Kitten dilemma

Much of my time and money goes into caring for stray animals, and especially cats, but I keep fairly quiet about it, and do not actively seek them out -- if they show up at my door, I take care of them.

Recently, there was an exception.  A neighbor knocked on the door, holding a kitten, and said that the kitten was following her around, and that she did not like kittens, and so we should take it.  The kitten seems quite tame and friendly -- probably NOT a totally-wild kitten.  Perhaps it was dumped in this kitten-friendly neighborhood by someone trying to get rid of it.

About a week after joining the household, the kitten suddenly began limping badly.  I took the kitten to the veterinarian, who tentatively diagnosed a fractured elbow -- the X-rays are not absolutely definitive.  The vet has given me two options: Do nothing, or have extensive surgery on the kitten's arm.

With no further treatment, the vet believes the kitten's arm will PROBABLY heal fairly well, but probably not perfectly.  It might go through life with a barely-noticeable limp.  On the other hand, it might heal badly, and the arm will become useless, and need to be amputated, and the kitten will live out its days with three of its four legs -- but still, it would probably live a fairly-normal life as a three-legged cat.

Though there are risks to any surgery, with surgery, the kitten would have a better chance of ending up with a completely "normal" arm -- but the cost would probably be close to a thousand dollars.  The vet seems to be recommending that I save my money, and do nothing more ... but is leaving the final decision up to me.

The vet and I know each other very well, and the vet knows that he will get my money either way.  Veterinary bills are among my largest expenses, along with animal food, medicine, and other supplies.  I am not wealthy, and run a very real risk of someday running out of money, but at this moment I COULD come up with the thousand dollars needed for this surgery.

Life offers no guarantees.  IF there was a guarantee that for a thousand dollars, the kitten could have a perfect arm, and a perfect, long, happy life, then I suppose the question would be easier.  The question would also be easier if I KNEW that doing nothing would guarantee that the kitten would eventually lose its arm.

The truth is more complicated.  I am left in the awful situation of weighing the health of one of God's creatures against the significant financial cost.

It would be a bit easier if the new kitten were an established member of the family.  I once spent seven thousand dollars on surgery for my beloved dog, and spend hundreds each month on special food and medicines for other established animals.  But this is not yet a family member -- it is a seemingly-homeless animal deposited here by a neighbor.  But I am not sure that this information should factor in the decision.  Is this kitten any less "deserving" of expensive surgery because it has spent less time in our household?

I THINK the question comes down to "need".  My dog NEEDED the surgery.  The vet is not convinced that this kitten truly NEEDS the surgery.  But perhaps it DOES.  By the way, if I wait, to see whether the arm will heal correctly on its own, it will be too late to do the surgery.

I do not know the correct way to proceed.

Truth is complicated.

The Wayfarer's Dole

Years ago, I read a magazine article that made reference to “The Wayfarer’s Dole”.  My memory is quite hazy, but it had to do with someplace in Britain -- I thought some sort of medieval monastery -- where anyone could stop by and be offered food and drink and perhaps even a place to sleep, AND this had been going on for hundreds of years, and was still going on today.

I recently decided I needed to look all of this up, and the truth is a bit more complicated than my vague memory -- but the fact is that for many years, THIS is what I vaguely remembered … and this is one of those cases in which this vague memory of the truth is in some ways more important than the actual truth.

The reason the inaccurate vague memory is more important than the truth is that for several years now, I have tried to re-create this concept of a medieval monastery, but for critters -- mostly cats, though I have yet to turn any critter away.  Basically, my rule is that any critter -- again, mostly any cat -- who shows up at my place gets a meal, water, and a place to sleep that is hopefully safe and warm and dry.  If they will let me handle them, they get medical care, if they seem to need it, and if they choose to stay for a prolonged period, they get “fixed” and medical care, including vaccinations,  whether or not they appear to need it, and whether or not they will let me handle them (I possess and am capable of using a trap, nets, and special protective gloves).

The area where I live has cold, snowy winters, so the winters are the most difficult time.  I make various shelters, including insulated houses that I build from scratch, and do my best to supply unfrozen water.  At the coldest times, everyone is urged to come inside, though some steadfastly refuse.  I have one cat who I consider totally “mine”, who eats all his meals on my front porch, lives in a custom-built cat house, and gets regular veterinary care, but even on the coldest nights dislikes staying indoors for more than perhaps an hour.

This does involve lots of effort and expense, and hundreds of cans of food, and hundreds of pounds of dry food.  I am well-known at my local veterinarians’ office, and they have a special program just for neutering “my” cats.

I would like to think that everyone would have access to a wholesome meal and clean water and a safe, warm, dry place to sleep, but I know that is not the case.  Here in our little corner of the world, we do what we can.

(By the way, the classic “Wayfarer’s Dole” is dispensed at “The Hospital of St Cross and Almshouse of Noble Poverty” in Winchester, England, founded in the 1130’s, and consists of bread and ale.  Though 25 men currently live there full-time, I do not believe most travelers are offered a place to sleep.)

Pets and Me

I did not particularly grow up with pets. When I was very young, my family had a dog -- a Cocker Spaniel -- who lived out in a pen in the back yard. I would sometimes go up to the fence, and the dog would climb up on the fence to face me, and as far as I was concerned the dog and I had done a trick. I do not recall any of the other children in the family -- all older than me -- ever having much to do with the dog. We gave her away while I was still quite young.

When I was a bit older, about third grade, we had a lamb who lived in the dog pen. I would actually play some with the lamb, and sometimes gave her her bottle when she was young, and food when she was older. Eventually the lamb sort of grew up, and we took her back to the farm she came from.

