Frustration
No local organization has gotten back to me with any meaningful offers of help, and yesterday I realized that the situation was more appalling than I thought; there were at least five kittens out there. I saw a new one yesterday morning, a simply gorgeous little calico. I had to do something, I couldn't just wait around.
The organizations that do feral rescue couldn't do anything to help since they aren't my animals or on my property, and it's not exactly legal to place traps for what might legally be considered other people's pets on property that isn't yours.
The feral rescue people referred me to the SPCA. I called the SPCA, whose cruelty investigator is in the hospital. They referred me to the Humane Society, who has no cruelty investigator. The Humane Society referred me to the police, who referred me to animal control, who actually did come out to take a report.
A note has been left on their property by the city representative, a cute and very professional guy named Sutherland. I checked to be sure he left them a warning, and in addition, I left them a letter. They have 24 hours to comply with the law and contain the animals, or the cats will be carted to the shelter.
Now, it's possible, despite local laws against feeding strays and feral cats, that these people will escape without penalty. It's very hard to prove ownership of an outdoor animal on open property. Of course, it's also possible that they will nail their asses to the barn door. And this way, there is documentation that it has happened before, should it happen again.
I don't want the kittens to go to the city shelter, so I tried to round them up when I dropped by yesterday, but they're wily little bastards. Given that, it's possible that even if the cat catchers come by they will escape. If I can catch any of them over the next few days, I will.
And then, well, I simply have no idea what I'll do with them. But they sure are cute.
Now, I've seen fewer cats today so far -- as in, I saw exactly two, and that's it. I can hope this means that the situation is going to improve. I saw no kittens this morning, which I hope means they have been taken someplace safe before the city comes to haul them away.
The text of the note I left these people is below, so that you can see how tactful and restrained I was, despite the strong urge to wax piratical and swear until the paper caught fire.
***
On Friday as I took my morning walk, I found a kitten in your driveway. It had just rained, but this kitten was too weak to move to shelter. He was soaking wet. When I picked him up, I saw that both eyes were infected, and he was so weak he could barely struggle or cry. I knocked on your door but nobody was home, so I took him to the vet. How could I leave him to die cold and alone?
He had so many fleas the water that ran off him and onto my running shirt was pink from the dried blood in the flea droppings. His eyes were so infected he was completely blind. The vet gave him a transfusion to replace the blood he had lost through flea bites, treated his eyes, and started him on a course of IV antibiotics. I left him there and went home, where I agonized over his progress. "Joey" faded in and out for a while, but by Saturday was doing so well that they told me I could take him home the next day. I visited him, and he was doing better, able to crawl around! I hand-fed him a little, and since the vet had cleaned his eyes, I was even able to look into his face and he into mine. I got to hold him when he climbed onto my shirt, crying insistently. He missed his mother, he missed his brothers and sisters. I told him he was brave, I told him he was loved, and I told him I would do everything I could to help him. And when I left him, I like to think we both felt better than we had before.
To my sorrow, he took a turn for the worse and died Sunday morning, bare minutes before I came to pick him up. You could have heard my heart crack a hundred miles away. My poor little black and white buddy was gone. I had been too late to save him. The vet told me that he was so malnourished and so anemic from blood loss that it was amazing he'd lasted as long and fought as hard as he did. It was the blood loss that finally did him in. Though they tried heroically to save him, in the end they lost the fight and little Joey gave out. There simply wasn't enough to work with.
I cried all of Sunday morning over his death. It hit very close to home for me. I know what it feels like to be dying of anemia - I suffered from it for a year during high school. During that time, my life was a waking nightmare. I felt like I could never catch my breath, because I didn't have enough blood to carry oxygen through my body. I was weak and constantly tired, could barely move faster than a crawl. I was always sleepy, couldn't think well, and it chills me even now to think about the bone-deep cold I felt because my body was pulling blood out of my limbs simply to keep me alive. Because I had such weak blood, my immune system was a wreck. I caught every virus and infection that came my way, and missed more than half of one school year from combined exhaustion and illness. I had a safe place to sleep, though, and warm food, and parents who cared for me no matter how sick I got.
