Photographs by William Taufic.
If animals could talk, we’d hear Claudia Weber’s name from a menagerie, including cats and dogs who were abandoned and left to die; Canada geese, coming in for graceful landings when their feet aren’t tangled in fishing lines; and even a stately chestnut stallion who was slated for a meat factory but relocated to greener pastures. This special woman speaks for the creatures who can’t speak for themselves.
In 1985, Claudia left behind life in D.C., where she had worked for the Reagan Administration, and founded Strays and Others, a volunteer-based, private nonprofit in New Canaan that now receives nearly 5,000 calls per year. Claudia, who also wears the hat of Town Clerk and Justice of the Peace in New Canaan, has loved animals since childhood, when her parents presented her with a white miniature poodle who was her best friend for sixteen years. What really stoked her passion was the 1983 New Canaan fire she read about, in which two elderly people and twenty of their forty cats perished. She helped place some of the remaining ones, who were going to be killed, even taking a few home.
“Whether you’re two-footed or four-footed, feathered or furred, every life matters,” says Claudia as Snowy, a fifteen-year-old cat on chemotherapy, purrs contentedly in her lap. Even after a full day at work, Claudia puts in a second shift to keep things purring smoothly on behalf of the animals in her home and in shelters, waiting for the right owners to adopt them. She dreams big. “We rely entirely on donations from the public now,” she says. “I hope we can get greater funding to acquire property for rescue, rehabilitation, and education, and to offer sanctuary to animals who can’t be adopted so that they can live out their lives comfortably.” Strays also needs more volunteers, to help at the cat shelter, walk dogs in Norwalk, and pitch in with marketing and grant writing. “We’re about adopting animals, but we need to be adopted too,” Claudia explains.
Visit straysandothers.petfinder.com or call 203- 966-6556.