Yanking off duct tape wound tightly around a large plastic tub marked "donation," Moira Liskovec expected to find pet food for her cat-rescue operation.
Instead, she lifted the lid to reveal a live black cat.
"Can you imagine?" Liskovec said, still taken aback a week later.
The Ellicott City resident said it was dumb luck that she had decided to open the bin right after it had been plunked down by the animal cages minutes earlier by an anonymous donor who dashed off without speaking to anyone.
Otherwise, the makeshift carrier with no air holes would have quickly become a coffin.
"People can really be ignorant when it comes to animals," she said. "They treat them like they're disposable."
Liskovec, a lifelong animal lover, ought to know.
Over the past three years, she has rescued and adopted out 2,000 abandoned cats and kittens through her home-based nonprofit organization, Small Miracles Cat Rescue.
Yesterday, she and half of her 30 helpers were to hold a grand opening for her first storefront location in Ellicott City, where she began officially conducting business Jan. 9.
"I'm so excited that I'm having a hard time sleeping at night," Liskovec said about securing a site for her operation along U.S. 40, next to an emergency animal hospital.
Now, the all-volunteer group can show and adopt out dozens of cats every day but Sunday. Previously, four adoptable cats were housed free of charge at two Petco stores in Ellicott City and Columbia, and their customers were directed to contact her.
Spaying and neutering services are expected to be offered on the premises within a month, once the shelter's application for an animal hospital license is approved by the state, she said. Dr. Rose Smiley, a veterinarian and vice president of Small Miracles' board of directors, will handle surgeries.
But even as Liskovec upgrades her operation and joins other shelters in the area, she said the problem of abandoned cats remains nearly insurmountable and is worsened by the effect of the slumping economy on owners.
"People can't afford to feed their cats and often put them out on the streets when they're pregnant," Liskovec said. "It's amazing that their kittens survive."
Most of her shelter's 30 cages already house felines - from 9-week-old siblings Doodle, Dimple and Duffle, to Teddy, a yearlong boarder awaiting the right owner. Handwritten signs detailing the animals' stories were to be placed on each cage during yesterday's celebration to tug visitors' heartstrings and spur adoptions.