Joey had it so much worse.
It's too late for him, but he has siblings, and he has family. I beg you in the name of the animals you clearly love to do the right thing and get medical care for them, or release them to the city so that new homes can be found for them. And I beg you not to allow this to happen again. Feeding strays is kind for a day, for a meal, but in the long run it creates more suffering than it cures. It creates suffering like Joey's, with animals breeding out of control, and the helpless kittens dying cold and blind like Joey, who was too weak to move out of the rain, unable to even see to find shelter or follow his family.
Please, please do not let this happen again.
Street Cats has a voucher program where, for $20, you can get a feral or stray animal neutered and vaccinated for rabies. They can be reached at 492-8887. You want to speak to Linda, though anyone who answers can probably explain the program to you. All you need to provide is the money - a very small charge, really - and space for the animals to recover from surgery for a couple of days.
There are other low-cost spay/neuter programs in the city. A call to the Humane Society (250-DOGS) or to the SPCA (42T-SPCA) can get you a list of those clinics closest to you. The SPCA even runs an on-site clinic at its shelter that offers low-cost spaying and neutering, as well as vaccinations and other medical care.
You have fed these cats, invited them onto your property, and now these animals are counting on you to save their lives, to prevent them from giving birth to litter after litter of kittens that will only suffer and die, or at best go on to breed more kittens who will also suffer and die, or breed more kittens, and so on and so on.
I truly believe you want to do the right thing, and are only trying to help. True help sometimes means caring in a deeper way, deeper than a meal or two. Sometimes it means doing things that hurt, the way that having to report this situation hurt me to the bone, and sometimes it means doing things that are difficult or inconvenient.
Please don't let Joey's short life and sad death be in vain. Please take advantage of the help that is available to you. Please help these cats. And even if you feel you can do nothing, and you must allow the city to remove the cats, please remember that you can do a great deal of good by simply not allowing this to happen again.
I wish you and your cats well, and I am truly sorry that this has happened. I could not, in good conscience, allow it to continue.
With my best,
Naamah
***
I think that's about the best and most understanding letter they could have hoped for under the circumstances, and I hope it makes them cry until they throw up. I debated leaving my phone number so that I could offer them my help, but decided that they probably will not be grateful enough for the intervention to use the information wisely. I'll just give them time to maybe try on their own, cool off a bit, and then I'll try to catch them at home so we can talk like civilized people.
You know. Over the corpses of kittens.
Yes. I'm still very angry, and I am likely to remain so until I know some good has come of this. I have no idea if I'm doing the right thing or getting the best help or going about this in the most sane and effective way, and I have no idea how in the heck I'm going to take care of the kittens if I catch them. I have no idea what I'm doing. None. Everything I try to do to help either doesn't work or requires cooperation I can't get. Not a single person locally will tell me how to get out of this for less than an arm and a leg and a chunk of my soul.
Ugh. They don't tell you that being a grownup isn't about knowing what to do or knowing what's right, but in being put in a situation where what is right is not possible and then being able to make any decision at all in the face of the hundred remaining crappy choices. I hate this, and yet there are people who do it every day.
If anything else of note happens, if I can find where the cats are taken or if I can get hold of some of them myself, I will start taking donations for their upkeep. Until then, I cannot in good conscience take anyone's money, since I'm not out more than a couple hundred dollars (final bill pending). I can afford it, no stitches.
My suggestion, if you really have to do something right this minute, is to locate an organization in your area that does low-cost spay/neuters and donate a buck or two to them, or donate an hour of time this weekend to a rescue group. There are things you can do besides fostering foundlings and cleaning cages: animals need to be shown at pet stores, phone lines are always busy, and transportation is sometimes hard to come by if an animal has been placed with a family that's not local. Materials are helpful, too: perishables as well as stuff like food bowls and blankets and heating pads. People who can just come in and help socialize the animals or be available for moral support are also usually welcome.
