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Stolen kittens returned to shelter
The kittens were returned in a pillowcase.
YOUNGSTOWN — Two kittens that were stolen Thursday from the Cat Ladies’ Society shelter on Mahoning Avenue were returned safe, though hungry, Saturday afternoon.
Maria Guyan, shelter director, said a man walked into the shelter at 1:30 p.m. with a pillowcase.
“He said, ‘Here are your kittens,’” she said.
The pillowcase wasn’t moving.
“It scared me half to death,” she said. She asked the man if the kittens were dead, and he didn’t answer.
But when she looked in the pillowcase, Pookie, a 4-week-old brown tabby, and David, an 8-week-old Siamese mix, were fine.
But they were very hungry. Pookie had spaghetti sauce on his mouth, but spaghetti didn’t appear to have been enough to satisfy him.
“They’ve both eaten nonstop,” said Guyan, adding that they plowed through food for 10 minutes straight.
The man who returned them didn’t want the authorities involved, she said. He told her his drunk, bipolar girlfriend had wandered into the shelter and she thought the kittens, in cages not far from the front door, were cute. She snatched them.
But the man saw media reports about the kittens, he told Guyan, and he was afraid to keep them.
Guyan said shelter employees were in the back room tending to other kittens when Pookie and David were snatched.
She said Pookie was only at the shelter for the day to get medications, then he was going back to a foster home. David had been sick and had been in foster care, but Thursday was his first day back at the shelter.
There will be changes at the shelter because of the snatching, Guyan said.
There will no longer be an open-door policy. The door will be locked, and people will be screened before they’re allowed to enter.
She said the shelter is thankful the kittens are back. Friday, shelter workers had expressed fears that the kittens were taken for snake food or dog-fighting bait.
“We didn’t expect to see them again,” Guyan said.