Village Steps In After Buffalo Grove Man Found With 25 Cats

BUFFALO GROVE, IL -- Mark Davis bought his first cat in 2008 after his wife of a quarter-century passed away. From there, he got another cat and another, and did not spay or neuter the cats, until he eventually had 25 cats at his home near Buffalo Grove High School. Last month, the village stepped in after a passerby to the home complained about the number felines, the Buffalo Grove Countryside reports.

Village ordinance allows residents to have no more than four cats at a home, according to the newspaper. Davis has kept the cats fed and clean but has been unable to pay for proper veterinary care for the cats.

Davis has cooperated with village officials who began to remove cats -- typically two at a time -- from his home in early September, according to the Buffalo Grove Countryside.

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Wendy Antaramian Powell, senior therapist at the Lake County Health Department, told the Buffalo Grove Countryside that people who take on, or "start collecting," too many animals often times have "obsessive compulsive tendencies hat can be brought on by the loss of a loved one or some other traumatic event," according to the newspaper.

"It has all to do with the loss," Powell told the Buffalo Grove Countryside. "Everything stopped at that point. It's this internal state to make things right."

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