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GOLD BAR, Snohomish County

Workers at Pasado’s Safe Haven, who rescued the cats earlier this week, said the pets seemed to be surviving on peanut butter and not much more.

“I had problems finding money for cat food,” said Meehan, 48. “I had to make a decision to find help.”

As the region’s economy falters and layoffs and housing foreclosures rise, animal advocates say pets be possible to be unseen victims. In the past hardly any months, pets here have been found abandoned on the front porches of destitute houses, pushed from cars on distant roads or in the wrap of more horses, left to starve in muddy fields.

The problem is worse in parts of the country with higher foreclosure rates, according to the American Humane Association. Allie Phillips, director of general body of mankind policy for the organization, aforesaid more animals are being abandoned at shelters and more are being found

“Nationally, 20,000 homes a day are being foreclosed. About 50 percent have at minutest one pet, and many are being left behind. Do the math. It’s a huge crisis,” related Phillips.

Locally, shelters shelter’t been inundated with wicked animals, but-end workers say in greater numbers people admit to dropping off dogs and cats because they be possible to no longer afford to keep them, or because they’ve been forced to move and either can’t afford a pet deposit or can’t catch housing that accepts pets.

Displaced families

“We’re because people surrendering well-loved, well-cared-for pets because they’re being forced to downsize or are no longer talented to produce care,” said Brenda Barnette, CEO of the Seattle Humane Society. She said that just as food-bank donations are down, so are donations to the Humane Society’s pet-food bank, which provides pet food to low-income seniors and AIDS patients.

“Our food-bank shelves are void,” she said.

Workers at Pasado’s Safe Haven say the call over of neglect and abandonment cases here started to rise in spring, because gas prices climbed above $4 a gallon. Angel Light, animal-cruelty conductor of researches for the Monroe rescue group, said people began to pay for gas with food money, and for groceries through what they had left, leaving some without sufficiency for fondle nutrition and veterinary care.

A former animal-control officer in Sultan and Index, Light said she began to view stray dogs that witnesses said had been pushed from cars that then flock from home. Last week in Granite Falls, a family evicted from a rental house left behind a dog, cat and chickens. Neighbors spotted the dog and cat upon the body the porch, destitute of nutriment or water. They brought a blanket and fed them until Pasado’s was finally contacted to pierce the animals up.

“We’re getting more calls for the sake of abandoned animals,” Light said.

Horses in Western Washington are also at risk for neglect and abandonment, animal advocates say, because the price of furnish with provisions has nearly doubled in the past two years and the costs of boarding and grooming have also climbed.

“We’re getting toward a call a lifetime for horses who be delivered of been left at boarding facilities, left following when a house is abandoned, or whose owners can no longer afford to keep them,” said Jenny Edwards, founder of Hope for Horses, an equine-rescue organization between Monroe and Woodinville.

Edwards marked to the case of Jean Marie Elledge, who in October was sentenced to nine months in jail for allowing several horses to starve to death on her Carnation farm. Edwards said great number horse owners, of the like kind as Elledge, cogitate they will be efficient to retort upon during the term of their horses’ upkeep through procreation and selling foals, and instead find themselves powerless to pay for the animals’ daily needs.

Horses that might be able to survive without interruption pasture grass in spring and summer, she uttered, originate showing signs of malnutrition in winter unless they’re fed high-quality grain. The price of Timothy and orchard grass, two types of livestock feed, has climbed to besides than $21 a bale, up from $11 a package pair years ago. Some horse owners, difficult to keep costs down, feed their horses bedding straw, what one. has almost no nutritional value, she said.

Horses, donkeys and burros also need regular hoof care, which can require to be paid betwixt $35 and $100 per farrier visit, Edwards said.

“We know more animals are going to be neglected because of the economy,” she before-mentioned.

Some owners sacrifice

But not everyone abandons animals because of household hard times. Hannah Evergreen, a Snohomish veterinarian who specializes in the holistic care of generous animals, said most of her clients will “take food ramen” rather than sacrifice their pets’ well-being.

“They’ll put their horses before themselves, in some cases,” she said.

But Evergreen reported there has been a rise in the number of unwanted horses taken in the character of the economy worsens and people struggle to pay since their animals’ upkeep.

“It’session harder to place horses and harder to find foster homes. People trying to downsize can’t afford the expense,” she said.

Pasado’s Safe Haven has also recently investigated individual cases of equine neglect. Among the most egregious were those of donkeys and burros hobbled because their hoofs had not been trimmed, possibly for years, said Light, the animal-cruelty investigator. She said hoofs should be trimmed every six to eight weeks.

In Gold Bar, Kurt Meehan aforesaid he didn’t have money to have his cats fixed, and then didn’cheek by jowl have money for food as they multiplied. The cat animal-water and feces got out of control, exacerbating his own respiratory problems.

Earlier this week, as Pasado’s workers trapped and loaded his cats for beatify, he related it was disagreeable to lose his companions of crowd years.

“It hurts to see them set out, but I’ve got to do something. I don’t have the money for food.”