The story continues: Part 2

I keep in contact with my roommates while I'm working via instant messenger. I asked one of them to keep an eye out for the trap, but it wasn't until 3:30 p.m. that he noticed it had been placed inside the gate of our yard. Granted, rabies travels slowly through the body until it gets to the brain, because it travels from the bite site through nerves, at a rate of about an inch and a half per day, and this is not something I knew at the time, but even if I had, I think I can be forgiven for feeling some urgency in the matter. I wanted to catch the cat and get it tested as soon as possible, especially since I had no idea how long I could safely wait before getting treated for rabies exposure.

I went home and worked out how to set the trap. I baited it with an opened can of tuna, told my roommates that our cat was confined to the house (seriously, how much sillier do you think I would have felt if I ended up trapping my own cat?), and put the set and baited trap near the shed where I'd seen the kittens the most frequently. The trap had a pressure plate on the bottom that connected by a chain to a lever which would drop the gate to the trap when the plate was stepped on. I honestly wasn't expecting the trap to work; I didn't think the kittens would weigh enough to trip the trap.

I checked the trap at around 8 p.m., and was surprised to find two black kittens huddling in the cage next to a half-eaten can of tuna fish. Looking up at me with big black eyes, they were scared, angry, and agitated, running around and trying to escape the cage when I got near.

I was beginning to realize that I had a lot of questions now that I hadn't thought of before, such as what I was supposed to with the captured cats that had NOT bitten me. I tried to call the vet the animal control officer had referred to, but there was no answer, and I didn't want to call the emergency number given in the automatic message. I also couldn't just let the kittens loose- for all I knew, they could also be carrying rabies, and if I let them loose, I knew that they would contribute further to the stray cat problem in the neighborhood. They needed to be euthanized.

I decided to cover the cage with a blanket for the night, leave it where it was, and take the cage and kittens to the vet in the morning. I called my boss and told her I was going to be late to work in the morning while I dealt with this. I had briefed her on what was going on earlier that day, figuring she had the right to know that at some point I might began slobbering uncontrollably at my desk and randomly biting people.

Wednesday morning, I arrived at the vet's office shortly after they opened at eight, left the cage with it's two pitiful, and terrified, occupants in the back of my vehicle, and went in to talk to the receptionist. She was cheerful at first, but as I explained the situation to her (I never got her name), she became more unfriendly. I told her that the two kittens I had captured were not the one that had bitten me, and I wasn't sure what to do with them; whether they should also be tested for rabies or not, but that animal control had told me to contact this vet's office.

She immediately informed me that they would charge me $85 each to euthanize and test the cats. Shocked, I asked her if the state didn't cover the cost of the testing at least, since this was a suspected rabies case. She told me that the state charged them $35 for testing, and that the Euthanol cost $50 a dose to put down the animal. She went on to say that they wouldn't even take them because they had "all the other strays back there" and again repeated that the state charged them $35 to test for rabies, but if I went to a different vet that was located nearby, they might be willing to euthanize the other cats for free when I caught the one that bit me and paid for its testing. She gave me vague directions to other vet, and while she was never rude, she seemed to want to get rid of me as quickly as possible. To the best of my knowledge, this is the veterinarian that is contracted to the city  to handle stray animals in lieu of having a city pound.

I left there bitter and frustrated, knowing that I did not have the nearly $500 it was going to cost to get each of the cats euthanized and tested for rabies. As I drove around looking for the other vet, I considered my options. The best plan I could come up with was to drive out to the desert, dump the kittens, leave them to fend for themselves and possibly spread rabies, repeat as necessary with the other cats as I caught them until I caught the one that bit me, pay to have it tested and/or begin getting my treatment for rabies exposure.

This was not how I wanted to do things. I have always tried to be a responsible pet owner- I neuter my pets, care for their health, and enjoy their company and spend time with them. I have always believed that pet ownership is a responsibility that many people aren't able to live up to, especially by not neutering their pets and allowing them to roam and contribute to the problem of unwanted animals. Even considering that these were not cats of mine in the first place, but were already strays that had just happened to have been born under my house, I felt I needed to find a solution to this problem without making things worse.

