So my family has a soft spot for animals. Especially stray, homeless, injured, infected, handicapped animals. I’m not sure if we find them or if they find us. I think most of the cats have been acquired by my younger sister through her various friends who don’t believe in spay/neutering their pets, but do believe in leaving them outside to get eaten by the dogs, massively infected, bitten by snakes or die of exposure etc. Now that we live in the country in Virginia we have 1-2 litters of kittens and usually at least a couple of puppies or dogs that we take in every year and patch up and find homes for. But there are just so many. And vet care is just so expensive. And we get attached. Right now we have 3 dogs and 4 cats, all found as strays and fixed up here at home, that we just couldn’t get rid of. I myself have a dog I rescued from severe illness, emaciation, and impending euthanasia at the local pound.
Last year’s litter of kittens (the second one) came from our neighbors place. They are all short a few cards (the neighbors), and the elderly parents like to leave food out for the strays. This attracts them all to congregate and provides enough nutrition for them to breed…and breed…and breed. There are probably at least 8 cats of breeding age, and we collected 8 kittens in various stages of mass infection. One ended up blind in one eye and two had to have infected eyed removed, costing hundreds of dollars. They all had respiratory infections, fleas, ticks, and ear mites. We fixed them all up and found homes for them. But they totally destroyed the bathroom where they were kept and were ungrateful in general. This year we’ve been avoiding finding such animals. We’ve realized that we just can’t help them all, it’s not possible. So we drive past our neighbors house, now once again rife with piles of cats and kittens on the lawn and just shake our heads that these people will neither stop feeding them, nor get them fixed, nor give them proper care.
So, we’ve been blessedly stray free this summer, until my little sister’s friend’s cats had another litter. These people aren’t poor by any means, and they are visciously Christian, actively Christian and vocally Christian. This is why they continue to leave their pets outside and let them breed unwanted offspring year after year. God doesn’t want you to fix your pet. That would be a sin. That would be unChristianly. On the other hand, it’s perfectly Christianly to allow the kittens to get eaten by the dogs every year, or let them die of exposure, or of various other infections and conditions. I don’t think they even try very hard to find them homes. How my little sister manages to be friends with people who have such little conscience or responsibility is beyond me, but we said that this year we just couldn’t take another litter. Well, nature ran it’s course and pared the litter down to one scrappy survivor. Finally, the other day one of the family members there realized the kitten was acting funny and wouldn’t come out from under the car. When they got it out, it couldn’t walk and appeared to have had a stroke. Yesterday they said they think it had a seizure. So my mom relented (as expected) and let Clare bring the kitten home. Within an hour of us having it, it started to walk again and even follow movement, it seemed to be mostly blind. And this morning Clare took it to the local vet, who’s seen all of our strays over the years. Good news, not a stroke. Bad news, kittie has two busted ear drums and major inner ear infections, possibly into the brain. Worse news, since it does exhibit neurological symptoms (due to busted eardrums), it has to be tested for rabies, which requires killing it. The vet thinks it’s likely it will die soon either way. If we can come up with $500 (which we can’t) they can quaratine it for ten days, and if it survives – then it doesn’t have rabies. When Clare asked the family we got it from if they’d pitch in on the bill, what do think they said? Not interested. There should be laws about this kind of thing. Do this once, and your animals have to manditorily be spayed or neutered. Why should everyone else have to pay for and deal with strays your pets generate that you refuse to care for? And if you refuse to get them fixed, then they should be taken away. Period. It really pisses me off. If you ever visit my facebook page you can see pics of my dog Jericho and what he looked like when I first brought him home. It’ll make you want to find his former owners. I guess I really just don’t understand how you can insist you’re such a good christian while causing unneeded suffering.
Last year’s litter of kittens (the second one) came from our neighbors place. They are all short a few cards (the neighbors), and the elderly parents like to leave food out for the strays. This attracts them all to congregate and provides enough nutrition for them to breed…and breed…and breed. There are probably at least 8 cats of breeding age, and we collected 8 kittens in various stages of mass infection. One ended up blind in one eye and two had to have infected eyed removed, costing hundreds of dollars. They all had respiratory infections, fleas, ticks, and ear mites. We fixed them all up and found homes for them. But they totally destroyed the bathroom where they were kept and were ungrateful in general. This year we’ve been avoiding finding such animals. We’ve realized that we just can’t help them all, it’s not possible. So we drive past our neighbors house, now once again rife with piles of cats and kittens on the lawn and just shake our heads that these people will neither stop feeding them, nor get them fixed, nor give them proper care.
So, we’ve been blessedly stray free this summer, until my little sister’s friend’s cats had another litter. These people aren’t poor by any means, and they are visciously Christian, actively Christian and vocally Christian. This is why they continue to leave their pets outside and let them breed unwanted offspring year after year. God doesn’t want you to fix your pet. That would be a sin. That would be unChristianly. On the other hand, it’s perfectly Christianly to allow the kittens to get eaten by the dogs every year, or let them die of exposure, or of various other infections and conditions. I don’t think they even try very hard to find them homes. How my little sister manages to be friends with people who have such little conscience or responsibility is beyond me, but we said that this year we just couldn’t take another litter. Well, nature ran it’s course and pared the litter down to one scrappy survivor. Finally, the other day one of the family members there realized the kitten was acting funny and wouldn’t come out from under the car. When they got it out, it couldn’t walk and appeared to have had a stroke. Yesterday they said they think it had a seizure. So my mom relented (as expected) and let Clare bring the kitten home. Within an hour of us having it, it started to walk again and even follow movement, it seemed to be mostly blind. And this morning Clare took it to the local vet, who’s seen all of our strays over the years. Good news, not a stroke. Bad news, kittie has two busted ear drums and major inner ear infections, possibly into the brain. Worse news, since it does exhibit neurological symptoms (due to busted eardrums), it has to be tested for rabies, which requires killing it. The vet thinks it’s likely it will die soon either way. If we can come up with $500 (which we can’t) they can quaratine it for ten days, and if it survives – then it doesn’t have rabies. When Clare asked the family we got it from if they’d pitch in on the bill, what do think they said? Not interested. There should be laws about this kind of thing. Do this once, and your animals have to manditorily be spayed or neutered. Why should everyone else have to pay for and deal with strays your pets generate that you refuse to care for? And if you refuse to get them fixed, then they should be taken away. Period. It really pisses me off. If you ever visit my facebook page you can see pics of my dog Jericho and what he looked like when I first brought him home. It’ll make you want to find his former owners. I guess I really just don’t understand how you can insist you’re such a good christian while causing unneeded suffering.
No comments:
Post a Comment