I took a cat to the veterinarian the other day and had it euthanized.
I didn't know the cat or the owner who abandoned it. I just knew it hung
out under my front bushes and drove my indoor cats crazy....
A little earlier in the day, I had noticed my cats all lying in the windows
that came down to ground level and afforded a clear view of the underside
of the bushes in front of my house. It was strange, I had never seen them ALL
in the windows at the same time, or so quiet about it. They all sat there
with eyes half-closed, and I noticed that Abby was shivering a little.
As I peered through the window at cat-level, I could see the rump of the cat
who always stayed there until someone opened the front door and it would
run away. I mentally shrugged my shoulders and thought that the cats had
all come to some sort of an understanding... like my cats would not throw
themselves in a frenzy at the window when the stray was there, and the stray
would not tease my indoor cats.
It wasn't until I went out to get the mail, that I could hear the stray, panting
and groaning. I cautiously parted the bushes to find that the stray had been
hit by a car and had managed to crawl his way back to his shelter beneath my
bushes, despite the hideous injuries to his face and head.
My first thought was get him to the vet's, so I rushed into the house,
grabbed a clean towel and my cat carrier and came back to the stray.
This once magnificent long-haired Siamese who fled from everyone never
even flinched when I carefully covered him with the towel to make it easier
to pick him up. I gently put him in my carrier, growing more horrified
by the minute at the extent of his injuries. I thought he might die before
I even reached the vet's.
As I put the carrier on the front seat and started the car, he gave one little
meow and then resumed panting and groaning the long three miles to my vet.
My vet examined him and told me that his skull was fractured, his jaw broken
in at least six places, he was partially paralyzed and he would lose one eye,
if he even lived. She couldn't believe that he had crawled nearly 40 feet
from the street to my bushes in that condition. And she said it had
happened at least 12 hours earlier, like 2 a.m. Her opinion what that had
it been HER cat, she would have euthanized it immediately to stop his pain
and suffering. I agreed, and it was done.
I cried the whole way home, mourning this poor creature's suffering
and death as if he has been MY cat. I now understood why my cats had all
arranged themselves around the windows, they were providing some kind of
feline support group to one of theirs.
My daughter wrote a flier for the neighborhood detailing our anguish
at the needless suffering and death in the hit-and-run of this poor
creature... asking people to drive slower on our street so that the other
cats might stand a chance, and to consider making their cats house-cats,
instead of letting them run. It was the second time within a month that
a kitty had been hit by a car on our residential street. The last was a
three-month-old kitten who strayed away from its mother and into the
street during the morning "rush hour". It never stood a chance.