What I originally wanted when I discovered the family was to find the kittens and mother a home or homes; but once I was bitten, that was no longer an option. Now I needed to have the cats put to sleep, and testing done on the one that bit me at least. However, I was in no position to be able to put these kittens down myself... I'm not the kind of person that can tie them in a gunny sack and dump them in a pond to drown. I needed an affordable, humane solution, but as I drove along the highway trying to find the second vet's office, solutions weren't coming to mind, and I was getting more angry and frustrated the more I thought about the way things were going, and the fact that the city was leaving me to find a solution to this potentially life-or-death problem on my own.

I finally found the vet's office I was looking for, but by that point I didn't feel like telling the story to yet another unsympathetic stranger. I decided to go talk to someone I did know and trust- the vet that I use personally for my own pets.

More tomorrow- The city continues to be less than helpful, and I find out that someone was lying to me.

The story continues: Part 2

I keep in contact with my roommates while I'm working via instant messenger. I asked one of them to keep an eye out for the trap, but it wasn't until 3:30 p.m. that he noticed it had been placed inside the gate of our yard. Granted, rabies travels slowly through the body until it gets to the brain, because it travels from the bite site through nerves, at a rate of about an inch and a half per day, and this is not something I knew at the time, but even if I had, I think I can be forgiven for feeling some urgency in the matter. I wanted to catch the cat and get it tested as soon as possible, especially since I had no idea how long I could safely wait before getting treated for rabies exposure.

I went home and worked out how to set the trap. I baited it with an opened can of tuna, told my roommates that our cat was confined to the house (seriously, how much sillier do you think I would have felt if I ended up trapping my own cat?), and put the set and baited trap near the shed where I'd seen the kittens the most frequently. The trap had a pressure plate on the bottom that connected by a chain to a lever which would drop the gate to the trap when the plate was stepped on. I honestly wasn't expecting the trap to work; I didn't think the kittens would weigh enough to trip the trap.

I checked the trap at around 8 p.m., and was surprised to find two black kittens huddling in the cage next to a half-eaten can of tuna fish. Looking up at me with big black eyes, they were scared, angry, and agitated, running around and trying to escape the cage when I got near.

I was beginning to realize that I had a lot of questions now that I hadn't thought of before, such as what I was supposed to with the captured cats that had NOT bitten me. I tried to call the vet the animal control officer had referred to, but there was no answer, and I didn't want to call the emergency number given in the automatic message. I also couldn't just let the kittens loose- for all I knew, they could also be carrying rabies, and if I let them loose, I knew that they would contribute further to the stray cat problem in the neighborhood. They needed to be euthanized.

I decided to cover the cage with a blanket for the night, leave it where it was, and take the cage and kittens to the vet in the morning. I called my boss and told her I was going to be late to work in the morning while I dealt with this. I had briefed her on what was going on earlier that day, figuring she had the right to know that at some point I might began slobbering uncontrollably at my desk and randomly biting people.

Wednesday morning, I arrived at the vet's office shortly after they opened at eight, left the cage with it's two pitiful, and terrified, occupants in the back of my vehicle, and went in to talk to the receptionist. She was cheerful at first, but as I explained the situation to her (I never got her name), she became more unfriendly. I told her that the two kittens I had captured were not the one that had bitten me, and I wasn't sure what to do with them; whether they should also be tested for rabies or not, but that animal control had told me to contact this vet's office.

She immediately informed me that they would charge me $85 each to euthanize and test the cats. Shocked, I asked her if the state didn't cover the cost of the testing at least, since this was a suspected rabies case. She told me that the state charged them $35 for testing, and that the Euthanol cost $50 a dose to put down the animal. She went on to say that they wouldn't even take them because they had "all the other strays back there" and again repeated that the state charged them $35 to test for rabies, but if I went to a different vet that was located nearby, they might be willing to euthanize the other cats for free when I caught the one that bit me and paid for its testing. She gave me vague directions to other vet, and while she was never rude, she seemed to want to get rid of me as quickly as possible. To the best of my knowledge, this is the veterinarian that is contracted to the city  to handle stray animals in lieu of having a city pound.

