First Cat From January Dumping Incident Finds Forever Home
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The story began with a phone call to the Berkshire Humane Society from Good Samaritan Joshua Christman reporting a "roadblock of cats" and ended with one of the felines becoming a part of his family.
On Wednesday, the first of the 11 cats who were brought to the shelter after being dumped in Richmond and Lanesborough in late January went to a forever home.
Christman, who made the discovery while visiting a Richmond Pond with his daughter, adopted Arlo Guthrie, a 10-month-old domestic shorthair. He was accompanied by his wife, Jessica, and children Alice and Gabriel.
"It feels really good," he said about taking home the cat named after the local folk singer-songwriter.
"My wife saw him on the video and she fell in love with him immediately, I knew we would be coming to get him shortly after."
Soon after stumbling upon a literal roadblock of cats, Christman posted a video to his Facebook showing the scared animals scattered on the road, meowing; one even crawled up onto the wheel of his car.
It was clear that they wanted help.
The video has been viewed nearly 5,000 times.
"This is the man, this is the reason why all those cats are so lucky because he saw something, he reported it, and not only did he report it, Josh stayed behind and helped to support it," Executive Director of Berkshire Humane Society John Perreault said.
"It was because of Josh, the reason these cats had the ending that they did for sure."
The next morning, another group of cats was found in Lanesborough. All of the males are from Richmond and the females are from Lanesborough.
The cats were captured by Animal Dreams volunteers, Lanesborough Animal Control, and multiple rescuers.
Two Pittsfield individuals, Kelly Hathaway and Arthur W. Raney, are both facing 15 counts of animal cruelty for the alleged dumping of the cats. They had non-guilty pleas entered on their behalf in Pittsfield District Court in March and have a pre-trial hearing scheduled for May 9.
Christman said his family came in about a week after the rescue to check on the cats and Arlo climbed right up into his wife's chest.
"He's very friendly, he will fit in great with our cats," He added.
Mr. Guthrie will join six other rescues that are a part of the Christman family.
The remaining cats at the shelter range from long hairs to short hairs and vary in color. Their ages range from about 5 1/5 months to 7 years old. All have been vetted and neutered for adoption.
The females were given names that begin with D: Demi, Dixie, Darla, and Delilah, and the males were named after musicians: Ben King, Chuck Berry, Frank Sinatra, George Michael, and Dan Fogelberg.
One male, Eric Clapton, needs to improve medically before he can be adopted.
Chuck is set to go to his forever home Thursday and Demi has an interested adopter. The shelter reported that there has been interest in all of the available male cats but not yet in Dixie, Darla, and Delilah.
Christman said he has stayed in contact with some of the people who helped him out that night. He reported that there has been a lot of interest from the public in adopting the cats and hopes that they all find homes soon.
Adoption applications can be found on the shelter's website.
Tags: Berkshire Humane Society, cats,
