At some unholy hour of the moring (OK, it was six o’clock, but, dammit, it’s Saturday), I was awakened by the sounds of cats running, crashing, and otherwise tearing around the apartment. I tried to ignore them, but on the third trip through my room (across my bed, no less) I pried my eyelids open just in time to see a dove make a crash landing in my closet. Conan and Schrodinger immediately stopped and stood still. Conan approached the bird and, well, just stood there looking at it, wondering why it wasn’t flying around in an entertaining fashion anymore. Schrodinger stood a a bit of a distance, wondering the same thing. I was wondering how a bird got in. Had we left the balcony door open? I picked up the poor frightened bird, a small dove, and checked it out. It strugged a bit, then lay still in my hand. An inspection revealed a broken leg, which appeared to be an old injury that had never healed. It generally seemed weak and battered- no open wounds. Both cats are declawed, and have never learned to consider birds as food. Conan, who had approached the dove closely, was raised from baby kittenhood around a cockatiel, and thinks birds are his pals, and that flight is an invitation to a game of tag. Schrodinger has no prior bird experience, but also has never learned to hunt, and takes most of his cues from Conan. So, birds are playmates, not food.
The dove obviously didn’t see things that way. I carried it to my mother’s room and showed it to her. I thought the poor thing was a goner. The cats had been chasing it for quite a while, it had probably been crashing into a wide assortment of walls and furniture in a state of panic. Then there was the leg- how long could a bird survive in the wild with that? It apparenty already had for a while, but it was still a definite handicap. I carried the bird back out to the balcony and gently laid it on top of the covered litterbox, away from the cats, and went back in to talk to mom. The balcony door was closed, BTW. Mom and I think the bird must have taken a header into the glass, and one of the cats found it on the balcony, dazed, and carried it in through the pet door.
Mom and I decided that the bird would have to be euthanized- neither one of us can stand to see an animal suffer, and we both in the past have attempted to care for injured wild birds only to have them die. Captivity seems to do them in more than the actual injury. We determined that drowning would be the most humane way to do the job. Well, OK, maybe it wasn’t, but the quicker methods we talked about were also more violent. I relucantly agreed to do the deed, turned on the water in the bathroom sink, braced myself, and went to the balcony to get the bird. Before I could even open the door, the bird picked itself up onto its good leg and took off and flew away. I don’t mean it fluttered off, either. It sailed off across the courtyard, over the swimming pool and disappeared into the trees beyond.
I went back and reported to my mom that Birdy had left the scene, grateful that I had been spared from having to kill it, and that it would go on to live out whatever a natural lifespan would be for a dove with a broken leg. Hell, if it’s tough enough to survive a broken leg followed by its ordeal in the apartment, it may pass its DNA on to many offspring and spawn a race of Uber Doves.
Vaya con Dios, little dove.