Cats abandoned near dumpster

EAST CONCORD, N.Y. (WIVB) - A shelter in the southtowns is getting a good reputation as a haven for animals.

Someone trusted the shelter enough to leave nearly a dozen cats and kittens there without waiting for someone to come to the door.

One woman dropped off cats near a garbage dumpster at the Ten Lives Clubhouse, a cat rescue and adoption center located in the Town of East Concord.

"That's heartbreaking. I don't know why people do that," said staff worker, Paula Schwanz.

She says this isn't the first time cats have been left at the shelter's door step.

"It's happened before. Infact, one time in winter I got here in the morning and there was a box at the door and it turns out it was a cat," said Paula.

An unknown woman walked up to the front door Friday night and realized the shelter was closed but still released the cats into the parking lot.

Paula said that it was clear the four kittens and the two mother cats knew something was wrong.

"You could see from the video that they looked really confused they didn't know where they were or what's going on," Paula explained.

For more than 12 hours, six cats were outside the Ten Lives Clubhouse and miraculously Paula says that all of them made it underneath shelter.

Paula said, "They seemed to be in good health except for the fleas. They were just loaded with fleas."

Paula says that all the cats have since been given medical attention and they're next step is to get them adopted and to find the woman who dropped them off.

"It is illegal, it's abandonment," she said.