What is Wrong with People?

I want to know what is wrong with people?

This guy calls, wants to adopt a cat, but I can tell he would not be experienced enough to handle any of the cats here. He sounds decent, talks about rescuing a kitten he found in the road, wants to rescue a cat, says the two he and his wife have now are fixed.

So then he calls some guy who had called here saying his roommate left behind a mom cat with kittens. But now apparently the cat was at his brother in laws and the brother told this guy, who wants a kitten, that the mother cat jumped out the window or something and took off with two of the four kittens, but that he wants the two remaining kittens gone. So this man meets him at the Darimart, and takes both of the other two kittens.

He calls me. He only wants one of the kittens and can I take the other one, the black one of course. He feels they were in a bad situation, and that's why he took both of them, he says.

I tell him I can't take the kitten, to call other adoption groups, like SafeHaven, where he says he got vouchers to fix his other two cats.

I tell him I'll get the two kittens fixed, but now Mr. Responsible Rescue man is saying he is going to let the kitten have a litter of kittens herself first. He claims he has already talked to his family who will take kittens if the kitten grows up and has a litter and he talked to his friend with an unfixed male and they're going to breed them.

I said "And you're telling me, you're now going to let this kitten you just got, have kittens, but you can't even find a home for the second one you took in?"

I told him people like myself and KATA up in Sweet Home, etc. etc. don't have lives because of people who do not fix their cats, sacrificing our time, as I did taking his call, to try to clean up after people who do not fix their pets. He hangs up on me.

Unbelievable. It's why this seems to be a hopeless endeavor. People don't listen, don't learn, indulge themselves in selfishness and thoughtlessness and feel entitled to do it and don't care what the consequences of their behavior will cost anybody else.

They feel entitled to get help financially once they finally do fix their pets. And if they don't, they'll just move and abandon them, or dump them out somewhere like trash.

Like the woman whose two males I just took to be fixed, one on Monday, one on Tuesday, from the DR situation. I'd gotten cats fixed for her before, when she lived somewhere else in Albany, but she got more, and now her female is pregnant and she won't get her fixed, not until she has this litter, she says, in just under two months. Then she'll hand those kittens off to like minded people, and call me wanting me and Poppa Inc. to pay for her female to be fixed, while those kittens she handed off to other entitlement people, will go on to reproduce until they get in trouble because there are too many.

Entitlement attitude is a terrible thing. Sometimes it is best to let people suffer the consequences of their actions and they should pay to resolve the problems they cause.

It is far more complicated when the problems such people cause involve lives. The woman whose males I got fixed has kids who will grow up to behave in exactly the same manner. What are they thinking? They can't afford to live without assistance anyhow, why bring more barely noticed cats into this world, who will never receive any care unless someone else pays for it? This is so common around here and, I will guess, almost everywhere.

All I'm saying is, I'm getting taken for a ride. People are not learning that spay neuter is valuable not only as a responsiblity to the cat world but as a responsibility to the community and to taxpayers. What people in Albany seem to be learning is they can do what they want and have someone else pay later. In the case of unfixed cats, it's me and Poppa Inc. I'm not sure this manner of controlling the overpopulation problem is productive.

It helps neighbors who are angry at the numbers of unfixed cats in their area. That is for sure. It reduces the spread of disease in areas that I work, because anytime you reduce the numbers of unfixed cats you reduce the spread of FIV, Felk and even distemper.

But it makes me angry to encounter people more than once. It riles me no end to realize they learned nothing and were just getting a free fix job and don't give a shit about responsible pet behavior.

And this guy calling me up, I don't know if anything he told me was true. I don't know if his cats are really fixed, or anything about him other than what he claimed. I don't even know that he got two kittens. In a way, I think I was getting my leg pulled completely by this caller. All I know is responsible people who can't afford to get their cats fixed don't go out and get more, then let them have litters and if he's doing that, that's not cool.