It's Kitten Season!

The BBQ Pit
1

Yay! Alright, kitten season! I knew it had officially started yesterday morning, when I got a phone call.

I don’t usually answer my phone if it pops up as an ‘unknown caller’ on the display, but there was supposed be someone driving out to my to adopt one of my foster dogs, so I though they might have gotten lost and had to call from a pay phone, so I answered it. Wasn’t the adopter though, no siree bob.

Me: Hello
Some guy: You want kittens?
Me(thinking, how did this guy get my home phone number?): Not really, no thanks. If you have kittens you can’t keep, I can give you the number for the local animal shelter, which I am not.
Some guy: You want them?
Me: No, I do Siberian Husky rescue, I don’t take cats.
Some Evil guy: They’re gonna git drowned.
Me (arg): No, don’t drown them, fine I’ll take them (I can drop them off at the shelter if this guy won’t do it).
Some Evil guy: You comin to git them.
Me: Not right now, I am supposed to be adopted out a dog (wondering why I am explaining myself to this man)
Evil guy: Then they’re gonna git drowned.
Me(about to explode): Fine, where do you live, I will come and ‘git’ them.
Evil incarnate: I don’t got them at home no more, you know the shoe factory?
Me: Yesss, the one that closed?
Evil incarnate: Around the back is the freight elevator, you better go, they gonna git drowned :click:.

Full throttle to the damned shoe factory, I made it there is 20 minutes. I have never actually been this close to the factory before, so it took me awhile to figure out what he meant, and then sure enough, there is a big open shaft around the back. I peer down into the blackness, can’t see anything, so I am about to run back to the car and get my flashlight and I hear this one little ‘mew’. Frig. I almost climbed into the shaft, but some vestige of brain function stopped me from doing that without seeing where I was going. Got the flash light, and down the hole, looked to be about 10 feet down, in about 4 feet of water (it has been raining off and on these last couple of weeks) I could make one tiny little kitten. Shit.
The elevator shaft had some ladder (I guess a maintenance ladder) on the right hand side, so I was able to climb down.
Once I was down there I found three kittens holding on to some piping on the side, one climbing on their backs, and one trying to swim.
As soon as I got near them they grabbed on to my arm, so it wasn’t hard to bring them back out at least.

I ended up brining them home, I know the local shelter does the best it can, but these guys would have had no chance, they aren’t even 5 weeks old, so the shelter woudln’t be able to vaccinate them, they would have been put to sleep. They seem to be doing okay, I bought some kitten milk-replacement formula, and they all eating, so that’s good.

But…what the hell is the matter with people? I mean, even if you can’t afford a surrender fee, the shelter will still take them in. But God, I don’t understand people’s ability to inflict cruelty on another living thing for no fucking reason. This bozo had other options. Dern it.

I hate kitten season.

2

I didn’t think things like this happened in real life. Well done there Magayuk!

3

Magayuk, you rock.

4

Unfortunately this kind of crap happens every day. Our current alphacat,Rumpleteazer, went through something similar. She and an adult female (not her mother) were dumped in a cardboard box outside the vet’s office near my husband’s place of work because somebody could’nt afford to keep them. If we hadn’t rescued her, the vet was going to put her to sleep. I just thank Isis that we had connections with the local Humane SOciety and they put her in their system so we could afford her shots, etc.

Bastards. I can’t believe somebody would do this to kittens.

IDBB

5

Holy crap. That is not only evil, it makes zero sense. I am glad that there are people like you out there, but I could see it becoming overwhelming after a while. There’s always another abused creature out there.

6

I think this outrage may be uncalled for, there’s other possibilities at work here. Maybe the guy didn’t have other options. He could be living in that building and had no way to make a call to the animal shelter after calling you. He might not even had been responsible for the kittens being in the water and had known that by the time he was able to contact the shelter they would have drowned. At least they’re in a dry home now.

7

Things like that happen too damn often around here :frowning:

People are cruel and stupid.

I very briefly worked with an animal cruelty agent, I couldn’t do it anymore. The thing that gets me, people treat kittens like garbage. I mean, I have seen bad things done to dogs and adult cats as well, but it really seems to be kittens that get treated the worst. Last year I found a 6 week old in a plastic bag, tossed in a dumpster, and it was covered with this oily tar. I have no idea why it was still alive, but he had this crap in in his nose, eyes etc. He actually made it, but he wouldn’t have unless someone had seen the guy toss it in there, and called us.

That’s what drives me nuts, how many kittens out there are treated like that, and no one sees?

