The story continues: Part 2
Jun. 3rd, 2007 03:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
outsdrI 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.
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.