I left there bitter and frustrated, knowing that I did not have the nearly $500 it was going to cost to get each of the cats euthanized and tested for rabies. As I drove around looking for the other vet, I considered my options. The best plan I could come up with was to drive out to the desert, dump the kittens, leave them to fend for themselves and possibly spread rabies, repeat as necessary with the other cats as I caught them until I caught the one that bit me, pay to have it tested and/or begin getting my treatment for rabies exposure.

This was not how I wanted to do things. I have always tried to be a responsible pet owner- I neuter my pets, care for their health, and enjoy their company and spend time with them. I have always believed that pet ownership is a responsibility that many people aren't able to live up to, especially by not neutering their pets and allowing them to roam and contribute to the problem of unwanted animals. Even considering that these were not cats of mine in the first place, but were already strays that had just happened to have been born under my house, I felt I needed to find a solution to this problem without making things worse.

What I originally wanted when I discovered the family was to find the kittens and mother a home or homes; but once I was bitten, that was no longer an option. Now I needed to have the cats put to sleep, and testing done on the one that bit me at least. However, I was in no position to be able to put these kittens down myself... I'm not the kind of person that can tie them in a gunny sack and dump them in a pond to drown. I needed an affordable, humane solution, but as I drove along the highway trying to find the second vet's office, solutions weren't coming to mind, and I was getting more angry and frustrated the more I thought about the way things were going, and the fact that the city was leaving me to find a solution to this potentially life-or-death problem on my own.

I finally found the vet's office I was looking for, but by that point I didn't feel like telling the story to yet another unsympathetic stranger. I decided to go talk to someone I did know and trust- the vet that I use personally for my own pets.

More tomorrow- The city continues to be less than helpful, and I find out that someone was lying to me.

Part three

It's nearly 8:45 when I got to my vet's office. I explained the entire story to her, telling her that I really wanted to do the right thing, but I didn't feel like I had many options left, especially when I going to be charged so much for testing and euthanizing the animals. She looked skeptical when I told her about the $85 dollar charge, grabbed her phone, and called the testing labs in Cheyenne.

She hung up the phone, and told me that according to them, they do NOT charge for the testing. I asked her where she thought the $35 charge I was being told about came from, and she thought maybe it was for the postage or something, but I pointed out that the vet's receptionist had specifically said that the state charged them $35, which was why I was being charged $35 (So it wouldn't have surprised me, I suppose, if I'd ended up getting charged for the shipping on top of the $35). She asked me where the kittens were now, and I told her I had them with me in the vehicle. She asked me for the number to Doctor D, and while she called him, I went and got the cage. When I returned, she handed me the phone so Doctor D could talk to me, and she prepared to put down the kittens.

While she had been on the phone with the labs, her assistant and I talked some. She had once lived on the same bock as I do now, and knew the neighbors. She told me that the stray cats had gotten so bad that while one of my neighbors had started out trying to trap them and having them taken to be put down, they were now just shooting them with BB guns. Another person in the area where she currently lives was shooting cats as well, but the problem they had there was that one woman was feeding strays at her house, but refusing care for them any other way- so they weren't neutered or getting shots, just eating food and breeding more unwanted cats.

I left the examination room and explained to Doctor D what had happened so far since I'd talked to him last. I told him I hadn't gotten through to my physician yet, although he was to return to his office today. Doctor D asked me if I had caught the cat yet, and I said I had not, but that I was going to keep trying. He told me then that it would probably be a good idea to go ahead and start the rabies exposure treatments as soon as I could- if after catching the cat and having it tested, I could always stop the treatments if the cat was not positive. I told him that maybe I should wait another day to see if I could catch the kitten, but he pushed me to go ahead and start the treatments. I told him I would talk that over with my physician, as soon as I could, and we ended the call.

By now, my vet had finished with the two kittens, and said she would package them up and get them shipped to the lab for testing. I took the cage, went home, put in a new can of tuna and reset the trap, and headed into work for the day. I was in a fairly foul mood- it's one thing to get laughed at for being bitten by a kitten; it's another thing to start the day by taking kittens to be killed.