8

Magayuk,

Yes, you do rock. (((((((Hugs to another animal lover & owner of felines))))))))

Thank you. I would have done the same thing.

As for the dimwitted alien fucktards out there who love to inflict harm to other living things— BAD Karma, Baaaaad Karma.

Thanks, again, Magayuk!!!

9

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not disagreeing with you. Just saying it’s possible you’re directing it at the wrong guy in this case.

10

Jeff Olsen I probably came off sounding angrier at that man than I actually am. Used to be I would get furious at people, now it just makes me really… tired I guess. And frustrated.

The local shelter here puts down hundreds of kittens ever year because people don’t have their animals fixed. And part of the reason people don’t have their animals fixed is because they can’t afford it. It costs almost $200 to have a female cat spayed here, and people in this area do not make very much money. One vet tried to set up a low cost clinic, and the other vets actually complained enough, and too the right people that she was forced to stop.

11

Around here, the Humane Society will aborb some of the costs to fix animals for owners who can’t afford to do so on their own. Someone should start a smiliar program up there if one doesn’t exist.

12

Magayuk, is there no equivalent to the Blue Cross in America? They’re a charity in the UK that provides a free vetinary service, including neutering, for low-income households. I know several people who have used it, and it was a real lifesaver for them.

And how come this arsehole knew to call you in the first place?

13

Reuben I thnink the pet food store I used to work for probably gave him my number (I’ve asked them not to give out my home number, but they have done it before when they had had a customer trying to give up a dog).

About the Blue Cross, I honestly don’t know, but that is something to look into. The local shelter used to offer refunds for anyone who had their cat fixed, but their board has decided that they can no longer afford to do so, unles the animal was adopted from them.

14

I love kittens as much as the next person . . . But if some unidentified Cletus called me up and said, “Unless yew meets me aroun’ the back freight elevator of the abandoned shoe fact’ry, them kittens is gonna git drownded,” well . . . There would be fewer kittens in the world.

15

:slight_smile: Eve

You think that’s scary? Try driving out into the middle of nowhere, having to go to some some back woods shack, and telling the 250lb guy that you have to investigate a complaint that he has been starving his dogs. That one went over well.

That’s another thing that bothers me though, most cruelty agents have to do complaints by themselves, because there is no budget to pay more than one agent to go out. It is not safe.

16

no, it’s wabbit season!

Now that I’ve got that out of my system: on behalf of various furry critters and the people who love them, thank you Magayuk.

17

wow. you DO rock.

I have a collegue who works in dog rescue. She’s the owner relinquishment coordinator for her group. I hear the horror stories.

I don’t have a cat. I also have a dog. But I do, as my screen name might suggest - like the kitties.

mm

18

Now let’s see who the kitten-drowner really is… why, it’s old man Jenkins, owner of the abandoned shoe factory!

And he would would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for you meddling animal rescuer!

Yabba dabba doo!

Er, something like that.

Good job, Magayuk. I hope the kitties find a good home after having such a rough start in life. My Orion and his siblings were also abandoned. Their owners moved and took mama cat, but left the babies behind. A friend of mine rescued Orion and two of his siblings which she kept, but the fourth was too wild and too quick. She couldn’t catch him. Poor baby kitty :frowning:

19

My sweet cat Minx was abandoned by her slime dripping owners after they had broken her tail in a screen door and had it amputated to her spine.

I took her in six years ago, and she has flourished with me.

Though she is still nervous when anyone makes fast movements around her.

20

Last year, my shelter took in 5 kittens that one of our volunteers saw someone throw into a Dumpster. She ran outside and confronted the guy - "Hey! Did you just throw a six kittens in there??? He had the balls to stand there and deny it, when he was clearly lying, and she had seen him do it in plain sight. She climbed in the Dumpster and found five of the kittens but couldn’t find the sixth one. They were about 3 weeks old at the time.

Oh, did I mention that this was on one of the hottest days last summer - it was close to 100 degrees - and they were within 2 miles of FIVE vets and two animal shelters? For god’s sake, if you are so desperate to get rid of your kittens, can you not at least dump them at one of the five vets within walking distance of the Dumpster? Just run in, throw the box down, say “I don’t want them!” and run like hell? Or drop them at a shelter where at least they’ll get put humanely to sleep? Noooo, it’s so much easier to put them in the trash, to bake, until the rats eat them alive.

You should have seen them when our volunteer brought them in. The white ones were BLACK with filth. We though they were all either black or dark gray until we cleaned them and discovered, no, it’s just Dumpster muck covering them.

I fucking hate people sometimes. This is one reason why.