The Cruel Stupidity of Our Kind

There are times when I am revolted by my association with humanity and the little everyday cruelties we perpetrate on this world.

My mother came down earlier this week for a visit and to meet our kitten.  On Tuesday we took a walk around Mondo Ponds, a cut-rate nature preserve tucked between our street and Naugatuck Avenue.  When we got to the tiny parking lot at the Naugatuck Ave. entrance, I noticed what looked like a cat carrier stood on its end next to the garbage can.  I didn’t think much of it, other than someone had wanted to throw away the carrier.  Only when I got closer, I saw that it had a mat and toys inside, and on the side of the garbage can away from the street there were two of those "resevoir" style feeders — one with water and one with food.  So much for throwing away the carrier. They threw away their cat.

I went back this morning to see if the cat was still around.  The food was gone, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything, since raccoons love cat food.  I called and poked around the area for a little while, but the rain progressed from a light drizzle to a steady downpour pretty quickly.

What makes me sick is the utter contempt these people have for life to condemn that poor animal to an agonizing death by starvation or at the mercy of a predator or a car.  I know that the shelters are overcrowded, and that’s a sad state of affairs in itself.  I know that if you call a shelter, the odds are pretty high that they’ll turn you away, but there are ways and ways.  Alan’s boss said that one sure way is to leave the animal at the shelter in the middle of the night.  Awful, but effective.  And this was no half-wild stray.  This was obviously a house pet that would have been very adoptable.  Yet the poor thing gets thrown out in the woods.

Can you imagine what that animal must have gone through as it sat in its carrier with the door half open in a strange, frightening place and watched the people it depended on just drive away?  It must have been so confused.

It would have been far better to take the animal to the vet and have it put down quickly and mercifully than to subject it to the kind of distress and pain it must be feeling.

I can only hope that someone in one of the nearby condos found it and took it in.

I’m a strong, practical person, but when I look at Karma and Aladdin and think of the kind of person who could do that… My heart breaks a thousand times over.

~Liz