Waiting Again

I accidentally deleted the e-mail about when this adoptor would arrive today. She is interested in either Sam or Matilda and was going to come before the 4th, but had out of town holiday guests arrive early. I was really sure it was going to be this morning, between 10:30 and 11:30, but maybe it was 1:00 p.m. I can't raise her on her cell phone. Hope she did not get lost. I have Matilda in the bathroom so she can't do a disappearing act on me. Darn I should have saved that e-mail.

She's a really nice lady and must be on her way. I don't believe she would not be, without letting me know. I must have screwed up the time, or, she's been held up by maybe an accident on the freeway or some such thing. I hope she's ok. UPDATE: Just heard from her and she's almost here. Yay! I knew she'd let me know.

If you read my blog, you might get the impression I don't like the local shelters. I do like them and am glad they are there. I've fought with them over the years, both of them, over fixing pets prior to adopting them out. Heartland changed long ago and nothing goes out their doors unfixed. I still don't know if SafeHaven is fixing kittens and puppies first or not.

I'd get mad running into dogs and cats adopted out there, that had gone on to reproduce many litters. It's frustrating, made me feel like what is the point.

So I'd get yelled at by shelter workers for hounding them on these points and I know I'm considered a problem person for being such a rabid advocate of fixing shelter animals prior to adoption. But I do appreciate the hard work both shelters do on behalf of animals.

Heartland has always been really nice to me--well mostly. I've had some shouting matches with former directors about spay/neuter. I used to tell them they were part of the problem, if they didn't fix the animals prior to adoption. This was way back, because Heartland's now been fixing all their animals prior to adoption for years.

But this earned me no popularity contests, especially me being who I am--a nobody. I mean, how dare I. Even worse than a nobody, I was considered a nutcase in Corvallis when in the mental health system, a label I've never lived down. When people can't think of any other way to insult me, they still resort to calling me a mental case, due to knowledge of my history in the mental health system.

I was never able to rally any support or volunteers. So I've tried to fall back on basic values: right and wrong, personal responsibility, sensibility and fairplay. These aren't really very popular values anymore either.

Sensibility dictates that you can help more cats with money available by fixing them. In other words, fix one cat instead of sheltering dozens of her offspring. Put money into spay neuter more than sheltering, or at least equal funds and labor into spay neuter. Then things will change.

But people cling to the fuzzy wuzzy sheltering concept because you can go to a shelter and literally hold and comfort the problem. People then see solving the issue as donating to a shelter, when shelters have very little to do with solving overpopulation. At least SafeHaven offers an affordable voucher program now to help people get their cats fixed.

The problem is far deeper, however, than a voucher program would ever touch. The problem often festers unseen in unsightly drug infested trailer parks and terrible neighborhoods where you could hand out all the vouchers in the world and such people would never use them to fix their cats. The problem is found in squalid rural run down shacks, meth houses and old farms where somebody wanted a mouser and got unfixed cats they never got fixed but they fed the breeding offspring anyhow. Or in areas where town people dump off their unwanteds along the roads by the score, hearing, from somebody else, that somebody out there might feed strays on a porch and where darkness and isolation will shield their evil act from the eyes of a kind human, who might report them, or run them down and beat the crap out of them.

Note: if you feed strays, get them fixed, and don't tell people.

The little pimply faced oily leech people have ears everywhere to such information.

To solve overpopulation you need laws that state your pets must be fixed by a certain age. That doesn't make people fix their pets. But, it does help people like myself, clawing through the problem door to door, often having to lick the feet of the most creepy irresponsible criminal people you could imagine, to beg them to let you get their cat fixed for free. YOu have some backing then, some threat for if they don't do it, on your side.

Otherwise, its just miserable abuse to take day in and day out, from the worst of society. The law doesn't get involved, not here at least, even in the worst of cases. They look the other way. I don't know why, probably too busy or something, or don't like cats themselves, I just don't know why. I gave up calling the law long ago.

You need a central number, that people can immediately call, if a stray shows up, so that stray, feral or tame, can immediately be fixed. Then it never gets out of hand.

This specialist who takes these calls should be paid (yes I want paid). Then you have a way to go after the problem that is coordinated.

The local shelters often do not refer people, calling who need spay/neuter solutions, to the solutions, i.e. the FCCO clinics, me, or the other area groups that help fix cats.

If you want the problem solved, you have that central line that also provides an address of the person who calls requesting spay neuter aid, so that, if need be, that specialist goes out to the address, if the person doesn't call back, to get that job done.

You need advertisement of that one number combined, in the ad campaign, as to why it is so very important to get that first stray fixed that shows up. Landlords need the number, law enforcement needs it. One number. And shelter workers can have it tattooed on their foreheads, if need be.

And of course you need the funds there to fix these cats immediately and a clinic or clinics willing to do it. No waiting. Immediate. A general fund for the area kept in a seperate account, so people could donate directly into it and not worry the funds would be squandered away in other pursuits.

But anyhow, off my grandstand. It's hard to see the solution clearly and to be a nobody, unlistened to, so that it is not implemented.