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Winsted Town Manager Josh Kelly and his girlfriend, Katie Lipman, with the two kittens they adopted from the hoarding situation at a home in town. More than 160 cats have been removed from the residence since they were first discovered in late June.

Winsted Town Manager Josh Kelly and his girlfriend, Katie Lipman, adopted two kittens from the hoarding situation at a home in town. Pictured is Roy. The kittens are about 10 weeks old.

Winsted Town Manager Josh Kelly and his girlfriend, Katie Lipman, adopted two kittens from the hoarding situation at a home in town. Pictured is Roy. The kittens are about 10 weeks old.

Winsted Town Manager Josh Kelly and his girlfriend, Katie Lipman, adopted two kittens from the hoarding situation at a home in town. Pictured is Sunny. The kittens are about 10 weeks old.

Winsted Town Manager Josh Kelly and his girlfriend, Katie Lipman, adopted two kittens from the hoarding situation at a home in town. Pictured is Sunny. The kittens are about 10 weeks old.

WINSTED — Two of the more than 160 cats rescued from a hoarding situation in June ended up going home with the rescue’s leader, Town Manager Josh Kelly.

The two male kittens, Sunny and Roy, are about 10 weeks old and are doing fine, said Kelly’s girlfriend, Katie Lipman. She and Kelly live on Meadow Street, and the four are adjusting to life together inside the house.

“They’re doing great — they had worms, so they’re being treated for that, but that’s almost over,” Lipman said.

Sunny, a white calico mix with patches of gray, is quite curious and wiggly, while Roy, a brown tabby, is a bit more cautious and slips away easily from a friendly hand. The kittens have completely bonded, Kelly said, and are happily playing together all day long.

Toys are scattered on the floor, and two tiny litter boxes stand side by side; in another corner, two matching pet bets and blankets await.

Their names have a story. Kelly and Lipman wanted to name them Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. “But we didn’t want to call a kitten Butch, so we decided to use Roy, because Butch Cassidy’s real name was Robert Leroy Parker,” Kelly said. “And Sunny, for Sundance.”

“That’s one of our favorite duo movies,” Lipman said. “They’re mischief makers, and they get into trouble, so it fits.”

The rescue operation continues for the remaining cats; more are being discovered now that the majority of the animals have been removed from the house, along with a ferret and several dogs.

“The cats we’re finding now are the ones that didn’t want to be found when we first went into the house,” Kelly said. “They’re more antisocial — they’re not used to being around people. So they will probably go to an animal shelter; they’re not really ready to be adopted yet.”

Meanwhile, other cats are ready to go home with a new family. The town still is using Batcheller School as a temporary animal shelter, where they can be treated and cared for while they adjust to having been removed from the house.

Twelve animal shelters have taken many of the cats, and those groups’ contact information is available on Kelly’s Facebook page.

“At this point, the biggest way individuals can help care for these cats is by considering adoption from one of our partner shelters/rescues,” he said.

Winsted also received plenty of monetary donations to help the animals, Kelly said.

“We’ve got veterinary bills to pay, but what we’ve received will exceed what those bills amount to. When we pay what we’re responsible for, we’ll divide the money and donate it to the shelters.”

Winsted police say the investigation into the animal hoarding situation is continuing.

Emily M. Olson is the community editor for the Torrington Register Citizen, the New Haven Register and the Middletown Press.

She is a 1997 graduate of Western Connecticut State University with a degree in English and a minor in journalism.

She started her career at the Patent Trader newspaper in Westchester County, NY in 1998. After a brief period as a reporter with the Register Citizen in Torrington in 1999, she joined the former Housatonic Publications group as a reporter. She was managing editor of the former Litchfield Enquirer and helped run the weekly newspapers at Housatonic and the Litchfield County Times. She returned to the Register Citizen in 2009.