85 live, 30 frozen cats found in woman's home

they were the one which died a natural death and she couldn’t bear to part with them.

Or couldn't bear to just throw them in the trash. Late in her life, my grandmother (long past her days of harboring a cat colony at a rural barn) called my mother to lament the passing of a beloved cat she'd had in her apartment for many years, and the fact that she no longer had a place to bury a departed little friend. It really tore her up to put "Mr. Blackfellow" out with the trash. I wouldn't have blamed her if she'd put him in the freezer, hoping that eventually there would be a way to bury him decently (I don't think there were any vets nearby who did cremations at that time, but that also costs money).

Yes, but many people — especially many elderly women living alone — don’t usually have the cash on hand to get a pet fixed promptly. To get one of the low-cost or free deals offered by some local governments and animal welfare groups, you generally have to get a form, mail it in, get a coupon back, go to a participating vet. No doubt a lot can be done by Internet now, but the pet still needs to get to the vet, and many elderly people don’t have computers or Internet access. Many also don’t have cars and live in areas where public transportation is limited or non-existent, andmay have physical disability (mobility, vision, etc) that complicate the process. I did this once a long time ago, in basically per-Internet era, and it took a month, with no transportation issues and no disabilities, to get the job done. And if the pet is a stray that wandered in, it may already be pregnant, and the person is likely not to have a carrier (and a random cardboard box is an iffy way to confine a healthy young cat through a couple of bus or train rides and walking between those and the home and vet’s office).

Yes, the problems you state are real ones.

I know that they are now using mobile vets to try to reach those who can't or won't go to get their pets fixed.

Clearly, we who are concerned about this problem have to support those groups that perform those functions.

Actually, the problem lies in the cost of visiting a vet.

The actual operation should not cost that much.

I took my stray cat to a vet that was doing the operation at cost and it was very inexpensive by comparsion to the normal rates.

The task seems daunting, and hopefully, something more simple and inexpensive will be developed.

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