Society For Prevention Of Cruelty To Animals In Cattaraugus County C

Please update your information!

This shelter has had a complete turnaround from the shoddy, filthy, unprofessional place it once was!! The current director, and the amazing and caring new staff are doing wonderful with the place!

ALL animals in their care are loved, nurtured and the aging facility is kept very clean, despite the need for costly improvements (which are planned for very near future due to diligence of staff and Board of Directors procuring funding!)
In fact, they have been so successful in finding loving adoptive homes their current animal count has happily decreased!!

Soo, please update your outdated information and give credit to those who deserve to be recognized!!

Thanks!

I have been a volunteer with the Spca in Catt County for almost 12 years. This shelter has come along way in the past 3 years. The building is improving daily. New roof, new doors, new open cat rooms, new fencing for the kennels, expanding kennels.... & much more. The staff and volunteers are polite and helpful. They have been improving in every aspect that they can! New policies and practices, new faces all around, community relations have greatly improved. They are always open to new suggestion and new faces wanting to help. I recommend if you want to get the best review for yourself that you stop by and see all the wonderful things happening!!! and while you there walk a dog, cuddle some cats...you'll be glad you did!!!!!!!!!!!

The SPCA in Cattaraugus County has had a tremendous turnaround. I got involved over 3 years ago, hoping to help create cage-free cat rooms as a volunteer. I teamed with two other cat lovers, and we were able to create The Margaret Mahar Cage-Free Center, with two nice rooms, Whisker Wonderland and Hotel Catafornia, joining the room already in place, Kitty Kingdom. As of today, more than half the cat residents have graduated to these rooms.

As we began our project, there were huge local protests against the shelter, resulting in the retirement of its director of 30 years, and the recruitment of a strong, stable board of directors made up of respected local business people. An experienced executive director, once a Camp Fire Girl executive, took over and a hardworking kennel manager was hired.

Memories of the smells are all that's left, as the exhaust and fan system has been fixed, funds raised for a brand new roof which is almost completed. Standards are high, staff is now cordial and motivated to make it the best shelter around. It can't all be done in 3 years, but a lot of hard work by many people has brought it a long way, with plans for more improvements to come, particularly new dog kennels. All who love animals are encouraged to volunteer, by walking dogs, petting cats, helping raise funds, creating events. With the whole community pitching in, this progress will continue.

As an animal professional, I offered my services to the spca free of charge but was told by the director, Kelly Chaffee, "You can have all the certifacations in the world, it doesnt mean SH*T!" and she hung up on me. This woman is extremely unprofessional, vulgar, rude and has held fundraising events intoxicated. The shelter itself is a dilapidated mess, no heat, empty bowls, extreme kennel aggression left unchecked, no medical staff, untrained workers who seem to find texting on their phones more important then cleaning or caring for the animals. When you can smell cat urine all the way in the parking lot before you even go inside...theres no point in going inside, this non-profit is a scam and should be shut down immediately!!

I went in for an adoption. The place was filthy. It smelled bad. The "volunteer" working there ask me "whats up, can I help you." Extremely unprofessional. Told her I was interested in adopting, asked me all these questions and then took me back to look,the place was horrible, feces all over, empty food dishes, water leaking from the roof in kennels, it was horrifying. Every animal I asked about , she wasn't sure about or told me she didn't know. She seem to want me to fill out the adoption application in a hurry and take a deposit awfully fast. I was extremely uncomfortable and just ended up leaving. I would never go back and those poor animals.

I walked into the SPCA and the place was filthy, smell was horrible. The girls there who greeted us were curt and rude, "Im busy I'll be with you in a little bit" is what we got. The longer we stayed there the worse the smell got. You could tell the place hadn't had a down on the hands and knees clean in years with all the grime. Finally got some attention after she kept yelling across the room giving orders to one of the other workers. Got to look at the dogs hesitantly because the girls was buzzing around all over the place. She explained their adoption process, a cost which we obviously realized after their speel that we couldn't afford once we found out their cost, fees , taxes and etc. We just wanted to adopt, help a dog. After we left, smelling disgusting, as if we had like walked through a sewer without getting wet, we found another shelter out of town, and wow what a difference. We adopted elsewhere. Catt Co. SPCA is appalling, filthy and should be condemned. They were too occupied talking about other people, yelling across the room and making sure we ended up finding a pet getting the application filled and a deposit down. It was all about them getting the money. Never were we asked about owning a pet before, our family or anything. Its reminded me of one of those puppy mills, you know the people that just keep breeding and breeding for money. Those poor animals. Who is running that organization or in charge anyway? I never saw anyone feeding or watering the animals, brushing, walking or anyone caring for any of them. There were 2 young girls there playing on their phones, yelling across the room laughing. The place is disheveled, unprofessional and should be shut down.

The people there are very warm and welcoming! You can tell right off the bat that they care very much for the animals of their organization as well as around the city and surrounding cities. I think they could do more philanthropic events to help benefit they're organization though. I know that in Salamanca, where I live, hears more from Friends of Strays than we do from SPCA.