I updated my boss with what was going on, called and left another message for my physician, and went about getting some work done. At about 11:30, I tried again to reach my doctor (I found out later he had been out of the office for a week, and was crazy busy trying to get caught up- he's one of the best, and most popular, doctors in the area). I got through to the receptionist, and told her who I was, and what the situation was. She told me she had just gotten a chance to listen to the voice-mail I had left, and asked if I could come in at 3. I said yes, hung up, and then went home to check the trap.

This time, the cage contained the very upset mother cat.

I knew the kittens were eating some solid food, since they had eaten the can of tuna. But from the looks of the mother, they were still nursing as well. So now, another quandary: if I took the mother cat to the vet, I figured there was a chance the kittens would wander off and I'd never see them again. If I let the mother go, I couldn't be sure I'd be able to trap her again. So I needed to hold on to the mother cat, but I didn't have anyplace to keep her but inside the trap.  But I needed the trap to catch more kittens. Right about then, my vet called me to let me know that she had sent the two kittens from that morning out to be tested. I asked her what she thought I should do, and she suggested calling animal control to see if I could get a second trap. She told me to call her at her clinic if I caught any more, and to leave a message if she wasn't there and she'd check back in with me during the evening.

It was about 10 minutes before noon when I got home. I called the animal control officer and explained to him what was happening. He said he had another trap that I could use. I said that was great, and that I was at home right now if he wanted to drop it off. He said he couldn't, because he had to go run a bike rodeo at the school, and it wouldn't be until two o'clock before he could bring it by. With no other options, I said that was fine.

This is a small town. Driving from one end to the other usually takes around five minutes; ten if you hit every red light. I don't think there's any two points in the town that can't be traversed in less than ten minutes. So once again, I was left feeling frustrated, unable to really understand why it was so much trouble to drop off a trap, especially considering I only live about 9 blocks away from the police department. I was standing in my yard; he didn't even need to get out of his truck. I was even more angry when I returned to work and found out that the bike rodeo didn't start until 12:15; at the time I called him, he had 25 minutes to make a 5 minute trip to the school.

The cage was in a shady spot, so I left it where it was and headed back to work. On the way, I stopped by the police station, thinking that maybe I could just pick up a trap and save the animal control officer the trip, but I was told that he had already left, and that he was "usually the only one" who would sign out a trap. I initially wondered why she didn't offer to contact him via radio to see if it was alright for me to have a trap, but if he treats her like he treated me on the phone (And reputedly, like he treats a lot of people) she probably didn't want to deal with him any more than I did.

Back at the office of the newspaper I work for, I worked hard to get caught up after being out so much that day. That was when I found out from my boss that the bike rodeo at the school was from 12:15 until 2:15.  I called around to a few people I knew to see if they had a live trap I could borrow, but no one did. At 2:30, I left for my appointment with the doctor, swinging by my house first to see if the trap had been dropped off yet, which it hadn't. I felt bad about leaving the mother in the cage, but I told my roommates to not let Ike out into the yard unsupervised, so I knew she wouldn't be bothered, and I managed to lift the cage door just enough to slip a bowl of water inside, and dumped some cat food in as well, so she had something to drink and eat. I then went on to my doctor's office.

After waiting for a bit, I was taken to the exam room, had my weight taken, and shortly my physician came in. He examined my hand, which was healing up nicely with no signs of infection, and he said that while the chances of there being a rabies infection were very slim, the chance did exist, and while I could probably wait for awhile longer before getting the shots, he really recommended that I start the treatment right away, especially since the cat hadn't been captured yet. So, I agreed to get the shots. He left the office to check to see if they had the vaccine.

Forty-five minutes later, he finally came back. I kept nodding off while he was gone; the past 24 hours had been fairly stressful, and finally making the decision to get the shots had really taken a load off of me. I was exhausted. When the doctor  finally returned, he apologized for how long I'd had to wait, but they didn't have the vaccine in the office and had been expecting a phone call back from the local hospital to see if they could send any over. He told me there was no sense in having me sitting and waiting any longer, and that he'd call me at work when he found out about the vaccine.

