It’s hard to forgive someone who abandons an animal, much less 22 of them. But there were some complicated circumstances surrounding the drop-off of a large number of cats at a pet store in Deleware this past January.

Deleware doesn’t have the same protections for cats as it does for dogs and Animal Services doesn’t pick up stray or feral cats. So we can only assume no shelter was available in time to accommodate a person who had to give up their pack of rescues.

The cats were left in the back of the Pet Valu store in Georgetown, Deleware.

Employee and rescue owner Kristi Idnurm was the first one into work that day when she saw a note taped to the door explaining the situation. She immediately went out back to make sure the animals were ok and found a box containing a mother cat and her four 3-week-old kittens as well as a wire crate containing 17 adult cats.

All of the animals had been well cared for. They were friendly, litterbox trained, and healthy. Someone had loved them up to that point.

Some of the cats were spayed or neutered and one of the adult females was pregnant.

It turns out that the person who abandoned them had spent years rehoming unwanted cats, but life circumstances had made it impossible to continue.

Of course, it’s a bad idea to dump animals, but the note explained that their original caretaker felt they had no other choice.

Idnurm thinks the person who dropped them at the store did so because they have an adoption program. But taking in 22 cats is no easy feat, even if it is better than leaving them in the woods or by the side of the road.

The note that came with the kittens began with the request to “Please understand and read this before you judge…”

“I have been rescuing cats for as long as I can remember. However, this year has completely broken me. Out back is all the babies I can’t find homes for, and I have run out of time.”

Life had been very unkind to this person.

First, they experienced a house fire and there was no insurance to take care of the damage. Then, their son was in a serious car wreck and required care that forced them to take time off of work.

As if that weren’t bad enough, their aunt was diagnosed with stage 4 liver cancer and moved into the house. The rest of their savings was spent on burial costs when she died.

But the final straw was receiving an eviction notice from their landlord and not being able to take the cats to their new home.

For some of us, our empathy for animals exceeds what we have for human beings. But this human was far worse off than the cats would ever be (aside from an uncomfortable few hours out in the cold).

Whoever dropped off the cats wanted them to have good homes. They even left crates, litterboxes, toys, and their last $30 to help with any costs incurred.

The boxes were labeled with names and information about the cats.

Idnurm was just the right person to come across the letter since she has her own rescue organization Kristi’s Kats, Inc.

Still, she and her colleagues had to scramble to make sure the cats would be ok.

“My volunteers came in force to wash carriers, fill litter boxes, make lists and answer questions,” she told The Dodo.

Despite the happy ending, Idnurm pointed out that the situation was anything but ideal.

“We’re not set up for that kind of situation. We had to call in extra staff to figure out how to handle this event,” she said. “I had to buy a lot of supplies and we certainly didn’t have space for 20 cats.”

But Idnurm did have compassion for the person who was forced to drop them off. And she spoke to the press about the cats partly in the hopes that the previous caretaker would see the news and know they were ok.

We can only hope that person is also ok after everything they’ve been through.

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Source: Dover Post, The Dodo