Dark hearted people

[bisontuba]

Thank you for caring!!

[Donn]

or would they (simply) whack those baby animals in their heads with a shovel?

I am inexperienced in this, but I'd have thought, wring their little necks, is the easiest thing, but I guess it depends on what tools you have handy.

The perpetrator was arguably guilty of not taking responsibility, but arguably more in having allowed those critters to be born in the first place. An idea I heard on this a ways back, was to the effect that you might ask the cat. Rather die now? or later? You don't have to teach them to speak English to know what the answer will be. Meanwhile, I believe the classiest predators greatly prefer live prey, and they will thank you to leave those kittens out alive.

One of the few ways to deal with vermin around here is live traps, and then you have a live critter on your hands who is no less desperate to stay that way than a kitten. Squirrel for example. The authorities and everyone with a shred of sense will tell you to drown it or something, but as a vegetarian I find it kind of amusing to see how few are the people who can do it. Instead they drive them out to another place, already packed with squirrels who aren't going to make room for this one. Sometimes I wonder if the buckets of meat they eat, come from pigs that could be their betters.

[tofu]

Yeah...dark hearted people. And this "oh well, if they were truly dark hearted they wouldn't have left them for you to find" is pure BS. As an Animal Rescue Foster I & my rescue see stuff that just makes you want to puke. People who throw them out of the car at highway speeds - both in the middle of nowhere and in fast heavy rush hour traffic on the expressways, people who bury them alive, people who move and just chain them in a house basement that was foreclosed and not likely to be checked for a good amount of time people who take puppies & put them in a garbage bag alive and casually throw them in the dumpster - I can't tell you how many times the garbage guys somehow hear the muffled cries from the dumpster and retrieve them and these are the mild stories. People who shoot them not to kill them right away, but to slowly let them die a slow painful death etc. We need to radically change the animal abuse laws in this country. The hand slaps at best that are handed out now need to be significantly upgraded. We're finally getting serious about the morons that abuse women and hopefully we will start getting serious with the animal abusers.

[hup_d_dup]

There is an odd, almost incidental, detail about the Michael Vick case that has stayed with me for years. It is a puzzlement.

He had his dogs leashed to half-buried axle rods. Obviously, the axle rods did the job, so they were functional. But why would a multi-millionaire living in a mansion surround his house with junked axle rods?

I don't know the answer. I guess it has something to do with experience. It was something useful he had seen or done in the past, and there was no reason to do it any differently.

There are people who purposely torture animals. But I think there are also a lot more people who treat animals badly, not because they are malicious, but just because it is normal, ordinary behavior.

Hup

[Donn]

There are people who purposely torture animals. But I think there are also a lot more people who treat animals badly, not because they are malicious, but just because it is normal, ordinary behavior.

Normal for a given societal context, sure, but that includes purposeful torture, too. Abusive power and control is a thing, but (I would like to think) only a potential human trait.

[bort]

As an Animal Rescue Foster...

God bless you for doing this work, and I'm truly sorry for the bad things you've had to endure along the way.

My dog came from an animal rescue... I was 30 years old when we got her, and I'd never heard of an "animal rescue" before that (my own ignorance, I'm sure). It kind of shook me, and I'm so impressed and grateful those places exist. I donate to them regularly. I never had a pet before we got our dog... I can't imagine life without a dog in the house now.

Side note -- my younger son's first two words were "mama" and "dog". A few weeks later, he said "dada." So... I'm pretty clearly 3rd place in his life right now.

[The Big Ben]

If you can, get your next pet at the shelter. Puppies and kitties are cute for sure but have a look at the old ones. As well as needing a cat, I guess I need to be needed. I brought home one cat who was old and infirm and I knew that she would cost a little money and take a little more effort but I did it any way. (Shelters sometimes give you a break on adoption fees but you will probably need more vet care.) I had no idea how long she would live but she had a sweet disposition. She really couldn't play much because of arthritis but she was happy and she enjoyed being held, looking out the window and enjoying the sun. I knew I would have to make the call when the time came but I knew that going in. She enjoyed having as much food as she wanted, a safe warm home, someone who loved her and she loved back for the last eight months of her life. But she was great.

I have another rescue kitty now. A little younger and in better health but still needs vet attention. By test, she's allergic to many things but a cortisone shot every four or five months keeps her comfortable. Her previous owner allowed her to get infested with fleas and 3/4 of her hair fell out. They moved out and left her. She's black and sleek and looks great now. She's a little crazy but that makes it more fun.

Sometimes people get dogs with little understanding of the breed they brought home. My friend has a blue heeler/dingo dog whose original owner wanted her to be a quiet little dog who sat up on the couch and did as she was told. Fat chance. The little bitch has a "Type A" personality and, if you don't give her something to do, she will figure out something on her own which usually is chewing on things and raising hell. My friend knows dogs and has been able to get her to be who she really is with a lot of good training, love and discipline.

[Three Valves]

Was there actually evidence of purposeful human neglect found with the kittens or is it possible they were abandoned by their mother??

