SCRAPS animals head by vanload to Seattle to relieve crowding

Of the 25 cats loaded into the van Sue Anderson drove last week to Seattle, there was one she wanted to make sure rode shotgun.

A very pregnant white mother lent her intermittent meow to a chorus that rose from the garage of the Spokane County Regional Animal Protection Service early Thursday morning, and Anderson wanted eyes on her the whole four-hour trip.

“Hopefully you won’t have more when you get to the other end,” joked Toni Harpel, who along with her son, William, packed two dozen kennels into the back of the van.

SCRAPS has employed a fleet of volunteers for the past several years to convoy animals that are either unfit for adoption or long-term residents in its limited kennel space to shelters and rescues in Western Washington. While a trio of dogs will make this trip with Anderson, most of the animals taken by highway are cats.

“Three percent of the cats that come in have a microchip or license,” said Janet Dixon, SCRAPS spokeswoman. “People have a very different opinion of cats than dogs.”

Last summer, SCRAPS sent more than 1,800 animals across the state using volunteer drivers like Anderson. Anderson, who also owns nonprofit group Pet Savers that performs low-cost spaying and neutering, once piled more than 50 cats into her personal car for the trip west. All volunteers must complete a defensive driving class and background check in order to drive the SCRAPS van, but Dixon said anyone can apply to take a handful of critters over the Cascades.

“We get a lot of couples,” Dixon said.

Anderson said she usually drives with a friend and tries to avoid getting too attached to the animals, which she knows will soon be out of her hands. While most of the animals fall asleep shortly into the drive (“Once I get to the big hill by the airport,” she said), Anderson spent much of a recent trip trying to calm a whining dog.

“I talked to her, I sang to her,” Anderson said. “We tried NPR. We tried classical music.”

Anderson said she tries to limit stops, because it can be difficult on the animals. The dogs are walked before they’re packed into kennels, with the cats stacked on top in what Anderson described as a cute puzzle.

Not all trips are uneventful. Anderson once ran out of gas a few miles outside of Ellensburg, and had to call a tow truck to bring her more.

“I paid $102 for two gallons of gas to make it to town,” she said.

Each kennel has paperwork listing how many cats are inside and where they’re headed, filled out by Harpel. A mother traveling west has already given birth, and is in the same kennel with her eight kittens.

“The mom is like, ‘Can I have my own kennel?’ ” Anderson said, watching the kittens tumble over each other as their mother looked on.

Dixon said SCRAPS will have to continue sending animals west to make room for all the newcomers brought in each day. She expected the spots freed up by the animals that left the Spokane Valley shelter that morning would be filled by the afternoon.

“We have too many animals here,” she said. “I can’t stress enough, get your pets spayed and neutered.”

Until Spokane County gets a handle on the booming pet population, it will fall to volunteer drivers, like Anderson, to continue taking them to shelters where overcrowding is less of a problem.

“It’s the biggest way I’ve found to make an impact in the community,” she said.