The Veterinarian

I am literally crying with relief. Seriously, tears of joy and grief all at once.
My vet will spay Kaboodle.

Seriously, I am crying. You must think I weep every day. I don’t, but maybe I need to.

It was suddenly like there was an ally.

It’s awful. I don’t want to abort three week old kitten fetuses. It is sickening to even think about and makes me feel like the devil. But I wake up to cats on the deck and cats coming over the fence and cats on the doormat. And I want control over our lives and yard again.
I want to be able to give good attention to the animals we have committed to. And I want the birds to have some peace.

For two years I have made so many phone calls to so many agencies and rescue places and vet's offices, always finding no one who can help. Many people mean well but they are so overwhelmed also.

And the tragedy of cats is that they breed so well. And the world doesn’t need them.

My favorite rescue place The Popcorn Zoo flat out euthanizes all ferals. Even my local SPCA will only take them if they are socialized and can be touched, because they already have 300 to 400 cats they can’t place. They give them away two for one. Every pet shop and cat rescue place for miles is overwhelmed. I have called everywhere and talked to many people and can’t find anyone to foster a pregnant cat. Nor could I find anyone in the Fall to take the Beezle.

I am so tired.

And I can’t fault my neighbors because I see they have all adopted cats and now in a neighborhood where three to four years ago there were zero cats, there is now a cat peeking out every window and door.

And I think that our local neighborhood rescue person who has a heart of gold and who loaned us the have-a-heart trap, made things much worse. She took in loads of kittens from shelters in the South (I think Maryland and North Carolina) who were all about to be euthanized even though they were healthy and sweet, and she found homes for them with our neighbors. So now our local no-kill shelters are almost having to become kill shelters.

Every kitten that arrives displaces a cat who is already here and potentially dooms it to euthanasia just by their innocent act of being born.

Can no one invent a cat birth control? Really?

The neighboring town Sea Bright which has always had dreadful, sad, mangy, infected- eye cats who threaten the nesting plovers in the dunes, has just begun a TNR=trap, neuter, return program. I think that is the best that can be done. But you know what, we need tax money and not tea partiers or the local mayor if such things are going to happen here.

In two years I have already spent almost two thousand dollars on these cats, and only 3 of them have gotten full medical care.

Do you know what it was like to hear the receptionist ask my vet what his policy would be on spaying a pregnant feral cat and to hear his calm kind voice say, “I don’t have a problem with it.”

This is the vet who cares for our dog and for our own cat who was once a feral. Our vet Dr. H is one of the kindest most professional humans I have ever met. My mate and I have both lamented that when we move he will be the one professional person we really miss. (Along with our pharmacist Ross.) As I have been so sick since 2008 I have often wished that Dr. H were my own doctor.

A few months ago he left his job at the big animal hospital in Red Bank and opened his own small practice in a house in our neighborhood where he lives with his wife and children. He bought the place from a man who used to be a doctor and had his medical office at home, (just as my great grandfather practiced medicine from his farm in Virginia, and just as most doctors used to, since they were needed 24/7.)

Just to hear my veterinarian’s voice in the background, “I don’t have a problem with it,” was like hearing the voice of God.

I felt like in this suburban wilderness where I so often feel so desperately alone and without kindreds, that I had just found an adult.

I want that kind of God. Loving, measured, scientific, calm, competent, compassionate, available, willing to help. An ally.

I want a God who lets females of all species control their fertility.

We didn’t create the problem. We are just doing the best we can with a tough situation, looking for solutions.

Kaboodle will get the best medical care. She will be kept overnight and given antibiotics and pain meds. She will be vaccinated. I will nurse her through her post operative week and then she can join her siblings and enjoy the coming green grass of Spring.

She will be in the best hands the world has to offer.