Unshelved by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum
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Tuesday, August 31, 2004

So, they have to twist the knife?

In the news yesterday was a heart-wrenching story of a house fire in which all the pets in the home died, and they showed on TV (and in the newspaper today) bodies being taken out, one after another.

The unusual part of this story is that in all, 48 animals--38 cats, eight dogs, and two rabbits, died. The house is a small four room building in the Red Mile area.

Now Lexington Humane Society officials are saying the woman who collected the pets, Laura Gimmoins, may face charges due to the number of pets involved.

I'm familiar with the 'collecting' phenomenon of people who have way too many animals than is healthy. It's related to hoarding and obsessive-compulsive disorder. I was probably on the road to it myself at one point--I had 3 cats and 2 dogs for awhile--all but the first gained within the first five years after my divorce, but had to institute a moratorium since I was already stretching in terms of being able to provide a stable houme. Contrary to popular belief, it's usually not little old ladies with cats, but middle aged women, often who have gone through a divorce or other trauma and put their desire to be a caregiver into 'saving' strays. Usually there are quite good intentions, although often it gets overwhelming after awhile and the health of the animals and the owner both suffer.

But...these don't appear to have suffered any neglect or cruelty. Ms. Gimmoins, who works on a local horse farm, apparently had each neutered or spayed, and neighbours said she treated the animals like her babies, and never saw any reason to complain.

The cause of the fire was a short in a fan that was on to cool one of the caged rabbits. Ms Gimmoins was at the farm at the time, which is probably good, as I suspect she might have died in the fire trying to save her animals.

Lexington/Fayette County has no law against keeping multiple cats. You are required to have a kennel licence for 10 or more dogs. I think that's a fairly recent measure, but I'm not sure. There were 8 dogs killed in the blaze, but apparently there were two more dogs on the farm with Ms Gimmoins.

Response to obvious cruelty is expected, but it sounds like this is a matter of a technicality being used to further add to the woman's already understandable pain. I hope they don't charge her, unless clear abuse is cited. It's not a good idea to have that many pets, but the care should outweigh the number, and I don't see where charging her at this point would improve the situation for anyone. She probably needs grief counseling, not fines. Hasn't she lost enough?

Lexington Herald-Leader | 08/31/2004 | Fire kills 48 animals

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