An animal activist discovered an abandoned and neglected cat in late 2016. Its fur had become matted to the point of dreadlocks. The rescuers then worked extra hard to shave off two pounds of fur. The cat had deteriorated to this state after her owner was admitted to a nursing home due to Alzheimer’s disease. The pictures were posted by the Animal Rescue League Shelter and Wildlife Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
“This poor cat was brought to our clinic yesterday after her elderly had to move to a nursing home,” the center stated. She was suffering from severe matting that had been neglected for years. Our veterinarians shaved the pounds of matted fur from her body, and this cat is feeling much better now!” Paul Russell, a distant relative of the cat’s owner, rescued Hidey. Russel also rescued another cat after an elderly man became unable to care for his cats.
“When they put him in the nursing home, I thought, ‘Hey, he has a cat,'” Russel said to Dodo. I went down and left some food for the car until we figured out what we were going to do because the house was still open. Someone then mentioned that he had a second cat. So I began looking around, and then this enormous creature darts out from under the bed and runs down to the cellar, and I wondered, ‘What was that?’ At first, I thought it was a cat dragging down a blanket draped over her.
But now it’s revealed that it was Hidey. She crept into a cellar corner and hid. I was down there with a flashlight looking—it was almost like something out of a horror film. And I discovered her huddled in the corner. Probably terrified. Most likely in a lot of pain.” Animal rescue workers who saw the cat were astounded by the matted fur that had accumulated over the years. They suspected this was caused by the cat becoming too fat to properly groom herself.
The workers decided to shave it all off and put her under anesthesia to safely shave her dreadlocks. “She will be cared for by a distant relative of her previous owner and finally have a chance at a happy and healthy life,” the shelter said in a statement. Please remember to not only check on the elderly in your community, but also on their pets, to avoid incidents like this in the future.”