life imitating art...
On the August 13th, I went to the Mount Vernon Center for Animal Control to pick out and rescue a kitten. The kittens were dropped off on the doorstep of MVCAC. 63 of them actually. They were dog bait for a dog fighting ring.
So I went there with the greatest of intentions... To rescue a wee beasty from a horrible life. When I first looked in the cage, there were about 1 dozen left. 1 was sickly and needed meds and sat in a cage alone. Two other kittens, about 3 weeks old lay alone seemingly on the brink of death, segregated from the rest.
Now I stared into the cage. See in the picture above how things are situated? There's a pile of happy sleeping cats to the left. To the right, in what appears to be a litter pan in shredded newspaper is this lonely kitten. He had such soulful blue eyes, they looked to me as if he was an oracle of sorts. I asked to see him.
He was docile and rather well mannered. This endeared me. I did look at another larger older kitten, but for some reason I was drawn to this one. The way he was away from the others in the litter made me think that he'd be perfect to fit into the role of the name that Webkittyn had thought of for him... "The Great Catsby". You see, in the movie, Gatsby was a loner type of philanthropist. When he had parties, he never attended them... He just simply watched from afar in a secluded upstairs room. Most had never seen his face and that made him rather enigmatic. Similar to the way that Gatsby stayed aloof and away from the pack was how I saw Catsby.
Paula Young (not pictured) is the Director of the MVCAC. She asked me if I could financially handle keeping this cat. I told her that she could not fathom the ridiculous amounts of money I spend on these four legged children of Bast. She gave him a booster shot. She charged me $40 and sent myself and this new Kitten home. My biggest fault was that she never sent this 6 week old kitten to a foster home rather than putting him up on the block for adoption.
So I took the kitten home. Oddly... Like in the shelters cage, no cats in the house had any interest in knowing this cat. We just thought it would take awhile for assimilation.
With this kitten, being so small, we were afraid of it going into places it shouldn't and getting stuck at night, so during sleep time, we put the kitten in a cage large enough to house an Akita. This idea came to us after spending the night awake waiting to take it to the Vet for a clean bill of health.
The Vet? About $290... You'll need to keep that figure for the end of the story. The kitten himself seems to have minor issues, like vomiting water or food and diarrhea which we thought came as side effects of de-worming.
Days go by and we're like cooing idiots. Everything he does, WHEN he does something is cute. He loves to be near people... Especially Webkittyns crotch. I have no idea why. I think he either wants to return to a womb or it's just a warm place to be as she likes to sit Indian style.
When it comes to me, he would come up to me and either look up as a dog would beg or try to climb my leg to get held or sit on my lap. He seemed to be dependent on human body heat. Whenever I laid on the floor, he either laid with me or on me somewhere. He wasn't much for sitting alone. Either way, he was too cute for words.
We are oblivious to the signs that are being given here.
Day seven of kitten down. He'd been with us a week. It's 9 something at night and he starts acting funny. First he starts wandering to places he's never been too and sitting on a piece of newspaper. When shooed back, he turns about to sit on it again. We figure he needs to go to the box.
After putting him in the box, he crawls out and literally slithers along the floor. I notice crap coming out of his ass involuntarily. I place him back in the box and he collapses prostrate in the box with his eyes wide open and a piece of wheat litter is on his eye and he's not even phased by it.
After pulling him from the box, I place him on a pile of pillows, which he tumbles off of into a dead weight heap on the floor. We decide that I should drive to the Veterinary Emergency Group...an ER For pets.
They told us that Catsby was suffering from FKS (Fading Kitten Syndrome). Like SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) in children, FKS stems from when a kitten, obviously stripped from his mother, never gains the immunity in his liver from the mothers milk. They also tend to have extremely low body temperature, body weight and blood sugar as a result.
Now the V.E.G. did great work. They had him up and about and looking bright with his I.V. sticking out of his foreleg when I went to transfer him at 7:30.
Now, as this video attests, he was looking in good spirits. The issue was he couldn't be off fluids for the three hours between the 7 am time the ER closes and the time our vet opens at 10 am. You see, each hospital is open from 7-7 respectively. So you have to transfer from one to another between day and night. Subsequently that adds up to 2 different admissions and hospitalization fees. The second closest place that is open daytimes is Bond Animal hospital down and around the block. Now judging from the credentials of the Bond Vets and the $180,000 Mercedes sitting in the back lot, this place ain't cheap. But that's ok. Anything for the Great Catsby.
I was taking Templeton to the vet for his annual shots and checkup and I got the call at 12:30 that he died at Bond.
Note to self... Expensive high tech Vets like Bond aren't worth the money. They never put him on fluids as the V.E.G. had done and required that he be on almost non stop.
So...now he's dead and we're upset. I won't even bring up the $500 Emergency room bill or the overpriced gouged $490 bill. I went over the second post death bill with a fine tooth comb, found I was being overcharged on the cremation arrangements which I had corrected to the point that I got an additional credit for the kittens oxygen. (why do we PAY for air?). So in all everything from start to finish this tiny kitten cost me $1250 for one tiny malnourished cat...
...and a whole lotta heartache.
There's doubt.
There's questions.
There's wonderment on our part as to whether this could have been prevented.
There's even more doubt to the existence or intent of any sort of benevolent god who would do such a thing to an innocent creature.
There are memories for such a short time.
There's sorrow.
The more people I talk to, the more I think I understand why neither Bey nor Templeton would go near him. They were actually afraid of him... Like they could smell that he was the rotten banana in the bunch. People tell me that cats can smell death. I'll know this from now on. Neither cat would even lick this kitten.
I think my biggest beef is that this could have been prevented from the start. Paula Young and the MVCAC should never have let this cat been put up for adoption. Rather it should have been in foster care until it reached 10 weeks and beyond. Had this been done, as they do have the resources for foster care, none of this would have happened and no one would have been put through this emotional and financial rollercoaster.
I'd like to thank those who left kind words at Webkittyn Warbles and also those who donated to try and make this tragedy a bit more bearable.
Upon further investigation, insiders from another animal shelter told me that the number of 63 was exaggerated and that 63 stray cats could not have been processed, inoculated and distributed to foster homes in such a short time. The original count was actually 20 and she was just whoring it up for the newspapers to gain a few minutes of fake hero fame.
Needless to say, Paula Young shall now reap the wrath of the Darkstar.