The first pet that was truly "mine" was a tiger salamander that one of my dad's co-workers caught in his yard. I took care of my salamander and played with him and was quite fond of him. After less than a year, he escaped inside the house (he normally lived on the back porch, but they were spraying for mosquitoes so I brought him inside). My dad found his shriveled body months later, and I cried.

I had various other short-term "pets", especially orphaned and injured birds, and frogs. Most died, but a few were released alive or at least escaped to fates unknown. In general, my family had a rule against "pets in the house" though an exception was made for my "sea monkeys". As with most people who have had "sea monkeys", I was not particularly impressed with them as pets, and I do not recall for certain what became of them, but I am pretty sure they died. I also interacted with neighbor pets, and formed occasional short-term attachments to animals encountered away from home. I should mention the curious case of a robin who bonded with our family, but I will leave that for another time.

After my older brother had moved away from home, gotten married, and acquired a pair of Golden Retrievers, I would sometimes be asked to keep them for a week or two. They would reside in the same pen as our original Cocker Spaniel (and later lamb). I like to think those were pleasant times for both the dogs and me. Since I only had them for relatively brief spans of time, while I did have them I could devote most of my time and energy to their care and recreation, putting other things on hold until they were gone. Mostly we would go for walks. LONG walks. They were both very good, likable dogs, and easy to take care of. Eventually I went off to college, and the arrangement ended.

For several decades, my life was almost pet-free, though there were still relationships with neighbor pets and occasional short-term attachments. Then life began to take some convoluted turns. In the space of a few years, I first formed close relationships with several pets technically belonging to a close friend, then suddenly had my own dog, then my own cat, then more cats, more dogs, and the occasional mouse, not to mention my crippled squirrel.

Now I care for literally more animals than I can count, since I am involved with a variety of stray or wild animals who come and go and exist on the edge of my perception, animals cared for also by friends, and those animals who are one hundred percent "mine". In recent years, I have never specifically sought out a pet, and I have never purchased a pet or answered an ad for a pet or adopted a pet from a shelter -- though a couple of my pets have spent time in shelters before eventually working their way to me. All my animals are strays or cast-offs or animals for some reason needing a home. (In the case of mice, I sometimes catch house mice in live traps in the dead of winter and care for them until warm weather when I attempt to relocate them.)

(I am aware that people have a full range of emotions about pets, just as they have a full range of emotions about most topics. When hearing about the numbers of animals I keep company with, a common first response is to question whether I have had them "fixed". The short answer is "Of course." Among my largest personal expenses is pet-neutering.)

The point of this introductory discussion is just to begin to explain where I am coming from in regard to pets. Though I grew up largely without animals, they are now a huge part of my life. As I type this, there are two nine-week-old orphaned, bottle-fed kittens asleep on my lap, a somewhat older kitten asleep on the desk next to the computer monitor, and yet another cat grooming himself on the shelf six inches from my shoulder.

LATER: It's been awhile since I first typed this, but I never got around to posting it. NOW there is yet another cat curled up in front of the monitor, and every now and then he hits the power button and the monitor goes off.

I COULD try and discuss the role of pets in our lives, or our relationship with the rest of the animal kingdom, but I will leave all that for another time.

Truth is complicated.

Roscoe

I have been doing this blog for three weeks now, and I may be reaching the point where the preliminary disclaimers and legal statements are out of the way, and I can get down to actually "blogging" -- whatever THAT turns out to be. Perhaps I am looking at this the wrong way, but I see it as laying a foundation -- not necessarily much fun, but important for everything that will follow.

During those three weeks, the world continued to turn, there were some interesting political developments, local instrumental music groups began their "school-year" season, and Roscoe the cat slipped off somewhere to die. (WARNING: If you would prefer not to read details of a cat's final illness, stop here.)

I have many animal friends, and I am becoming too familiar with animal deaths. Roscoe showed up last fall, full grown, and was friendly and lovable, though he had an unfortunate tendency to "spray" inside. I thought perhaps having him "fixed" would help, but it turned out he had already been fixed in his life before he arrived here. Still, he was a very good cat.

The most notable thing about Roscoe's death was that it took so long. Roscoe had been diagnosed with terminal, inoperable, untreatable, "wildly malignant" cancer at the end of May/beginning of June, with a projected life expectancy of less than one month. The cancer was under his tongue, so it would interfere with his eating, and he drooled a lot and smelled bad -- I took him to the vet for what I assumed was an infected tooth, and that's when the cancer was discovered. The vet prescribed pain medication to be given every other day, and Roscoe took it without complaining much, and never seemed to acknowledge any pain. He would sometimes bleed, and sometimes quite a lot. Occasionally, he would look like a child who had stuck his face into a bowl of ketchup.

His appetite declined over time, or perhaps the pain and difficulty of eating with the cancer under his tongue made it not worth the effort. I am not getting any compensation for stating that he developed a special fondness for Friskies "Mixed Grill" flavor, though towards the end he would mostly sniff at it and walk away. He enjoyed ripping into unopened bags of both dry cat food and dry dog food, and he would eat some of what he tore into. He liked to eat fish and drink milk, though sometimes the milk would get pretty bloody.

I suppose I should mention that he lost a lot of fur and looked awful, and we advised the neighbors of his situation, lest they become alarmed at the site of this smelly, bloody, fur-losing cat. I am happy to point out that even in this condition, children loved him, though their parents might cringe when they cuddled him. I should also mention that his life perhaps could have been prolonged with tube feedings, if that had seemed like a good idea.

Perhaps later in this blog I will discuss animal euthanasia. For now, I will just say that Roscoe continued to live life on his own terms and to the fullest for months after he was expected to be dead. Most nights, he would sleep inside, but for the last few days he preferred staying outside. By the evening of September 17, he was thin and weak, and I spent a long time petting him after he had some milk, and then he got up and took off in an unusual direction. I have not seen him again.