The Goodwill Store in Huron, Ohio got a bonus this week in a donated sofa.

When the sofa in question began yowling, it took store personnel a few minutes to locate the source.

“We heard meowing and didn’t know where it was coming from,” store clerk Kaila Voight said.

“We finally figured out it was coming from the couch. We removed the cushions and out popped the kitten’s head through a slit in the fabric covering the springs,” she said.

Workers tore apart the couch to be sure no addtional kittens were trapped.

The donor called later, saying she was missing a kitten. When she learned the cat had been located, she gave her permission for a customer to adopt him.

This isn’t the first instance of a couch cat stowaway. In March, Callie Jean was discovered in a thrift store couch after being trapped inside for 12 days, and Autumn the Cat was discovered in a discarded box spring minutes before being dumped in landfill.

REMINDER: When donating getting rid of furniture — especially couches and box springs — thoroughly inspect it and do a kitty count before it leaves your home.

[SOURCE: Sandusky Register Online]

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It’s miraculous enough to find a cat buried but still alive beneath a huge pile of rubble from a building destroyed by fire, but even more miraculous when that cat is found a month after the fire.

Smoka the Cat was last seen on August 9th, the night that the Franklin, Ohio apartment building in which she and owner lived burned to the ground. There was no sign of Smoka in any of her regular haunts, and everyone assumed she had perished in the fire.

Sandy LaPierre, Smoka’s owner, said, “Whenever my neighbor kicked the door in to get me out, she hid under the bed and that was the last I’ve seen of her.”

This week, as Starks Wrecking Services was clearing away the remaining hull of the building, one of the workers spotted a furry head poking up from beneath a pile of rubble. “I imagine 20 to 30 tons of trash on top of it,” said Clarence Witte. It was Smoka, dehydrated and emaciated, but still alive.

“I was stunned, shocked,” LaPierre said. “She is a miracle after staying there almost a month in the rubble.”

A veterinarian examined the cat, who was relatively healthy, given her ordeal, and said she had probably survived by eating insects.

“It looked like (she) just got off a boat from Ethiopia, but (she) was unscathed,” said Dennie Fitzgerald, the building’s owner. “With those bulldozers, those big bulldozers rolling over the top of that thing day after day, it should not have made it.”

• Watch the video here.

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• Eviction Order Rescinded: Snoopy Can Stay
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Imagine enjoying a beautiful bike ride in glorious Spring weather and coming across a foreclosed home in which you learn that nearly 60 cats were abandoned without food or water?

If you’re Gail Silver with Silver Bells Rescue in Ohio, you mobilize immediately and do what needs to be done to keep those cats from being picked up by animal control and immediately euthanized. That included getting other rescue groups involved.

Lynne Heldman with Save Our Strays (SOS) immediately assisted by placing the easiest cats to catch, as well as trapping the cats that had the most urgent medical issues. Janet Corbett with Wildwood Pet Network interviewed potential fosters and adopters. Anita Barron with Pet Alliance worked to find fosters, resources and funding for this very large and expensive initiative.

In cooperation with the Cincinnati SPCA, several veterinary hospitals offered discounted services; Fannie Mae, the lender that owned the house also assisted; neighbors who live on the block where the cats were found came to their aid; fosters and other volunteers who heard the story showed up to help, nearly 60 cats were rescued or accounted for, including six cats and kittens who did not survive. Many of the rescued cats required extensive veterinary services to bring them back to health. Click here to read more about the rescue.

A group of artists from around the country created original art from images of the foreclosure cats and donated their work to raise money to fund the rescue efforts through the Foreclosure Cats Art Project. The work is dazzling, and although the originals have been  successfully auctioned, you can purchase a calendar and other products with the images through the Foreclosure Cats Online Store.

The Foreclosure Cats Art Project was so successful that it spawned another rescue effort of a feral colony in an abandoned factory. The Factory Cats Project is raising money for TNR efforts at the abandoned factory, which also includes fostering, socializing and adopting out adoptable cats within that colony.

If you live in Ohio and can provide a home to one of the five remaining foreclosure cats or one of the factory cats, click one of the links below. Don’t live in Ohio? You can help by making a donation on the site or buying from their online store.

