A local woman in Central Texas had 80 cats removed by a shelter. The
good news is that other than a bad case of ear mites and a few skinny
ones, all the cats are adoptable!
Please purr for these kitties to find forever homes soon. Help
information at the bottom of the article.

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City seizes woman's herd of cats
Kyle resident mourns loss of 'loving pets' — more than 80 cats she kept
in a backyard pen.

By Claire Osborn
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, April 14, 2006

KYLE — The smell from the neighbor's house was so bad that Matilde
Mendoza said she couldn't let her children play in the backyard. The
smell was from the cats — more than 80 of them — living in a large wire
mesh pen in back of Jane Alaniz's house on Paddington Street.

When an animal control officer showed up a few weeks ago, he told Alaniz
that she was breaking several city ordinances, including one allowing
residents to have a maximum of five pets, said Lt. Pedro Hernandez of
the Kyle Police Department.

Patti Rudick, executive director of the PAWS Shelter and Humane Society
in Kyle, shows some of the more than 80 cats that were seized recently.
After vaccines and neutering, the cats will be available for adoption.

Jane Alaniz can't talk about her cats without crying. She says her pets
were well cared for and she was just 'trying to help little innocent
critters.'

Jane Alaniz kept her cats in a 30-foot-by-30-foot enclosure in her
backyard. She said she spread fresh cedar chips daily and fed the cats
at least 50 cans of cat food a day, with some dry cat food.

She said she would apply with the city for a special permit to keep the
animals, but she never did, Hernandez said. The city seized the cats
April 7, and now they are available for adoption at the PAWS Shelter and
Humane Society in Kyle.

Police have not decided whether to file charges against Alaniz for
breaking city ordinances, Hernandez said.

Alaniz, who works at the Internal Revenue Service, said she had asked
animal control for an extension because she was taking care of her
daughter, who is pregnant with twins and has health problems.

City officials kept changing their minds about what they wanted from
her, said Alaniz, who couldn't talk about her cats without crying.

She now plans to resign from her job and move out of state because of
the trauma of losing them, she said.

"I had some of the friendliest, most loving pets, and they are trying to
tell me they are neglected," Alaniz said. "I'm just somebody trying to
help little innocent critters."

She said she had 77 cats that lived in a 30-foot-by-30-foot, 7-foot-high
pen with a table and two park benches. She spread fresh cedar chips in
the pen every night and fed the cats at least 50 cans of cat food a day
and dry food, she said.

Some of the cats are underfed, but their biggest problem has been ear
mites, said Patti Rudick, the executive director of PAWS.

Some have stress-related illnesses such as diarrhea or urinary tract
infections, but they are all adoptable, said Samuel Ladach-Bark, a
veterinary technician at the shelter.

Alaniz voluntarily gave 15 to 20 cats to the shelter after the city
first contacted her but never brought the rest of them, Rudick said.

"This is ridiculous," said Alaniz's daughter, Sara Alaniz, who lives
with her parents. "People are trying to make my mother out to be a bad
person, and she is not."

Jane Alaniz, 53, said she grew up in South Texas on a farm with 23 dogs.
When her mother died in 1998, Alaniz said she promised her that she
would always look after homeless animals.

About five to six years ago people started leaving their unwanted cats
with her, and she also rescued abandoned cats from the streets, she said.

Tom Alaniz, her husband and a former member of the Del Valle school
board, said he and his wife always carry dog food, cat food and water in
their car to help animals they see.

When they moved from Austin to the Kyle house a few weeks ago, the owner
in California said it was all right to have the cats as long as they
were kept outside, Sara Alaniz said.

Jane Alaniz said she had been planning with a pet store to put the cats
up for adoption before they were seized from her.

Mendoza, who lives next door, said she isn't the one who called animal
control, but she's happy to have relief from the smell.

"People can have one or two or three cats, but 80-something is too
many," she said.

A Massachusetts veterinarian who has studied people who keep large
numbers of animals — called hoarders — said it not unusual to see cases
in which people are keeping hundreds of cats.

Dr. Gary Patronek is an assistant adjunct professor at Tufts University
in Boston who established the Hoarding of Animals Research Consortium in
the 1990s.

He said there are an estimated 3,000 cases of animal hoarding in the
United States annually.

It's not a well-studied issue, but many psychiatrists think animal
hoarders are dealing with a lot of unresolved grief, abandonment and
childhood traumas, Patronek said.

Jane Alaniz said she had a happy childhood and never felt that she had
too many cats.

"They gave me love and respect, and they never misunderstood me," she said.

How to help

The PAWS Shelter and Humane Society in Kyle is looking for new homes for
the seized cats as well as donations of canned cat food and kitty
litter. The shelter is less than a mile off Interstate 35 at 48 RM 150
East. Shelter hours are 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday and 11
a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. The shelter can be reached at (512)
268-1611