The Goat House

Kat Freydl

While I love, love, love the mission & intentions of Goathouse, it’s not a place I can in good conscience recommend. The quality of life for cats in their care seems to have gone rather concerningly downhill. When I visited in 2018, there were many volunteers who greeted visitors & explained the cat rooms, and who. had microchip scanners ready to identify and talk about cats. They seemed familiar with the cats in their care, and volunteers were never far. Now, though… Firstly, no one was in the shelter when we arrived, and for the duration of our stay, no one spoke to us the entire time we were there, even once. This would’ve been fine if anyone was supervising the cats, but no one was. Two or three cat fights broke out in the hour/hour and a half we spent there, pretty loud and scary ones, and no one came. We asked one volunteer if we could get the name of one of the cats; she laughed, said she didn’t know, and we didn’t see her again. When we went to leave, no one was there to open the gate. I’m confident that if we’d wanted to, we could’ve grabbed a cat and left and no one would’ve noticed - there was that little oversight. Most concerningly, I didn’t see even ONE healthy cat without fleas, eye problems, or a wheeze—and while I totally get that some diseases are hard to limit in a cage-free shelter, this was different. Some cats looked like they were starving, generally frail and with visible ribs; many others simply seemed unusually thin. The outdoor cats in particular were matted, dirty, covered in fleas, and many looked very ill with sunken eyes and scraggly coats. There was vomit and urine on the floor. Feral cats seemed to be mixed in with friendly ones; I was bitten FOUR TIMES in an hour by cats who approached *me* and attacked while I was sitting on a bench. I’m very comfortable around cats and know that this happens, and as a result I didn’t feel endangered, but I suspect that this mix of temperaments has something to do with the cat fights. An hour before closing time, one volunteer appeared (still not speaking to us) and began collecting every single toy in the room, including those actively being used by cats. The only interaction I saw between any volunteer and a cat was a volunteer moving a cat away from her with her foot as she continued picking up toys. Maybe I came on a bad day, but it is with a heavy heart that I must say the quality of life and overall health of the cats at Goathouse seems to have gone rather sharply downhill.

Hailey R

Amazing rescue

Josephine Webb

So many special cats in need of homes! They accept cat food donations and love volunteer help from our community. PBO Love in action!