The owner/operator of a cat shelter in Glenboro isn’t noticing any spike in the number of cats coming into the facility.

Myrtle Nichols says the Glenboro Cat Rescue can house up to about 20 cats and right now they have about a dozen. Many animal shelters in Manitoba are reporting a high number of dogs and cats being surrendered or returned this year.

“Cats have been coming in and I’ve been lucky because people have been adopting. One thing that helps is I don’t have a large shelter and all winter I averaged 18 until the spring. Another thing that helps is I can only take cats from our municipality of Glenboro-South Cypress.”

Nichols says she takes calls from place like Deloraine, Baldur and Belmont and you feel bad because I can’t take them but I try to help refer them if I can help.

Right now a lot of the cats coming into the shelter are ones trapped in town by people trying to catch skunks and they end up catching cats.

“I haven’t noticed any spike and I know where all my cats go and I haven’t had any come back for that reason like people surrendering their pets which is wonderful. I haven’t had people giving up cats because they’re going back to work and the other concern is the price of cat food which has skyrocketed.”

Many cats from the Glenboro Cat Rescue started going out to new owners in April.

“A lot of cats were adopted by farmers because they said they lost cats to predators like coyotes and owls. A number of farmers have replenished their cats this past spring and they’re careful at watching out for predators on the farm.”