Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe....

The pictures below show why we have to take control of the overpopulation of kittens.  These are just some (there are six here) of the many many kittens that were taken from the man's house who lives on the property of Roberts Wesleyan College, where the students have year after year dumped their 'pets' to return home for the summer, and where there are still many many more left.  There are many adults, some pregnant, and kittens still, remaining there.  A friend of mine took these six on Friday, but needed a break after they were vetted yesterday at my vet ($277), so I took them to my tiny bathroom.  What a handful.  And they are sick.  They are being treated with Clavamox (that was the bulk of the bill - $162!!), but nothing for their eyes.

I have reached out to a kitten expert for her advice because as you can see from the second picture, there are some serious eye problems that probably should have been dealt with.  I am no expert with kittens, and six is a LOT.  I went home after work and had to bathe them, one by one, and that was hard work, let me tell you.  They were covered in fleas, still.  I also placed a tiny drop of flea med on their tiny little necks (which I was told you can't do due to their age - 5 weeks). The fleas travel up to the head when the water and Dawn dish detergent is invading their blood sucking little nests on these poor animals fur.




This is a real problem, and one that needs to be addressed.  I urge anyone to let me know if you have a contact at the newspapers, and/or can help to draft a note addressing this problem.  I will gather what you have, even if a paragraph, and try to expose this situation.  I think there is a rescue group that feeds the cats around RIT, I ask that you let me know if you know of this group too - I would like to see if they have addressed the problem with the administration of the college.  They must be held responsible, and make it illegal to own a pet on campus.  

These kittens are unwanted, right now at least.  We do need to find them homes.   These six, two more at my other friend's house, and the gazillion more still left at this man's house.  Their parents should have been spayed long ago.   The fact that cats are seasonal breeders giving birth to a litter in the spring and another later in the summer, adding to the numbers of cats and kittens for whom there are just are not enough good homes to go around.  And there’s a limit towhat animal shelters and low-cost clinics can do.  The biggest obstacle to reducing overpopulation may be attitudes toward cats at the level of both the community and the government.  People, for some reason, think that you have to take care of dogs, and cats are just cats, and that’s another problem!  Cat overpopulation is a community issue, and if the law forced people to take responsibility as they do for dogs, attitudes towards cats would begin to change.


Again, I urge any one of you with writing capability to draft something that we can get into the paper.  It needs to be addressed, and this is the first step?  What do you think?

"Let your first hour set the theme of success and positive action that is certain to echo through your entire day. Today will never happen again." 

2 comments:

  1. Not sure if they are still doing this, but a group called Caring Hearts for RIT Cats is who you are asking about. They trap, alter and find homes for the RIT stray cats. However, I see no updates on their facebook or website since a year ago.
    Web site is www.ritcats.org

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  2. Try wiping their eyes with warn soft cloths, I can't believe they didn't give you anthing for their eyes...... my vet also agrees that even though they are too young for flea meds that the fleas sometimes pose a greater health risk in tiny kittens..... we also have that HUGE problem in geneseo where the college kids dump their cats before returning home....

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