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How Does Someone End Up with 11 Cats?May 29 '03 (Updated Jun 01 '03) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Cats are cute, kittens are cuter.
Lots of them suffer,
so please spay/neuter.
Some Epinionators who have read my autobiographical pieces already know what this little rant will reveal, namely that I could be classified as a Cat Nut. I probably deserve this classification because I have ten indoor cats and one outdoor cat. I am writing this today to commemorate the arrival of my eleventh indoor cat, Sunny. I am writing to remind you how important it is to spay or neuter your pets. I am writing to illustrate to you that even the kittens that you may have responsibly found homes for are not safe in this world. Spaying and neutering is essential if we ever hope to end the suffering or even put a small dent in it. Sunny is a pale orange domestic long hair female cat with four white socks. She is a gentle, confused and frightened 13 year old who has lived all her life in one home with one owner. She was spayed long ago, thank goodness. She came to me by chance, under what, to her, must have seemed like horrendous circumstances. She belonged to the girl friend of my son's roommate's brother. The brother and the girl friend were moving to Florida and they couldn't take the cat. They asked if they could leave her and their pet Siamese fighting fish behind with my son and his roommate. These are two average young 20s guys who actually like animals. They're nice kids. They're helpful. "Sure," they said. The fish swam to the big lily pond in the sky on day two when they put cold tap water in his bowl. Sunny didn't behave like a friendly cat. She hid under the sofa for a couple days. She hid behind the desk for a couple more days. She hissed. She certainly didn't hop up on anyone's lap and purr. She did use the litter box which did not magically clean itself afterward. It required scooping and changing...daily! I sensed that things weren't going so well a few days later when roommate said, "This cat sucks. It's a psycho cat." Time continued to pass and I assumed the adjustment period was taking its course. The guys had made a couple other remarks that showed they really weren't developing any special fondness for the cat, but I still had hope. Yesterday my son came over to do his laundry and he said that Scott had "beat the hell out of the cat." I said, "WHAT!?! Why?!" Jonathan said, "Well, he didn't actually beat her, he more like squeezed her." It seems Scott had gotten a new DVD player and he had been the proud owner of it for about 2 hours when Ms. Sunny decided she was all better now and would be willing to come out of hiding in order to drink the glass of milk that had been left sitting by the DVD player. DVD player + milk + cat = disaster! After the fizzing sound stopped coming from the DVD player Scott grabbed Sunny and squeezed her really hard and threw her some distance at a high rate of speed. "Mom," said Jon, "We hate that cat. She's a piece of..." Well, you get the picture. I'm not proud. I handed my husband the cat carrier and sent him on a mercy mission. So, now poor Sunny is slowly trying to adjust to a multiple cat household, new routines, new surroundings, and new humans at a time in her life when she should be enjoying the tranquil sedentary life of the elderly queen that she is. She's traumatized. She acts like she's in the Twilight Zone. Poor girl. At least I can guarantee her the best food, the best vet care, patience and tolerance, and love. I will never consider squeezing her unless it's a gentle kitty hug. I will not shout at her or call her bad names. I won't allow any bullying from the rest of the cat fam either. Sunny is lucky to have ended up in a place where she will be able to live out her days in peace, but look what a close call she had! Her owner thought she had found a good home for her. It's only a quirky whim of fate that she's not on death row at this very moment. Who's going to adopt a 13 year old cat with mega vet bills waiting to happen? (well, besides me...) This is getting pretty long so I'd better get to the point. Point is, cats can't talk, they can't drive cars, they can't grocery shop and they can't get their own food or clean water or medicine when they're sick. They rely on us humans. We drop the ball ALL THE TIME! We domesticated them, we use them according to our whims, and we discard them like paper bags whenever we are the slightest bit inconvenienced. Lots of humans, more than I care to think, are especially cruel to stray cats. They are used to bait pit bulls around here. They are shot at, poisoned, starved, tortured. They're not all good hunters and even if they were, there's no habitat for their prey. Do not get a cat or a kitten unless you can afford to spay or neuter it, get it shots, and license it. (If you don't license it, it could fall into the hands of the police and that could be the worst nightmare you or the cat will ever experience. Another story...) Do not get a cat or kitten if you cannot feed it well, groom it as needed and keep its litter box clean. Do not get a cat or kitten if you cannot guarantee with reasonable certainty that it has a home for LIFE. Spay or neuter your cats because it is completely untrue that Fluffy should have just one litter. Kittens ARE cute but they grow into cats in six months. Until they are spayed/neutered females will go into heat every few months and commence with the ear-splitting "calling" they do to attract mates, while males will begin to spray odorous urine all around your house to show that they are macho studly kitty dudes worthy of attracting females. This is the time at which many people simply toss them out of the house or take them for that long ride in the country. The odds of six kittens in a typical litter being placed in six guaranteed good homes are practically nil. Do not bring life into this world for which you are not capable of being personally responsible. This means you, too, breeders! Think those papered purebreds are guaranteed a safe life? An elderly lady in my neighborhood had a beautiful purebred Himalayan cat, neutered and declawed, well cared for and loved...until the elderly lady had the nerve to pass away. Her grandkids that inherited her home threw the cat out on the streets where he suffered trying to defend himself without the use of claws against the rest of the homeless feline underground. Tender Vittles didn't grow on trees. He's my cat now. Rags is my outdoor cat. I capture him every so often to groom out the mats and burrs in his once beautiful long coat, or to worm him periodically. He is Lord of the Jungle around here now and would probably kick the snot out of my younger neutered toms in the house so he rules the garden and the sheds and shares his food dish with a shy little opossum and a couple of raccoons. These dinner companions are the reason he is always up to date on his shots even though he is essentially a feral cat. We have a house-call vet who takes care of this errant fellow. I've got a story like these for each of my cats and some day I'll share those, too, but Sunny's arrival just made me want to make this plea for spay/neuter because she's living proof that the best of intentions aren't always enough. If you want a cat, help one who's already struggling in a shelter or go get yourself a barn kitten with an upper respiratory condition and a mega case of worms from some farm that's over-run. Don't breed more. The suffering increases exponentially.  |
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