Call and ask. When righting a wrong, the first question should not be "Who is at fault?" but "What can I do to help?"
The organizations that do feral rescue couldn't do anything to help since they aren't my animals or on my property, and it's not exactly legal to place traps for what might legally be considered other people's pets on property that isn't yours.
The feral rescue people referred me to the SPCA. I called the SPCA, whose cruelty investigator is in the hospital. They referred me to the Humane Society, who has no cruelty investigator. The Humane Society referred me to the police, who referred me to animal control, who actually did come out to take a report.
A note has been left on their property by the city representative, a cute and very professional guy named Sutherland. I checked to be sure he left them a warning, and in addition, I left them a letter. They have 24 hours to comply with the law and contain the animals, or the cats will be carted to the shelter.
Now, it's possible, despite local laws against feeding strays and feral cats, that these people will escape without penalty. It's very hard to prove ownership of an outdoor animal on open property. Of course, it's also possible that they will nail their asses to the barn door. And this way, there is documentation that it has happened before, should it happen again.
I don't want the kittens to go to the city shelter, so I tried to round them up when I dropped by yesterday, but they're wily little bastards. Given that, it's possible that even if the cat catchers come by they will escape. If I can catch any of them over the next few days, I will.
And then, well, I simply have no idea what I'll do with them. But they sure are cute.
Now, I've seen fewer cats today so far -- as in, I saw exactly two, and that's it. I can hope this means that the situation is going to improve. I saw no kittens this morning, which I hope means they have been taken someplace safe before the city comes to haul them away.
The text of the note I left these people is below, so that you can see how tactful and restrained I was, despite the strong urge to wax piratical and swear until the paper caught fire.
***
On Friday as I took my morning walk, I found a kitten in your driveway. It had just rained, but this kitten was too weak to move to shelter. He was soaking wet. When I picked him up, I saw that both eyes were infected, and he was so weak he could barely struggle or cry. I knocked on your door but nobody was home, so I took him to the vet. How could I leave him to die cold and alone?
He had so many fleas the water that ran off him and onto my running shirt was pink from the dried blood in the flea droppings. His eyes were so infected he was completely blind. The vet gave him a transfusion to replace the blood he had lost through flea bites, treated his eyes, and started him on a course of IV antibiotics. I left him there and went home, where I agonized over his progress. "Joey" faded in and out for a while, but by Saturday was doing so well that they told me I could take him home the next day. I visited him, and he was doing better, able to crawl around! I hand-fed him a little, and since the vet had cleaned his eyes, I was even able to look into his face and he into mine. I got to hold him when he climbed onto my shirt, crying insistently. He missed his mother, he missed his brothers and sisters. I told him he was brave, I told him he was loved, and I told him I would do everything I could to help him. And when I left him, I like to think we both felt better than we had before.
To my sorrow, he took a turn for the worse and died Sunday morning, bare minutes before I came to pick him up. You could have heard my heart crack a hundred miles away. My poor little black and white buddy was gone. I had been too late to save him. The vet told me that he was so malnourished and so anemic from blood loss that it was amazing he'd lasted as long and fought as hard as he did. It was the blood loss that finally did him in. Though they tried heroically to save him, in the end they lost the fight and little Joey gave out. There simply wasn't enough to work with.
I cried all of Sunday morning over his death. It hit very close to home for me. I know what it feels like to be dying of anemia - I suffered from it for a year during high school. During that time, my life was a waking nightmare. I felt like I could never catch my breath, because I didn't have enough blood to carry oxygen through my body. I was weak and constantly tired, could barely move faster than a crawl. I was always sleepy, couldn't think well, and it chills me even now to think about the bone-deep cold I felt because my body was pulling blood out of my limbs simply to keep me alive. Because I had such weak blood, my immune system was a wreck. I caught every virus and infection that came my way, and missed more than half of one school year from combined exhaustion and illness. I had a safe place to sleep, though, and warm food, and parents who cared for me no matter how sick I got.
