It costs $10,000 a month to look after 45 cats at this shelter

NEWS AND COMMENT: There is a privately run cat shelter in Northern Kentucky where 45 cats rescued from the street live in a $400,000 home at a cost of $10,000 per month to the owners and managers of the cat rescue. It is called Shane's Sanctuary and Kitty Adoption Center and it is run by Jan Malley and her husband Chip.

Montage: MikeB. Photos: Sam Greene

They only rescue cats that have been living on the streets. They don't advertise their address. They provide their telephone number on Facebook where they have a page.

It is a 3,000 square-foot facility. It is funded by Malley's family investments and retirement money. They say that they only write cheques in making payments but never receive cheques from anybody. It is all money going out and nothing coming in.

Comment: unless they have incredibly deep pockets, there must be an end to this experiment. They are affiliated to an organisation called The Humanitarian League formally the Humane Education League. It's an organisation which teaches universal kindness and compassion for all living creatures.

Ethel Palmer, started the organisation in 1960 and she is the mother of Jan Malley. It appears that a lot of the overheads go to employing people to help look after the kitties plus I guess vet fees and food but I can't square up the $10,000 per month overhead with looking after 45 cats. Can you?

Jan Malley and one of her rescue cats. Image credit as per the image.

Jan Malley said that, "It's almost like a business except all we do is write checks; we don't collect checks". What about fund raising?! 😊

As you properly know, in America the English spelling of 'cheque' is 'check'.

Malley said that she has approached the local authority suggesting that they build a sanctuary but it came to nothing. They've told the authority that they would pay up to $100,000 to build a facility and invest annually into that facility to keep it running but once again they were rejected.

One possibility why they were rejected is because in Kenton County where their rescue is situated, they operate TNR programs for feral and stray cats. 

And the local authority wants to keep it that way. The director of Kenton County Animal Services said, "There's a lot of people who don't understand that cats can be successful and happy outdoors. And that's just fundamentally a philosophical difference. I don't expect to change everyone's mind."

It looks like the local authority wants to keep TNR going and they don't believe in rescue centres. Apparently most of the cats are not adopted because they don't accept casual visitors. They accept visits by appointment which means telephoning Jan Malley to set up an appointment.

It would seem to be a very personalised form of cat rescue which is focused on making life very nice for the cats but it is not focused it seems to me on efficiently rehoming the cats and minimising overheads plus fund raising. Nice job though. Great for the cats but this can't last and don't think it should last. They can do it better. 😇

Source: Mail Online.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.