Two for Two

Who's yo daddy? (Check photos in the post about the big males fixed "Photos of Four Cats Fixed Yesterday" and tell me which big male you think is daddy of these boys)

Machi and Peko leave. I barely had time to start feeling happy about it, proud, relieved, when the phone rings. It's someone who lives at the run down apartment building across from the old woman who feeds strays. They had the mom cats' last two kittens.

See, one of the strays the old woman feeds is a mother of four kittens. She took in one of the four, the pretty one, the Siamese, and the mom cat took off with the other three.

Then some people down the block found one of the three left and took him not to the old woman, but to the low incomers in the falling apart apartment building. She gave it away immediately.

Tonight, the low incomers, five of them in a tiny crowded ill maintained apartment, were hovered around the two bottle babes after a neighbor of the old woman found them in their boat. They have gunked over eyes, raspy breathing and their gums are pale. The low incomers were doing the best they could for them. The old woman had refused to take them in.

The City of Albany had contacted me when the old woman, who is highly educated, contacted the city about ferals she was feeding, and asked me to take care of it. I was assured by the old woman she would not ask me to take in any cats. I told her of the nightmare I now live, with so many cats, and every call about getting cats fixed, usually has an undertone, of people really wanting me to take them, after they have fed them until they breed. I said "That is irresponsible and selfish." The old woman had agreed.

She said she wouldn't do that of me, and would find someplace for the kittens. I suggested she house them in a hutch in her house until she could place them herself. That was before I even met her or trapped any of the cats there. I trapped three huge males Friday and took them to be fixed Saturday, along with one of the low incomers tame males.

I was cursing when I picked up the kittens tonight, cursing out loud, about selfish people and why is it only me called upon, to take on such a burden, for the irresponsible behavior of others, including the old woman, who should have gotten those cats fixed long before there were kittens on the scene.

My anger faded seeing all of them in that tiny run down place, surrounding those tiny kittens, all concerned looking. One woman had the sick little hissing kittens wrapped in a dish towel. "I got him to pee finally," she said proudly.

Kittens had to die for the old woman and her neighbor to act. There are two females. One female has these four kittens while a calico had four kittens of her own. A neighbor took the calico's four kittens to the Humane Society of the Willamette Valley where they were killed. She was told they were unadoptable. That neighbor doesn't feed the cats, but lives next to the woman who does and felt terrible they were killed. She didn't know they'd be killed, she claims. Those four kittens were sacrificed. Now I have two of the other mother's kittens.

Safehaven isn't any help to all these cats. They're the ones telling people to take them to the Salem humane society, where they are killed. There are too many unwanted animals and the primary focus of every shelter needs to shift to reality and high volume spay neuter with cat wranglers rounding em up and bringing them in to be fixed.

That is the bottom line. That is what would stop the animal holocaust going on. That and a little more responsibility, common sense and kindness shining out of more human hearts.