Joey had it so much worse.
It's too late for him, but he has siblings, and he has family. I beg you in the name of the animals you clearly love to do the right thing and get medical care for them, or release them to the city so that new homes can be found for them. And I beg you not to allow this to happen again. Feeding strays is kind for a day, for a meal, but in the long run it creates more suffering than it cures. It creates suffering like Joey's, with animals breeding out of control, and the helpless kittens dying cold and blind like Joey, who was too weak to move out of the rain, unable to even see to find shelter or follow his family.
Please, please do not let this happen again.
Street Cats has a voucher program where, for $20, you can get a feral or stray animal neutered and vaccinated for rabies. They can be reached at 492-8887. You want to speak to Linda, though anyone who answers can probably explain the program to you. All you need to provide is the money - a very small charge, really - and space for the animals to recover from surgery for a couple of days.
There are other low-cost spay/neuter programs in the city. A call to the Humane Society (250-DOGS) or to the SPCA (42T-SPCA) can get you a list of those clinics closest to you. The SPCA even runs an on-site clinic at its shelter that offers low-cost spaying and neutering, as well as vaccinations and other medical care.
You have fed these cats, invited them onto your property, and now these animals are counting on you to save their lives, to prevent them from giving birth to litter after litter of kittens that will only suffer and die, or at best go on to breed more kittens who will also suffer and die, or breed more kittens, and so on and so on.
I truly believe you want to do the right thing, and are only trying to help. True help sometimes means caring in a deeper way, deeper than a meal or two. Sometimes it means doing things that hurt, the way that having to report this situation hurt me to the bone, and sometimes it means doing things that are difficult or inconvenient.
Please don't let Joey's short life and sad death be in vain. Please take advantage of the help that is available to you. Please help these cats. And even if you feel you can do nothing, and you must allow the city to remove the cats, please remember that you can do a great deal of good by simply not allowing this to happen again.
I wish you and your cats well, and I am truly sorry that this has happened. I could not, in good conscience, allow it to continue.
With my best,
Naamah
***
I think that's about the best and most understanding letter they could have hoped for under the circumstances, and I hope it makes them cry until they throw up. I debated leaving my phone number so that I could offer them my help, but decided that they probably will not be grateful enough for the intervention to use the information wisely. I'll just give them time to maybe try on their own, cool off a bit, and then I'll try to catch them at home so we can talk like civilized people.
You know. Over the corpses of kittens.
Yes. I'm still very angry, and I am likely to remain so until I know some good has come of this. I have no idea if I'm doing the right thing or getting the best help or going about this in the most sane and effective way, and I have no idea how in the heck I'm going to take care of the kittens if I catch them. I have no idea what I'm doing. None. Everything I try to do to help either doesn't work or requires cooperation I can't get. Not a single person locally will tell me how to get out of this for less than an arm and a leg and a chunk of my soul.
Ugh. They don't tell you that being a grownup isn't about knowing what to do or knowing what's right, but in being put in a situation where what is right is not possible and then being able to make any decision at all in the face of the hundred remaining crappy choices. I hate this, and yet there are people who do it every day.
If anything else of note happens, if I can find where the cats are taken or if I can get hold of some of them myself, I will start taking donations for their upkeep. Until then, I cannot in good conscience take anyone's money, since I'm not out more than a couple hundred dollars (final bill pending). I can afford it, no stitches.
My suggestion, if you really have to do something right this minute, is to locate an organization in your area that does low-cost spay/neuters and donate a buck or two to them, or donate an hour of time this weekend to a rescue group. There are things you can do besides fostering foundlings and cleaning cages: animals need to be shown at pet stores, phone lines are always busy, and transportation is sometimes hard to come by if an animal has been placed with a family that's not local. Materials are helpful, too: perishables as well as stuff like food bowls and blankets and heating pads. People who can just come in and help socialize the animals or be available for moral support are also usually welcome.
Call and ask. When righting a wrong, the first question should not be "Who is at fault?" but "What can I do to help?"