I left the doctor's office and drove home to see if the trap had been dropped off, which it hadn't. So much for less stress. I called animal control again, and asked about the trap, reminding the receptionist that he had told me he'd drop it off at two and it was now four in the afternoon. The receptionist told me that the animal control officer was still at the bike rodeo. I was polite and did not yell; I knew this wasn't her fault, but once again, I really felt like I was being left hanging. I went back to the office to try to get some more work done.

A little bit after I returned, my doctor's office called me and told me that arrangements had been made for me to get the shots at the emergency room, whenever it was convenient for me to do so. I said I'd go right after work.

At five, I headed home once more, and I was pleased to find a trap had been left inside our gate. It was somewhat different than the other one, a little smaller, and the trap mechanism was different, but I didn't have any trouble baiting it and setting it up right beside the trap with the mother in it. And then my roommate and I headed off to the emergency room to get my shots.

More soon

Part three

It's nearly 8:45 when I got to my vet's office. I explained the entire story to her, telling her that I really wanted to do the right thing, but I didn't feel like I had many options left, especially when I going to be charged so much for testing and euthanizing the animals. She looked skeptical when I told her about the $85 dollar charge, grabbed her phone, and called the testing labs in Cheyenne.

She hung up the phone, and told me that according to them, they do NOT charge for the testing. I asked her where she thought the $35 charge I was being told about came from, and she thought maybe it was for the postage or something, but I pointed out that the vet's receptionist had specifically said that the state charged them $35, which was why I was being charged $35 (So it wouldn't have surprised me, I suppose, if I'd ended up getting charged for the shipping on top of the $35). She asked me where the kittens were now, and I told her I had them with me in the vehicle. She asked me for the number to Doctor D, and while she called him, I went and got the cage. When I returned, she handed me the phone so Doctor D could talk to me, and she prepared to put down the kittens.

While she had been on the phone with the labs, her assistant and I talked some. She had once lived on the same bock as I do now, and knew the neighbors. She told me that the stray cats had gotten so bad that while one of my neighbors had started out trying to trap them and having them taken to be put down, they were now just shooting them with BB guns. Another person in the area where she currently lives was shooting cats as well, but the problem they had there was that one woman was feeding strays at her house, but refusing care for them any other way- so they weren't neutered or getting shots, just eating food and breeding more unwanted cats.

I left the examination room and explained to Doctor D what had happened so far since I'd talked to him last. I told him I hadn't gotten through to my physician yet, although he was to return to his office today. Doctor D asked me if I had caught the cat yet, and I said I had not, but that I was going to keep trying. He told me then that it would probably be a good idea to go ahead and start the rabies exposure treatments as soon as I could- if after catching the cat and having it tested, I could always stop the treatments if the cat was not positive. I told him that maybe I should wait another day to see if I could catch the kitten, but he pushed me to go ahead and start the treatments. I told him I would talk that over with my physician, as soon as I could, and we ended the call.

By now, my vet had finished with the two kittens, and said she would package them up and get them shipped to the lab for testing. I took the cage, went home, put in a new can of tuna and reset the trap, and headed into work for the day. I was in a fairly foul mood- it's one thing to get laughed at for being bitten by a kitten; it's another thing to start the day by taking kittens to be killed.

I updated my boss with what was going on, called and left another message for my physician, and went about getting some work done. At about 11:30, I tried again to reach my doctor (I found out later he had been out of the office for a week, and was crazy busy trying to get caught up- he's one of the best, and most popular, doctors in the area). I got through to the receptionist, and told her who I was, and what the situation was. She told me she had just gotten a chance to listen to the voice-mail I had left, and asked if I could come in at 3. I said yes, hung up, and then went home to check the trap.

This time, the cage contained the very upset mother cat.

I knew the kittens were eating some solid food, since they had eaten the can of tuna. But from the looks of the mother, they were still nursing as well. So now, another quandary: if I took the mother cat to the vet, I figured there was a chance the kittens would wander off and I'd never see them again. If I let the mother go, I couldn't be sure I'd be able to trap her again. So I needed to hold on to the mother cat, but I didn't have anyplace to keep her but inside the trap.  But I needed the trap to catch more kittens. Right about then, my vet called me to let me know that she had sent the two kittens from that morning out to be tested. I asked her what she thought I should do, and she suggested calling animal control to see if I could get a second trap. She told me to call her at her clinic if I caught any more, and to leave a message if she wasn't there and she'd check back in with me during the evening.

