sutherland said, but are unused to the human touch.

"They need to be pet a little more, to spend more time with humans," Sutherland said. "We will continue to work with them."

SORE's efforts have become convoluted by Titus' fickle, yet determined nature, Sutherland says.

"We will take some dogs and then she will say that she wants the 10 oldest back, and then begins naming them," he explained. "Then we have to convince her all over again to allow us to keep those."

The situation can't be simply classified as a traditional hoarding case, Sutherland says, given the need for Titus' cooperation, as well as her attachment to the dogs.

"This isn't an animal rescue, but a human one, too," Sutherland explained. "This woman has nothing. She lives in a filthy, shell of a van that sits on flat tires. These animals are everything to her."

"If you remove some dogs, then yes, you have rescued some animals, but maybe we have destroyed a human being in the process, too."

As a part-Cherokee Indian, Titus is willing to be admitted to a shelter or facility available only to people of Native American descent.

But she won't got unless she knows that all of her dogs are taken care of.

Now looking outside the community, the animal welfare organizers assisting Titus are hoping other shelters or agencies will step in and lend a hand.

"Ardmore is only a town of 30,000, and the surrounding towns are only 2,000 to 4,000-population," Sutherland said. "We don't have a big market here and we need someone to step in, from New Jersey or New York to say, 'We will take 30 dogs, we can help.' "

It's a step that would help pull both the 120 dogs, Titus and her van out of the mud and onto a better life.

http://www.zootoo.com/petnews/womanlivesinvanwith120dogs-1093 

$10,000 of veterinarian bills-Can You Help Out?

The Humane Society of North Central Iowa is asking for the community's help.

The recent outbreak of parvovirus with the dogs and the e. coli outbreak among the cats have generated almost $10,000 of veterinarian bills.
Volunteers will be making calls from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. today to local residents who have donated in the past or who have been identified as animal lovers to ask for help to cover the costs to save the animals.
"The local vets have been very helpful providing discounts for the shelter animals and providing antibiotics," said Laurie Hagey, interim executive director for the shelter. "But when you think about how much it costs to provide one cat with medication and then you times that by 70 cats, it can get very expensive very fast."

All the cats housed at the shelter are being treated with antibiotics as a precaution, but only 20 cats have shown symptoms of an e. coli infection, she said. Of the cats who have been infected, five have died, and three of those were feral cats.

Hagey said the feral cats may have been cause of the outbreak and attempts to isolate the new animals for seven to 10 days were not successful.

"We don't have the ability to restrict air circulation at the shelter, so it's hard to completely isolate any animal," Hagey said.

Dr. Culley Holm, veterinarian at Holm Animal Hospital, said e. coli is a common virus found on just about every surface but is normally not deadly or even associated with respiratory symptoms much like the symptoms shown by the animals.

He said he suspects there is another virus at work and the culture that was grown at Iowa State University to determine the disease may have been contaminated with e.coli.

E. coli causes severe diarrhea that can turn deadly when not treated with antibiotics. The cats may not have e. coli, Holm said, but they are getting better with the prescribed antibiotics.

The facility housing the cats has been closed to the public while the cats recover, Hagey said. The cat shelter is expected to reopen Friday.
The dogs at the shelter suffered an outbreak earlier and nine dogs were infected with parvo. Of the nine dogs, four died, but the rest have recovered and adoption has continued in that facility, she said.

It was believed that the outbreak started when a stray dog was brought to the facility and isolation efforts didn't stop the infection.

A new shelter is being planned, and construction should begin in the spring, Hagey said. The new shelter will have separate isolation and quarantine wards for recently arrived or sick animals, and airlocks will reduce the opportunity for contamination between groups of animals.

People who would like to donate to the shelter can send their gift to the Humane Society of North Central Iowa , P.O. Box 3013, Fort Dodge. People can also call 570-6471 or 570-4106 between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m.

Indian Kashmir to Poison 100,000 Stray Dogs

RINAGAR — Officials in Indian-Kashmir have poisoned hundreds of dogs and aim to kill all 100,000 strays in the region's main city — saying the animals pose a risk to humans and make urban life unbearable.

With the world's highest rabies fatality rate, India has long struggled to control its millions of stray dogs, a problem exacerbated by rapidly growing cities and slums.

Animal rights activists vowed Thursday to go to court to stop the slaughter planned by Srinagar city, saying it is an illegal and cruel solution to a problem that could be addressed in other ways.

City officials, however, said they would press ahead.

"These dogs have become a big nuisance and they are threatening humans," said Dr. Riyaz Ahmad, the Srinagar city health officer who is organizing the killings.

"We have placed orders for the poison and then we will launch a large-scale drive. For the time being we are doing it with stocks we have," he told The Associated Press.

Ahmad said so far some 500 dogs have been killed. Asked if officials plan to kill all the city's strays — estimated at more than 100,000 — he said, "that's the target."

While officials have touted the program as an anti-rabies drive, Ahmad acknowledged that with only two deaths from 1,341 dog bites reported in Srinagar last year, it was more about appeasing the public.

"They should have done it earlier; these dogs have made our lives hell," said Shabir Ahmad, a construction worker.

"My son often asks when will I get these dogs killed because he is afraid to leave the house," said Muhammad Hayat Jeelani, a government worker.

Animal activists said they would try to stop the killings.

"We are going to file a suit against the municipal corporation if they go ahead with this, because this poisoning drive will be against the prevention of cruelty act," said Javaid Iqbal Shah, the deputy head of the Srinagar Society to Prevent Cruelty to Animals.

Shah said the poison used, strychnine, was particularly cruel, causing terrible suffering to the dogs.

"It cripples the nervous system and then chokes the animal. It is not a good sight to see these animals die by the roadside. I have seen children cry when they pass by these dying dogs," he said.

The poison, which is left in garbage dumps in pieces of offal, also inadvertently kills other animals, like cows, Shah said.

Shah said he had proposed the city carry out a sterilization program instead but acknowledged that his organization had only managed to sterilize 400 dogs in the last two years.

India accounts for more than 60 percent of the estimated 35,000 annual global rabies deaths, according to the World Health Organization, and stray dogs are often blamed.

In some areas, dogs form feral packs that have attacked people. However, other strays are "community pets," semi-tame animals who are cared for and fed by residents.

Other Indian cities have struggled unsuccessfully to curb the stray problem.

India's high-tech hub of Bangalore called off a drive to slaughter strays last year following allegations that untrained workers were stoning, strangling and beating the dogs to death.

In New Delhi, one city councilor suggested shipping the country's strays to Korea, where dog meat is considered a delicacy.

Other health officials in Srinagar said the city was exaggerating the danger posed by the dogs and could better spend the money on treatment.

"The real problem is that hospitals are poorly equipped to deal with dog bites," said Dr. Saleem Khan, who runs a state rabies clinic in Srinagar.

Khan noted that only one out of five rabies vaccinations needed after a bite were paid for by the hospital. The rest had to be bought privately for about $8.50 — more than a week's wages for many — and with most victims poor children, that was nearly impossible, he said.

China has also grappled with rabies outbreaks that kill more than 2,000 people each year, prompting officials throughout that country to order periodic dog killings.