Living in the country it has been my experience that not only I but neighbours as well often find starved kittens and dogs that City people throw their pets away when the novelty wears off. Many animals die this way of starvation or being ripped to death by the dog / more often than not several dogs, which guards the property they have thrown their pets on in the middle of the night.
Not many little kittens make it to the back door of a country home, yet this dropping off of unwanted animals on country lands keeps persisting.
On November 28th this year (2003) it was an incredibly windy day and night with pounding rains. Later that evening I went outside on the front part of the house when I heard this distant faint meow. I just knew it wasn’t any of my cats, (which by the way some were also discarded by passer-by’s,) so I took flashlight into hand and went to follow the pitiful cries. There she was, a tiny soaking wet, shivering little kitten, in my recycling bin by the front gate. How many days she was there I have no clue, because surely my two dogs would have ripped her to pieces had she dared to venture towards the house approximately 300meters away. Her fur was soaked, her tummy bloated, she shivered in my arms as I rushed into the warm house with her to tend to her immediate needs.
The next day, the storm hit hard at our place with still 60k winds with snow and ice. Had I not found her when I did, surely she would have frozen to death after having gotten soaked through and through the day before.
I call her Stormey.
Many believe they are doing an unwanted animal kindness by discarding them on a country road’s farmers’ land. A warm barn and plenty of milk comes to their mind and they think of them as kind.
In actuality this is the cruellest act that one could ever do to an animal. In most cases it will go through hell before it is found if it hasn’t died before then. Give the animal to a family that wants one, or a pet shelter so it can be adopted. Don’t discard any animal into the wild thinking it as an act of kindness. Domesticated animals don’t fare well in the wild to begin with and surely in most cases will die unmercifully. A barn is not always a safe haven for a discarded pet. Horses will kick. As it did so to my odd-eye someone had discarded and it managed to find itself into the barn but looking for warmth and shelter she got behind my horse and she got kicked. This broke her hip and an infection had begun by the time we found her. Snow-white is fine today after the vet fixed her hip and gave her antibiotics plus vaccinations etc… but as I said not all make it into the home.
You can save an animal by the love you give by not discarding it thinking someone else surely will take it. Please take the care to look for a home for them or a pet shelter.
These are not throw away pets…
hugs
true masked wabbit |
