31 cats need our help!

Reposting from PAWS. Beth Olita's story is so touching, hope we can help her feed her cats...or adopt some of them. Please feel free to forward to other cat lovers too, or to those who simply want to support this kind soul.

btw, photo of cat on top was taken in Montalban and is not one of Beth's angels

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Beth Olita once lived in a rented room near a creek at the boundary of Project 2 and 3 in QC. On most nights, she would be bothered by the meowing of kittens. Later on, she would find out that these were kittens thrown into the creek by those who were trying to dispose of them.

In the mornings, she would pay street children a token amount to help her retrieve the poor kittens from the creek. This was the start of her many rescues.

At that time she was not yet aware of spay-neuter and sure enough, some of Beth's rescued cats mated with each other. The original 12 kitties fished out from the creek soon ballooned to 31.

It was a desperate Beth who called PAWS in November 2009, begging us to take in her cats because she could not afford to feed them.

The abandonment request is a common mistake made by callers, thinking that PAWS would agree to take in owned cats. But the PAWS shelter itself was filled to the rafters - with rescued cats already numbering more than 180 at that time. The shelter's "stop-admission policy" was also premised on the fact that it would enable pet owners to help themselves by offering neuter-spay, free veterinary assistance, free behavior training and whatever other free services for as long as it would help owners keep their pets.

The minute Beth showed up with her first batch of twelve cats for neutering, we could tell right away that the cats were well-loved. Despite the hardships in life, the cats were all clean and very fat. Beth mentioned that the cats were fed three times a day with whatever they (she and her friend, Mickey) could buy from their meager earnings. Even after all 31 cats were neutered, Beth would return every month to the shelter begging for donations of cat food so that she can continue to feed her cats (she has, upon our advice, cut down the feeding frequency to only 2 times a day now)..

Beth was retrenched from her work recently and has been finding it increasingly difficult to sustain all 31 cats. She shares her apartment with girl friend Mickey and she has no other family aside from her rescued cats. Judging from the frequency that she has been asking PAWS for cat food donations, her situation has just become more desperate. This afternoon, she visited us to ask for some more food, and we are down to just giving her extra donations of dog food - as the shelter itself has only enough catfood for its 205 shelter cats. Beth mentioned that she has resorted to buying the cheaper soon-to-spoil fish in the market and has even had the electricity cut off in their small apartment just to be able to cut down on living expenses. When we told her that the shelter might not be able to always supply her with food, she almost broke down in tears.

She asked us to try to put out an appeal to rehome her beloved cats. All are extremely well-behaved, spayed or neutered (all done for free by PAWS) , clean and healthy.

I had asked her for photos of the cats so that we can send out this appeal with some photos. But with no camera, the only option was if we could either go out to her place in Bulacan (she transferred to a smaller place to try to cut down on rent expenses) to take the photos ourselves.

We appeal for donations of cat food for Beth - which may be dropped off at the PAWS Animal Shelter properly labeled as "For BETH OLITA's 31 cats".

We appeal for people to apply to adopt some of Beth's cats so as to ease her financial burden. Kindly email us with the heading "ADOPT CAT FROM BETH OLITA" to arrange an appointment for interview.

This is not the appeal that we regularly make. But we do know that this is a special case and would appreciate hearing from any one who can reach out and help.

Thank you and God bless.

Anna Cabrera, Program Director

The Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS)