Lady, you're more than sorry, you know? You're *sad*!

I should be working on school crap -- this is yet one more night where I get no sleep -- but I need a break.

I was asked via email why I would put KotPL to sleep and then whine about it; wouldn't it have been less nutty of me to get him placed somewhere? It was phrased more nicely, but I am a brass tacks kind of girl.

Allow me to clarify, since I am sure others are wondering:

I had no say in the matter. Much to my own chagrin, I am not yet rolling in cash -- particularly because I am still subsidising Harry's existence. As a result, there is no way in hell I could have afforded to continue on speutering through Dr Superhero at $40 for a male and $60 for a female (and forget Dr Vet, at $120 for males and $160 for females). The twenty-three I have had done in the past month would have cost me around $1,080 with Dr Superhero, pre-tax.

And that is not counting the extras I also pay for, like antibiotic shots and doses of Frontline or Revolution, like I was going to do for KotPL -- pick him up this afternoon and take him to Dr Superhero for a dose of antibiotics and Revolution ('cos it does ear mites).

Because I do not have limitless disposable income, I am going through Rescue Group (RG) to speuter the parking lot cats. RG will do it for free provided I come on their free days, and the cats are ferals that come from my township. The only catch is that all speuters will be ear-tipped (thereby making them 'unadoptable' in the eyes of many), and Animal Services performs random testing for FIV/FeLV... and any infected cats are destroyed immediately -- no ifs, ands, or buts. We drop the cats off at Animal Services in their traps and cages between six and seven in the morning on the free days (after having made appointments), and retrieve them from two to three in the afternoon. If one comes after seven, one does not get in; if one comes back after three, the animal is gone. No rescuers can stay and wait for their speuters; if your cat is destroyed, they will *try* to give a courtesy phone call to let you know that you will be picking up an empty cage. Sometimes they cannot get around to phoning people, and one has an unpleasant surprise when one returns.

Animal Services does not fuck around.

RG talked them into basically donating time about a year or so ago, and I only found out about RG a handful of months ago. Until today, I had never taken a cat from Eviljob and had it test positive for FIV/FeLV. KotPL was randomly-tested, found to be positive, and destroyed.

I could not have 'saved' KotPL. It would have been nice if I could, though; I do agree. He was a beautiful cat. I honestly have never seen anything like him.

He had a good life though; probably as good as it gets in a parking lot if you are a cat. With those jowls, huge paws, and powerful body, if he was not King he had to have been damn close. He had his pick of food, ladies, and sunny spots. And he was put down before FIV brought him down and made it so that he was beaten, tormented, and starved by the younger, stronger, healthier cats.

It is not always good to be King, especially if you are on your way out. It's that nasty, brutish, and short thing again.

I *am* sad. I *am* depressed. I wish it had not happened like this. I am afraid for all the other parking lot cats now. I have to get the FIV-positive cats out of there to protect the others.

And, for what it is worth, I hear all the time about some Valhalla that takes in FIV- or FeLV-positive cats. I have yet to see one. I think these places are just one more urban legend; can you imagine the expense involved in maintaining everyone on AZT and Interferon? My beautiful Bombay had FIV, and I can assure you -- that shit is EXPENSIVE. Keeping up with meds, vet appointments ('cos with FIV, even a sneeze is potentially serious), expressing his bladder when he had a bout of paralysis...all that COST MONEY. A *lot* of money, and I will not even touch on the amount of *time* one cat cost; I cannot imagine two...or three...or fifty. I have difficulty believing there is some Mother Teresa of cats out there who is footing the bill for all these meds, vet visits, food, cleanings, and so forth. I think this is something guilt-ridden owners have made up in their minds so that they feel better -- they can abandon their sick cats to looneybirds, and not be guilty of putting them down.

I call shenanigans on that lie.

There is one psychotic woman who hangs around RG, trying to take in cats...the two women who are heading up the speuter part of RG tell everyone not to give her any cats; she's a fucking cat hoarder. She has some obsessive-compulsive disorder and went off her meds (I am not kidding), and her husband threw her out because he could not take any more of the nutsy shit. RG cannot keep her from coming around (and in fact encourage her to bring all her new cats for speutering, to avoid another cat explosion like the one that made her husband throw her out and take the kids), but they do discourage anyone from letting her take more cats because she is batshit.

My point in gossipping about her is that she claims to take in 'infected' cats (yet does not know the difference between FIV and FeLV) and care for them. The thought gives me the leaping yellow shivs -- in my mind I am picturing one of these hell holes where cats are crapping everywhere, never fed, wheezing with respiratory infections, and resorting to cannibalism. One huge point of dispute between Chrissy and myself is that I want this woman to die, and Chrissy sees her as a way to get rid of some cats guilt-free.

'Cos, of course, they are being 'cared for' by someone who 'really wants them'.

Snort.

