A few thousand cats are euthanized each year at the Windsor-Essex County Humane Society for medical reasons, some of which are treatable, and officials are working to change that.
The shelter has a 'Good Home Guarantee' for dogs and hopes to eventually have the same policy for cats.
Executive Director Melanie Coulter tells BlackburnNews.com two years ago 86 cats were euthanized due to lack of space, but that didn't happen in 2015.
Spring is generally when she says they receive an influx of kittens. Just recently a litter of 25 came in and were placed in foster homes.
"We would love to be able to put every kitten into foster, but when we get kittens in that are ill, sometimes those conditions may be treatable," Coulter explains. "But if foster homes are full and there's no place to safely treat them, that may be a situation where the kittens may need to be euthanized."
In 2015, around 2800 cats were euthanized due to medical or behavioural reasons such as aggression or not using the litter box, while 1427 were adopted.
That's a sharp decrease from 2014 when 3,675 cats were put down for health or behavioural reasons and 1,166 found a home.
Last year, the humane society says a large number of the euthanizations were due to serious or untreatable medical conditions, although they don't keep records of exactly how many.
Coulter says the number of cats euthanized has been gradually declining since 2011, which is when they started the spay and neuter program. The numbers may also seem high because the shelter never turns an animal away and often accepts the "difficult to adopt" animals others may reject, she says.
"What we're doing right now is what we need to continue doing," Coulter says. "We have alternative placement programs [such as] our barn buddy program, different programs to deal with cats that are not social and not friendly enough to be adoption candidates."
Last year, the humane society fixed nearly 5,000 animals, and three-quarters of those were cats.
The humane society is always looking for foster parents to help take in kittens or cats that need a little extra love. Anyone interested can email sheltermanager@windsorhumane.org or call 519-966-5751 ext. 13.