spay neuter – Pain In The Bud

The moment Everest the cat was unceremoniously dumped at an Atlanta animal shelter, he freaked out.

The little guy had just lost the only home he’d ever known, his home since kittenhood, and the woman who agreed to be his caretaker for life simply ditched him with a curt “I don’t want this cat.”

No sentiment. No apologies. Just annoyance that Everest, a white cat, was apparently shedding too much for her liking.

Everest the Cat. Credit: FurKids Midtown Atlanta

Shelter employees realized a short time later that the woman had never taken Everest to a veterinarian, had never gotten him shots or had him neutered. Now they’re tasked with rehabilitating a very scared, confused little guy who doesn’t understand why he’s been abandoned.

“We also think he may be deaf but need to conduct tests,” the manager of Furkids Midtown Atlanta Center said in a post on TikTok. “If he is deaf, it’s even more heartbreaking. We don’t think his original owner knew he was deaf, she didn’t seem to care when she surrendered him – she walked in saying, ‘I don’t want this cat.'”

“Karen With A Cat Demanding To See The Manager,” oil on canvas by Buddy the Cat, aka an AI image of what I imagine Everest’s negligent owner looks like. And yes, I used Theresa Caputo in the prompt!

The upside is that the shelter is taking Everest’s health seriously, and they’ll have him neutered and nursed back to health before adopting him out. They’ll also make sure he goes to a home where he gets the love and respect he deserves as a sentient animal with feelings.

Staff at the shelter said they’re determined “to find him the best home. He deserves so much more than the life he’s lived so far.”

“He’s still a little scared,” the shelter manager said. “He is processing what’s happened since now he’s in a shelter where there’s a lot of noises and people.”

This incident, and many others like it, are precisely the reason we need databases listing people who are abusive or negligent to their pets, so they can’t ruin more innocent lives by abandoning cats and dogs when they simply tire of them, or decide they don’t like the fact that they behave precisely the way they’re supposed to as members of their respective species.

It should be done in a way that shelters and rescues in every state can access the database, and contributions should be limited to them as well, with shelters signing their names to the entries. That would prevent people from abusing the list for malicious purposes and ensure that abusive and negligent pet owners can’t simply go to another county or state to evade bans.

“I don’t like Karens.” – Buddy the Cat, The Book of Buddesian Wisdom

Every time I read about a case of cat abuse or an incident like this, I think of Bud and what his life could have been like if he was adopted by someone who didn’t appreciate him. His curiosity, boldness and fire would have been snuffed out, and he would not have been given the love he deserves. Likewise, he would have been deprived of giving back love, and he has a lot to give.

All cats are little buddies, and they all deserve people who love and care for them.

When I ran this by Buddy himself, he agreed.

“That’s right, human,” he said. “Now fetch me a snack!”

In 2012, veterinarian Amélia Oliveira started a program to trap and neuter hundreds of cats who had been abandoned at Ilha Furtada, an island about 20 miles west of Rio de Janeiro.

Known as Ilha dos Gatos — island of the cats — the island was teeming with starving former pets and their feral offspring. Ilha Furtada has no natural source of drinking water, Oliveira said, and cats without hunting skills would quickly starve.

ilhafurtada3 — Ilha Furtada became a curiosity for boaters and fishermen, and a sore spot for cat advocates trying to stop people from dumping animals there.

With the help of others, Oliveira began a program to end the misery on what’s been called “Cat Alcatraz”: The group managed to neuter more than 380 cats. Former pets were adopted out to new homes, but the ferals would need to remain on the island, so volunteers began feeding them and bringing fresh water on a regular schedule.

With the cooperation of local authorities, the group put up signage around the island and the coast warning that abandoning pets is illegal and asking people not to interfere with the island cats. There were plans for an official survey to quantify the feline population, an initiative to use cameras to dissuade people from dumping their pets on the island…

…and then came the Coronavirus pandemic.

Whatever gains Oliveira and company made over eight years have now been erased as Brazil — one of the countries hardest hit by the virus — has suffered more than 450,000 deaths officially (and likely much more uncounted) and an economy wrecked by waves of infection and lockdown.

ilhafurtado — A “feline shantytown” on Ilha Furtada.

Many owners could no longer afford to feed themselves or their cats while others died, leaving their cats at the mercy of relatives and landlords. Once again, people began abandoning their pets on Ilha Furtada.

“If you don’t take them, they’re going out to Island of the Cats,” people would tell shelter operators, a veterinarian told the Washington Post’s Terrence McKoy.

While the feline population of Furtada Island increased, resources dwindled as lockdowns prevented volunteers from delivering food and water as often as they had in the past.

Now the island has “the appearance of a feline shantytown,” dotted with dilapidated and hastily-constructed shelters for its resident felines.

I recommend reading the entire story, one of just a few highlighting the toll the pandemic has taken on pets.