I am not like Chrissy and Bonnie in this one area -- I do not have the tolerance for that crap. I do not want to help people like that. Or, rather, I want to 'help' them by getting them as far away from animals as possible. Unlike Chrissy and Bonnie, I do not see them as being fundamentally well-meaning people who have gotten in 'over their heads'; I see them as mentally ill assholes who are abusing animals because they can get away with that more readily than abusing children, and I see them as richly deserving a boot to the head. Along with some fines, imprisonment, restrictions on pet ownership, enforced medication regimens, and possibly electroshock therapy.

Voluntary or not.

Butsoanyway.

Because B&C 'feel' for these people, they end up with a lot of clean-up jobs, like the couple who just moved out of my state, and were keeping over sixty cats in a 700-square foot condo/apartment dealy-thing.

I never got the full story, 'cos I told Chrissy she should show up to take the cats with Animal Services and law enforcement, so that these fucktards could get what they deserve. If you are housing over sixty cats who are not speutered and have never seen the outdoors in a 700-square foot apartment and they are ALL feral, you aren't rescuing -- you are HOARDING. You are BATSHIT. You have NO intention of adopting these cats out, I do not care how busy you say you are. For years? Years you are busy?

Puh-leez. I am the QUEEN of busy, yet I do not have stacks of cats at my house, and all my cats are speutered, vaccinated, taken to the vet regularly, and *amazingly* friendly and loving (Christ; you should see Squoosh work the room at Dr Vet's! He has this whole 'I Can Make You Fall In Love With Me In Thirty Seconds' schmooze down to a science!) -- with the exception of Weebie (who was traumatised, and hides when new people come to the house), and Cookie, who is just skittish around strangers. But all my cats are friendly and loving to me and people they see often. And I *know* that I am too busy to go collect forty cats from Eviljob and stack them in my garage hoping to have a windfall of money and free time, whereafter I shall Do Right by them... Feh. I do not think anyone realistically takes in sixty cats thinking that Publisher's Clearing House is going to give them $2,400 (assuming they are all male, at $40 per neuter) and they will take that and go get everyone fixed and adopted out.

For what it is worth, B&C disagree with me. Chrissy and I agree on most (most!) other points, but Bonnie and I also disagree on whether aborting kittens is Wrong and Bad. I say no, Bonnie says yes, and I say Bonnie is free at any time to come take ALL my pregnant mothers at Eviljob and tend to all their kittens and get them all adopted out; I will even trap them for her and drop them off at her house. *I* do not have the time for that, and god only knows the world is not experiencing a kitten shortage, unless CNN has just deemed this event un-newsworthy and is refusing to report on it.

Until Bonnie takes me up on my offer, any unpopped mama I pick up is getting aborted (provided she is not too far along that it would be unsafe, or the kittens alive enough to possibly survive -- like being a week or so from being born, provided that I can tell; thankfully, I have not run into that situation yet. The one mother I was not sure about had her kittens the day after I trapped her, and I just posted about that a few days ago; that mother and four kittens are doing just fine). If you want to be a Fundamentalist idiot, you have to do it on your own dime and time, not mine -- period.

I mean seriously; newsflash: Cats are not subject to the same moral rules as humans, even if one *does* believe abortion is morally wrong. And to make a mother cat suffer through yet one more litter, feeding yet more mouths, and feeling frightened about her babies just to have her babies get killed or adopted out to shitheads who will abandon them when they are not 'cute' anymore, well...I think if there were a god, he would have some really choice words for your sorry, selfish ass.

And because my Cliché Closet is getting a bit full, let me drag this gem out: If you are not a part of the solution, you are a part of the problem.

You are welcome to disagree with me on any or all of the above points if you wish; it is a free country, last I checked. And if you want to run a Home For Unwed Mama Cats, I am able to hook you up like you wouldn't believe, provided you are not a psychotic hoarder. Email me.

Butsoanyway.

The short answer is that I could not have done anything to change what happened to KotPL. And even though my heart disagrees, my head says it was for the best. He had a very nice meal of chicken and mackerel Saturday night, and was eating for about ten minutes before Harry closed the trap on him. As important as food is to them, I feel horrible about tricking them with food. Especially really nice food that I know they want, like mackerel and roasted chicken.

I know that sounds stupid, but I really do; thinking about that makes me cry.

But he had a nice meal. And if he had to die, I guess this was faster than many other ways, all of which are more probable in the life of a feral cat. Especially one with FIV. And when I got my phone call, I did ask if he had been already put down 'cos if he had not, I would have gone over , talked my way in, and given him more mackerel.

Don't ask me how, but I would have. I am good at things like that. I did not have a plan and still don't, but a goodly percentage of my plan probably rested on them not turning away a crying Ancodia with an open can of mackerel for a condemned King of the Parking Lot. But by the time they phoned me, he was being cremated.

So that is my explanation. And a little ranting. Sorry. I am sad.


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