It was about 10 minutes before noon when I got home. I called the animal control officer and explained to him what was happening. He said he had another trap that I could use. I said that was great, and that I was at home right now if he wanted to drop it off. He said he couldn't, because he had to go run a bike rodeo at the school, and it wouldn't be until two o'clock before he could bring it by. With no other options, I said that was fine.

This is a small town. Driving from one end to the other usually takes around five minutes; ten if you hit every red light. I don't think there's any two points in the town that can't be traversed in less than ten minutes. So once again, I was left feeling frustrated, unable to really understand why it was so much trouble to drop off a trap, especially considering I only live about 9 blocks away from the police department. I was standing in my yard; he didn't even need to get out of his truck. I was even more angry when I returned to work and found out that the bike rodeo didn't start until 12:15; at the time I called him, he had 25 minutes to make a 5 minute trip to the school.

The cage was in a shady spot, so I left it where it was and headed back to work. On the way, I stopped by the police station, thinking that maybe I could just pick up a trap and save the animal control officer the trip, but I was told that he had already left, and that he was "usually the only one" who would sign out a trap. I initially wondered why she didn't offer to contact him via radio to see if it was alright for me to have a trap, but if he treats her like he treated me on the phone (And reputedly, like he treats a lot of people) she probably didn't want to deal with him any more than I did.

Back at the office of the newspaper I work for, I worked hard to get caught up after being out so much that day. That was when I found out from my boss that the bike rodeo at the school was from 12:15 until 2:15.  I called around to a few people I knew to see if they had a live trap I could borrow, but no one did. At 2:30, I left for my appointment with the doctor, swinging by my house first to see if the trap had been dropped off yet, which it hadn't. I felt bad about leaving the mother in the cage, but I told my roommates to not let Ike out into the yard unsupervised, so I knew she wouldn't be bothered, and I managed to lift the cage door just enough to slip a bowl of water inside, and dumped some cat food in as well, so she had something to drink and eat. I then went on to my doctor's office.

After waiting for a bit, I was taken to the exam room, had my weight taken, and shortly my physician came in. He examined my hand, which was healing up nicely with no signs of infection, and he said that while the chances of there being a rabies infection were very slim, the chance did exist, and while I could probably wait for awhile longer before getting the shots, he really recommended that I start the treatment right away, especially since the cat hadn't been captured yet. So, I agreed to get the shots. He left the office to check to see if they had the vaccine.

Forty-five minutes later, he finally came back. I kept nodding off while he was gone; the past 24 hours had been fairly stressful, and finally making the decision to get the shots had really taken a load off of me. I was exhausted. When the doctor  finally returned, he apologized for how long I'd had to wait, but they didn't have the vaccine in the office and had been expecting a phone call back from the local hospital to see if they could send any over. He told me there was no sense in having me sitting and waiting any longer, and that he'd call me at work when he found out about the vaccine.

I left the doctor's office and drove home to see if the trap had been dropped off, which it hadn't. So much for less stress. I called animal control again, and asked about the trap, reminding the receptionist that he had told me he'd drop it off at two and it was now four in the afternoon. The receptionist told me that the animal control officer was still at the bike rodeo. I was polite and did not yell; I knew this wasn't her fault, but once again, I really felt like I was being left hanging. I went back to the office to try to get some more work done.

A little bit after I returned, my doctor's office called me and told me that arrangements had been made for me to get the shots at the emergency room, whenever it was convenient for me to do so. I said I'd go right after work.

At five, I headed home once more, and I was pleased to find a trap had been left inside our gate. It was somewhat different than the other one, a little smaller, and the trap mechanism was different, but I didn't have any trouble baiting it and setting it up right beside the trap with the mother in it. And then my roommate and I headed off to the emergency room to get my shots.

More soon