Volunteer Stories

The Rescue of Wade's Cats

Wade led quite a life from what we can tell. He was a professional photographer, doing shoots for Playboy magazine. He was actor at one time. But unfortunately during his last years he had fallen on hard times, living in a run down apartment off of Paradise and Flamingo Roads. Wade lived close to the Flamingo wash and started to notice a lot of cats in the area and pretty soon he's feeding the cats and then he's seeking help for veterinarian care and neutering. One of our volunteers named Staci ran into him by accident at a veterinarian clinic and offered to help trap the cats to get them spayed and neutered. With a large colony near a densely populated area, this can be an ongoing project because you never catch all the cats and new ones are always being dumped out. Wade did the best he could with the funds he had. Of course, the Las Vegas Valley Humane Society paid for all the spays and neuters. The baby cats and tamer ones were carried back to Wade's apartment and made their home there. Staci offered to help with getting some of them adopted but Wade couldn't seem to be able to part with them so pretty soon he has an apartment full of cats. Unfortunately Wade had a heart attack. He probably didn't want to call 911 because of his apartment full of cats so he tried to make his way over to the fire station on Flamingo Road but died at the doorway of the fire station. Humane Society volunteers were called in to rescue the now 25 cats in Wade's apartment. These cats for the most part were timid and scared so we had to catch and net them. Over several days the volunteers were able to catch all the cats, they were taken to a veterinarian clinic and checked out. We placed the more timid ones in foster homes for more socialization and we are still looking for new permanent homes.