A Personal Rant

Thursday, June 14, 2012
I normally do not push personal agendas on this blog, but now that Go Retro has attracted an ample audience I simply cannot keep my mouth shut any longer about something that has been seriously bothering me. And here it is.

For the love of (Charles Nelson) Reilly, DO NOT ABANDON AN ANIMAL TO FEND FOR THEMSELVES. ANIMALS HAVE FEELINGS. They do! I wish that anyone who does this would be forced to live out on the streets in the winter for at least a week to see how it feels.

Speaking from personal experience, I can count on both hands the number of stray cats who have found their way into my mother's yard, that we either took in or brought down to the shelter where they were adopted by loving homes. Many of these cats (like our current boy, Moose) were already altered--which means at one time they had a home, but were apparently kicked out or left behind because some cruel and lazy SOB didn't want to take the time to bring them to a shelter, or locate a good home for them.

And you know what really gets my panties into a wad over this issue, is that it's FREE to surrender an animal to an ASPCA shelter. They only ask for a $50 donation, but it's completely VOLUNTARY. You have nothing to lose by doing the responsible (and kind) option here!

The latest kitty, who has been coming into our porch for food for over a year now (you should have seen how nervous she was when my mother first started feeding her, but now she's calm and sweet as can be) is a mother herself. I suspected she had kittens because she has three nipples that are protruding. Sure enough, a kind neighbor who lives one street over told my mother that she was in her yard recently with three babies and said she would call my mother immediately if she sees them again. When my suspicions were confirmed, it made me sick to my stomach. We've had coyotes going through our area at night in the past. She crosses at least one street to reach our home for food. It breaks my heart to think that anyone could be so rotten to not care enough about this cat's welfare. We cannot keep her in the room attached to the porch overnight since she needs to be with her kittens, which we suspect are in a barn a few streets over.

We're hoping she eventually brings the kittens to us...then we could bring them to the local MSPCA (which we learned does NOT put cats to sleep unless they are extremely feral and cannot be handled) so they can receive their shots, be fixed, and put up for adoption. My mother wants to keep the mama cat and have her fixed as well. At least she's getting plenty of nourishment at our house so she can feed her babies.

So again...PLEASE...a pet is a responsibility and a family member, not a piece of trash! There is NO excuse for ever abandoning a pet. Man up or woman up and do the responsible thing. Contact your local ASPCA (link here) to find a shelter near you. Best Friends Animal Sanctuary (America's largest no-kill shelter) is another great resource; they network with shelters and animal foster parents throughout the country to spread the word about animals who need a loving home, no matter where you live.


If you don't care about animals, I'm sending this guy to seriously kick some sense into your a$$:

Thanks for letting me rant, and now back to the retro programming.

4 comments:

  1. Pam, I 100% agree with you, dumping an animal is cruelty. With all the negativity heaped upon Sheriff Joe Arpio here in AZ, what few people know is the Sheriff's Department also runs the County Animal shelter. He's a HUGE animal lover and will arrest and charge anyone that abuses, abandons or misuses pets. The inmates in the county jail work at the shelter as a reward for good behavior. I just wanted to mention that. One other thing, I've lost two cats and a dog to coyotes too, the dog was taken from my backyard. I hate coyotes.

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  2. JZ - Tabbi sure is lucky to have you!

    dryheat45 - I hate coyotes, too. It's a raging debate in my part of the country with the pro-coyote people telling pet owners to keep their pets indoors; it's not that simple. When we took in our male cat, he'd already been accustomed to living outside 24 hours/day for quite some time, and our vet told us that it would be literally impossible to make him an indoor cat all of the time, as he'd go nuts. We don't let him stay out beyond 3 PM, and we never let him out when it's still dark out. He almost became a coyote meal the day after Christmas - it was 8:30 AM, so the sun had been out for a good hour, and the biggest coyote we'd ever seen wandered into the yard and saw him (and thankfully, stopped.) My mother started screaming which was the best thing to do, as he quickly turned around and bolted in the other direction. I ran outside as well to make a ton of noise/scream. Our neighbors told us he was still wandering around the neighborhood at night for a few weeks after that.

    Anyways, I get the pro-coyote people's opinion that we're infringing on the habitat of wildlife, but coyotes have been menacing the livestock of local farmers from time to time here as well (not sure if they have the right to shoot them and protect their livestock outside of coyote hunting season.)

    Sheriff Joe Arpio sounds like my kind of guy.

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  3. Here here!x700
    My cat is going on 17 years old now, and she has been with me through thick and thin. I can't imagine abandoning her. We also have a younger cat, who we love terribly and couldn't imagine abandoning him either. I don't get how people abandon their pets, but they do, and its a good thing that you use your platform to rant about it! More power to you.

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  4. Thanks, Ruth! Your kitties are lucky to have you. I have an update on the mama stray -- yesterday she came with her three babies. She managed to coax all three of them eventually into the room and they all slept in there last night. As the kittens have never seen humans or have been inside a house before, they are terrified at the moment...however, I'm sure as they get used to my mother and me and watching them mom interact with us we'll gain their trust. They ate solid cat food for the first times in their lives yesterday, and they're so cute! Hopefully they'll calm down and get used to being handled soon so we can bring them to the MSPCA...my mother wants to keep the mama cat.

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