[tofu]

The older we get (as several of our cats have lived to or nearly to age 20), we need to begin to consider the possibility of our pets (even dogs) outliving us... so something like “a five-year-old cat in good health - that is really good natured, and seems to like us“ might be a better choice as we go along.

bloke “I Like Mrs. bloke’s dogs OK, but dogs are VERY high maintenance, they belong outdoors - with viable/effective ways to stay warm/cool, and their last two or three years of life can be VERY expensive.”

We try hard to match people with the right dogs. Senior dogs make sense for older folks as they are already housebroken and less energy/maintenance than a puppy and with a life span closer to the owner(s). One of the programs we have developed is finding fosters for "hospice" senior animals so they can go in a dignified humane fashion in a loving environment. Even the most severely abused deserve a gracious ending and it's amazing how much they seem to appreciate it. Another local non-profit group has developed an excellent program for the pets (cats/dogs) of people (typically senior citizens) that find themselves having an extended stay in the hospital or nursing home and they home the pets for many months while the owners recover.

I'd also mention something that might work for many TubeNetter's groups. My group for our outdoor concerts has always allowed a different local charitable group to use the Gazebo in the park of our outdoor performance center to sell refreshments to concert goers and the group gets to keep all the proceeds. Since we pull between 2500-3500 people (5000-7500 for the 4th of July) the groups typically make around $5000 - many of these groups every year are local animal rescues. A couple years ago we started allowing one local charity (a different one for every concert) to have a table in are auditorium lobby for our fall/winter/spring indoor concerts to interact with our audience before and after the concert. We publish their wish list and a bit about them in all our PR for the concert and a brief read by our announcer of the group during the concert. I had the non-profit mention above for one one of the winter indoor concerts and they took in many of the items on their wish list as well as a considerable amount of cash donations. It's been my experience that concert goers tend to be very generous charitable and compassionate people.

[tofu]

Yeah...dark hearted people. And this "oh well, if they were truly dark hearted they wouldn't have left them for you to find" is pure BS. As an Animal Rescue Foster I & my rescue see stuff that just makes you want to puke. People who throw them out of the car at highway speeds - both in the middle of nowhere and in fast heavy rush hour traffic on the expressways, people who bury them alive, people who move and just chain them in a house basement that was foreclosed and not likely to be checked for a good amount of time people who take puppies & put them in a garbage bag alive and casually throw them in the dumpster - I can't tell you how many times the garbage guys somehow hear the muffled cries from the dumpster and retrieve them and these are the mild stories. People who shoot them not to kill them right away, but to slowly let them die a slow painful death etc. We need to radically change the animal abuse laws in this country. The hand slaps at best that are handed out now need to be significantly upgraded. We're finally getting serious about the morons that abuse women and hopefully we will start getting serious with the animal abusers.

We're associated with a low cost spay/neuter clinic, about $30 per animal and still have people saying that's too expensive. We end up serving as a transition to rescue groups a lot times, people abandon animals to us. My neighbor found an abandoned horse on his farm, in such bad shape it had to be euthanized.

I busted a hoarding situation a few years ago. The guy had a barn full of small dogs in crates and was selling pups. I noticed the odor and noise while biking a country road... Things you notice at 10 mph you don't at 55. He had over 100 animals in filth! Sick and dying... No punishment, just turn over the animals to the authorities and it was over. The only reason they got involved was I was friends with the editor of the local newspaper and she evidently put pressure on them... I tipped her on this one and she said she would help.

We're working to get laws changed, but it's slow.

We actually work with a non-profit shelter in rural TN down by the Kentucky border. They do heroic work down there saving abandoned and owner surrendered dogs. I know the cost factor is a huge issue. We typically pull 35-40 dogs every 3 weeks from them to make space in their shelter for the never ending number of dogs. Many of the dogs are heart worm positive which is incredibly cheap to prevent, but the cost of the monthly meds is still too much apparently. Once the dogs get HW the owners often abandon the animals as now the cost to treat the heart worm is $1000. As I write this I have a 90lb HW positive foster sitting next to me (he gets the first of 2 painful shots tomorrow). HW pos is a long term foster - as soon as we get the dog the foster takes them to one of our local vets - we then do a complete health check. They all have some type of worm or eye or ear infections and the foster starts them on the meds. The HW dogs also start on a month of doxcycline, then the HW shots, them a month of complete calm as the hw shots kill the heartworm but any excitement could cause a blockage / death and then a month after that before they can go up for adoption. We had a beagle come up last week that immediately after transport we had to remove 125 ticks. Some of the dogs require serious surgery - one blood hound that came up last fall had a fractured leg that turned out to be a much more complicated then usual surgery that turned into several surgeries and ultimately $22,500 cost and that's with heavily discounted vet surgical prices. And yet we still adopted the dog out at our standard $295 adoption fee. It's not cheap to run a rescue right - but our goal is to help the animals and folks always step up to help with funding. Up here we also do a lot with educating the public and the percentage of folks who give their dogs HW prevention meds has moved to 92% The county we pull from it is about 10%. Up here the county has just (last fall) had donated a $450,000 mobile surgical center truck that goes out into the county to perform neuters and spays for those who can't afford it as well as dispensing meds and education. So far this has turned out to be very successful since it started operating last September.