Thank you, SPCA, for breaking my heart.

The BBQ Pit
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Last week I posted a thread about the two cats my roomate and I had adopted. Sadly, the relationship was not fated to work out. The cats were highly feral, cagey, and hid in absolutely every small space they could find, and stayed there, to the point where I think one of them wasn’t even coming out to eat. They hiss and growl if approached. The SPCA had listed them as ‘friendly, if shy’. Neither of them was litter trained, also contrary to what we’d been told.

One of them was PREGNANT. The other one might have been too, if only I had been able to convince her to come out from the two inch space between the floor and the kitchen cupboards to bring her to the vet to check.

I know you don’t vaccinate and fix the animals as soon as they come in anymore (which is a load of bullshit, but I shall save for another thread sometime), but do you check them at all? It took my vet all of ten seconds to confirm the pregnancy during the routine checkup. You know, routinely making sure the cat’s got four legs, two ears, and internal organs. She poked the abdomen a few times to check the digestive system was there and functioning, and said “By the way, this cat’s pregnant.”

WHAT? Excuse me? Nowhere on the adoption papers did it mention the possibility of kittens. The cat’s halfway through gestation, and my male cat is fixed, so I know damn well the hanky panky didn’t take place in my apartment.

We can’t care for these animals. So yesterday, I had to take them back. The pregnant one is going to a foster home to give birth. I have a sneaking suspicion the other is going to be put to sleep. And I had no choice.

Thankyou so much for the broken heart.

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Appropriate sig.

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I really love that! I adopted a cat once, they INSISTED he was an indoor cat, they didnt waffle on it, they were SURE he was an indoor cat.

I loved that creature, he was sweet and loving, he came when called and he was beautiful. He was also an outdoor cat, and he tore my screens out and got hit by a car.

I dont go to the spca anymore, they are full of shit.

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What the fucking hell?!

That’s gotta be the most irresponsible thing I’ve heard in a long time. Given the huge number of kittens in the world already, the SPCA is sending a pregnant cat home to a foster family to give birth?

That’s not one of the options. The options are these:

  1. Get her spayed, posthaste. Yes, they can do that while the cat is pregnant, and yes, it causes abortions. Newsflash: millions of born kittens are euthed every year because there’s too damn many of them. Better to abort them and spay the mother.
  2. Euthanize her. That sounds harsh, but if she’s feral, she’s not gonna find a good home. And if her kittens are born, they’re likely to live miserable lives themselves before dying young.

Daerlyn, I’m really sorry for your experience. You should know that there’s no umbrella group (at least in the US – I think Canada’s the same way) that all SPCAs belong to – it’s not a franchise. Anyone can use the name, just as anyone can use the name “humane society”. And irresponsible, dishonest folks like the ones you apparently dealt with give us all a bad name.

I work at a humane society that bends over backwards to send animals out in good health: every single animal that can go out sterilized, does. And if he or she can’t be sterilized before adoption (this is less than 1% of our adoptions, BTW), we’ll send the little one out on a $100 deposit to make sure it’s sterilized. Tarantulas et al are excepted from this policy, natch.

More than that, we have a part-time vet who looks at every animal. They’re tested for worms, parvo, feline leukemia, and other common diseases before being placed in the adoption room. Every adult animal gets a flea treatment.

And if it’s not friendly, frankly, it’ll be euthanized. There’s millions of friendly animals out there that have to be euthanized every year for lack of a home; it’s ridiculous to be adopting out unfriendly animals when the friendly ones are dying.

Occasionally, of course, an animal slips through our net. Parvo (a deadly dog disease) can incubate for up to two weeks; an animal may test negative but develop the disease a week after it’s in its new home. We can’t help folks with their vet bills in these cases – to do so would mean taking funds away from literally dozens of other animals for each one we nursed through the disease – but we will refund the adoption fee.

I guess my point is that there are good, responsible animal shelters out there. I do recommend that folks “shop around” before adopting from a shelter. Check out how the animals are treated. Ask about their medical regimen. Ask whether all their animals are sterilized before leaving the shelter. Ask about their euthanasia practices (and if they say they don’t euthanize, be suspicious: often “no-kill” shelters have really terrible health practices and will sometimes even adopt out aggressive animals out of sentimentalism). Ask your veterinarian to recommend a shelter.

Again, I’m sorry you had that experience. I do hope it doesn’t sour you on animal shelters: lots of us are good, sincere folks who are trying to find homes for friendly, healthy animals.

Daniel

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Oh, Jess, I’m so sorry. That sucks so much.

hugs

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Try this site: http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Grove/8878/ They seem to know what they are doing.

I’m with DanielWithrow, that cat should have been spayed immediately. Moreover, here in the US the ASPCA won’t adopt out non-nutered animals. I can’t imagine what the SPCA up there is thinking!

I’m REALLY sorry about the cats. That just plain sucks big, sweaty, donkey balls.

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My ex got a puppy from a pound like two years ago. The pounds down here do list all of the health problems they’re aware of and they warn you of common things that the dog might have. They send you to a vet for free and they spay/neuter the pet before they leave the shelter. It is part of the agreement you sign and you don’t get any choice about it. They simply have to put too many animals to sleep to allow it to be otherwise.
My crappy ex dumped the dog on me when I had to kick him out. He said he would get her and take her to his parent’s house or a friend’s house, but he never did. I told him repeatedly that I was working all day and I couldn’t care for her. He didn’t take me seriously. It broke my heart, but I had to take her back. I felt so bad because she was chained up all the time. I couldn’t stand the miserable look on her face. And I felt worse that I couldn’t take care of her and I wasn’t going to be moving to a bigger place where she could roam about.
The shelter, although in Los Angeles and very overburdened, assured me that smaller cats and dogs get adopted more quickly. The shelter people felt so bad about all of the gorgeous animals that they had to put down.
When my friend bought a pug lately from this insanely expensive breeder, I wanted to smack her around.
Not that you know me, but I thought I could commiserate with you.