• Adopt a Foreclosure Cat
• Adopt a Factory Cat
• Foreclosure Cats website
• Foreclosure Cats Art Project  
• Foreclosure Cats Online Store
• The Factory Cats Project

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Claiming that the negative media coverage and a deluge of phone calls had nothing to do with their decision, the Windsong Care Center announced today that Snoopy the Cat may continue to live at the facility. (Thank you to all the Cat’s Meow readers who telephoned or wrote letters in support of Snoopy.)

Cuyahoga County’s Public Animal Welfare Society will be drawing up a legal agreement to ensure that Snoopy will not face eviction in the future. ”We are getting the agreement together. I don’t want this to happen again with this management or the next one,” said Amy Beichler, PAWS’ executive director.

Snoopy has happily resided at the facility since he was a kitten ten years ago. When cat lover Johanna Shapiro, who suffers from MS, moved into the facility six years ago, Snoopy took up residence in her room. Snoopy has been instrumental in helping Johanna battle the loneliness and depression that accompanies her disease.

When a new administration took over the facility in January, they gave Shapiro two weeks to relocate Snoopy. Click here for the full story.

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18 FEB BREAKING NEWS: Read the update

Johanna Shapiro has battled Multiple Sclerosis since she was 29 years old. Seven years ago, she was forced to move into a long term nursing facility. At the time, Shapiro–a lifetime cat lover–was forced to give up her two Siamese cats because the care center into which she was moving had a no-pets policy. She was heartbroken over the separation from her two best furry friends.

A year later, she moved to the Windsong Care Center near Akron, Ohio in order to be closer to her family. Her family selected Windsong because of its two resident cats, believing that Joanna would benefit from purr therapy. Shortly after her arrival, she formed a bond with a 10-year-old gray and white tabby named Snoopy, who had been adopted by the center four years earlier.

Snoopy took up residence in Shapiro’s room. ”He adopted me,” Shapiro said of Snoopy.

But Snoopy now faces eviction. The Windsong facility now has new administrators, and they’ve given Snoopy the boot.

Amy Beichler, executive director of Cuyahoga County’s Public Animal Welfare Society, said she thought the issue was resolved when the agreement was reached around Thanksgiving to confine the cat to Shapiro’s room.

”I felt we [PAWS] needed to get involved because this cat is therapy for her,” said Beichler.

The agreement also required that Snoopy be up to date on his inoculations and Shapiro’s family provide all of the cat’s food and care.

But in January on-site director Michael Demadall told the family that Snoopy had to go:

”I was told it’s a liability issue,” Grob said.

The Summit County Area Agency on Aging, whose volunteers visit the care center twice each month, learned of the situation and have urged administrators to let Snoopy stay for Shapiro’s well being.

”The cat helps the resident feel less lonely and alleviates stress and depression for her,” said Francine Chucharis, ombudsman supervisor for the long-term care program.

In a Jan. 31, 2009, letter addressed to Scott Bauer, director of operations for Windsong, PAWS attorney Dennis J. Niermann said Shapiro’s mental well-being impacts her health.

”It appears that the compassion for your clients is severely lacking, if not entirely absent,” Niermann wrote.

Shapiro’s physician, Timothy J. Carrabine of the Oak Clinic for Multiple Sclerosis in Uniontown, also sent the facility a letter asking administrators to allow his patient ”to keep her cat as it helps with her mental well-being.”

Windsong officials have not responded to calls seeking comment.

Last week, Shapiro was told by Windsong that Snoopy would have to leave by the end of this week.

”It’s an unusual situation and I think they’ve dug their heels in,” said Grob.

Beichler said she doesn’t understand Windsong’s stern stance.

”We told them they could stop all this bleeding. All they have to do is let the cat stay,” said Beichler.

If you’d like to voice your outrage at this facility’s insensitivity, here’s who to contact:

Scott Bauer, Director of Operations
Michael Demadall, On-site Director

WINDSONG CARE CENTER
120 BROOKMONT RD
AKRON, OH 44333

(330) 666-7373

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