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6 kittens - spay/neuter update
I think it's important to live up to intentions
to spay/neuter, and accordingly the six kittens born on August 7 were spayed and neutered this week, at five months old. The female was spayed on Tuesday and all five of the males were neutered on Thursday, because that's the way the vet wanted to do it; and it was good for the female to have a two-day head start on recovery. All are doing well, and thank goodness it is over. I've had to have it done for five other cats, besides these six, and I hate it as much now as the first time, six years ago. It's been a joy having these six little angelic demons, or demonic angels, and I've never been sorry for the part I played in saving them and their mother from a late-term abortion. But my life has been taken over by this situation, which has become not just difficult, but impossible. I could write for hours detailing the awful difficulties I'm having, but I'll try to just point out the basic issues from which all of the now unsolvable problems arise. It is -not- bad having six more mouths to feed, and six more cats to carry to the vet many times into the future. The work and expense of both of those things were immediately figured into my decision to take responsibility for the kittens, and I have no regrets there. But two other things were not anticipated. One because it was a complete surprise, and the other because I recklessly evaded it. The surprise was finding that my four year old cat cannot accept the kittens. When he was two years old he had no trouble accepting a new tiny kitten and they became close, as I had hoped. But at some time between age two and four he became unable to accept new kittens, and that was a total surprise to me. It has had awful consequences. The thing that I recklessly evaded was thinking about the increased danger of the traffic to cats that run around together and chase each other around. Today one almost got run over, as I had been dreading, and nearly saw happen. I've kept them indoors ever since, but trying to keep them indoors permanently will present huge impossible problems involving the other cats, not to mention the difficulty of simply getting myself in and out. The act of feeding the kittens is easy, but feeding the others has become hard. Of the two older cats that are not freaked out by the kittens, one still won't eat when they are around her and the other one defers to any kitten that comes to his plate and tries to eat out of it. So they have to be fed separately, outside, and of course the one that is upset has to be fed outside, and he is often not there at mealtimes, which means extra trouble, and on and on. And he deprives himself of the dry food that all the others have available around the clock. Worst of all the upset cat stays out in the cold. This is middle Georgia but it's still cold. Before today there has always been a way for him to come in at night, as the other older ones have done, though I don't think he has been coming in much. Now no cat can come in or go out without my help. As of today the situation has become impossible, and I'm a mental wreck. I'm not telling all this looking for help, because there is no help. Step by step over the past six years this jam has been approaching. I haven't even mentioned the adopted cat confined to the basement, and all the issues involving him, and the interactions that my older cats, and some of the kittens, have with him, and why he is confined in the first place. If I could go back in time and do it all again, I would have just gotten one other cat for a companion to the cat that I inherited from my mother, and they both would have been indoor-only cats. Then the other two cats that I deliberately adopted never would have been known to me, nor the stray cat that I accepted. And I wouldn't have been in any frame of mind that would have even thought of trying to save these six kittens from the abortion that the mother's owners were going to have done. I didn't mean to write this much, but ten times as much wouldn't cover it all. Did I mention the two o'possums that I finally trapped and carried far away so they couldn't come in the house anymore? I'm totally attached to all ten of these cats, whom I love dearly, more than I've ever loved any humans, but I can't solve the problems. I can't even escape by committing suicide, because my death is the very worst thing that could happen to these dear creatures. -cr |
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