Tragedy in Köflach

Cats lived next to their owner’s body for 3 weeks

Franziskus animal shelter manager Nina Mocnik during a night-time operation with officers from the police station in Köflach(Bild: Tierschutzverein Franziskus)

Six cats lived next to their owner's corpse for three weeks in Köflach before they were rescued by animal welfare. A tragic case like this shows that the increasing number of people with mental health problems also has an impact on their animals and Styrian animal shelters.

This operation was probably not easy for anyone: On Tuesday, officers from the Köflach police station and Nina Mocnik, head of the Franziskus animal shelter, went out together. The sad reason: the owner was discovered dead in a messy apartment in Köflach, her six cats had been living next to the corpse for three weeks. 

"Really hard to bear"
Nina Mocnik tells the "Krone": "Seeing such a fate is really hard to bear. The conditions on site, the smell of the corpse, all the animal droppings, simply terrible. My thanks go to the Köflach police station for their help, because it took hours to catch, secure and move the animals."

One of the cats found in the Messia apartment(Bild: Tierschutzverein Franziskus)

The animals were living in these conditions(Bild: Tierschutzverein Franziskus)

On the same day, the Noah's Ark animal rescue service in the north of Graz also had an emergency: two Amstaff mixes had to be picked up from an apartment. The sad reason: a suicide attempt by the owner. The owner's young son had to witness the whole tragedy and was on site when the animal rescuers, police and crisis intervention team arrived. The dogs were very frightened and were brought to Noah's Ark.

Human suffering causes animal suffering
For animal welfare organizations, too, such missions full of human and animal suffering are no longer an isolated occurrence: both the Franziskus animal shelter and Noah's Ark have come to realize that human suffering is on the rise: People are becoming increasingly overwhelmed. The consequences are mental illnesses, hospital stays, addictive behavior such as messy apartments or animal hoarding.

This sad trend is leading to an increase in the number of people taking in animals, leaving them behind and even surrendering them. "We are currently receiving a lot of calls from owners who have to give up their animals due to psychological stress," says Nadine Ferk, animal shelter manager at Arche Noah.