Today I delivered my little foster Mo kitty to her new home. She’s had a rough road but she’s now a normal, horrid little kitten who feels wonderful, and I miss her terribly even though she kept breaking everything she came into contact with. She’s been at my side 24/7 for over five weeks now, and it’s a huge adjustment to not have her sweet little face peering at me from her perch on my shoulder.
I also made the very difficult decision to move my kitty Vincent to the store in the hopes of adopting him out.
His unprovoked aggression toward Miss Dinah Fantastico has been increasing, and Sunday afternoon he tried to kill her. I think he would’ve succeeded if I hadn’t gotten him off of her (and been bitten in the process)–it was frightening and left me very shaken up for the rest of the day. My mood has been pretty decent the past couple of weeks I’ve been off a medication (which really deserves its own post–I think I’m leaning toward risking long term physical health problems if it means I stop wanting to kill myself all the time), but I crashed pretty hard after that and I’ve been crying for two days straight.
I know, logically, that I’d never intended to keep him–I brought him in because he was an abandoned pet and it was winter, and just couldn’t find anyone to take him–and in some ways he always felt like a visitor. I know, logically, that I have spent two years trying to get his aggression under control both medically and behaviorally to no avail. And I know, logically, that if he ever succeeded in killing Dinah or causing lasting damage, I would never forgive myself and likely never recover.
It doesn’t change the fact that I feel like I’ve failed him. That if I just work harder, I’ll find the key that makes him fit in here.
But really, that’s been part of the problem: I’ve known since last year that he needs to be in a different home, but I’ve tried to manage the symptoms and after prolonged periods without incident–which only happen because I keep them physically separated so much–I start to minimize it, to believe I can manage this.
So I have to do this now when the terror and physical scars on both Dinah and me from Sunday’s episode are still fresh.
Between him and Mo kitty, my heart is entirely broken.
And I genuinely wonder how I encounter so many cats on a daily basis who have been abandoned by people–how anyone can just discard them like they mean nothing. Family pets who were doted on as kittens but kicked out the door in adulthood. Even knowing this is the best option for him, I am so ashamed and angry with myself. How do these people live with themselves? How can they look at these innocent creatures and cast them aside like garbage? How can they devote months if not years to them and then abandon them?
The inhumanity of humans enrages me sometimes, yet I still feel like a bigger monster than them all knowing that I’ve left him in a strange place and he doesn’t realize I’ll be back to see him again tomorrow (and the day after, and the day after, until someone falls in love with him as I did).
He will go nowhere less than the very best of homes, but that’s little comfort tonight as I miss him.
Writer of urban fantasy, thrillers/mysteries, and horror.
I have a very good friend who lives in Oregon and fosters guinea pigs, and I’m going to tell you the same thing I tell her when she’s hit a rough patch with one of her little fuzzy darlings: you are an angel for these creatures who would have few, or no, options. Goodbyes suck, no matter how you slice them, but you have made such a difference in those sweet, little lives.
As for the humans, I got nothin’. Some people are just assholes and the less time spent thinking about them, the better.
You’re very kind–thank you. <3 It never feels like it's good enough.
Besides TNR, one of the things our group has pledged to do is work on educating the community, but like I literally do not know how to explain to humans that they should be putting innocent lives first--like how do you reach adulthood and not even understand that. So I just walk around in a t-shirt that says "Get Your F*cking Cat Fixed".