One of the new blogs I am following is hosting a contest right now. Check out Married to a Sailor: The Journey of a Navy Wife for details. The contest is to write a blog about what it means to be a military wife. Since I am sitting here right now, silently fuming about how the Navy has messed up my plans for the week, I thought this would be a good thing to write about right now.
I've been a Navy wife for 2 years now. My husband and I were dating for about a year before we got married. In just 3 short years I've learned a lot about this life. It has its pros and cons. It has its high moments and its low moments. I've learned that the pros and cons and highs and lows become woven together, and it all becomes life. My life. The life of many others married to a man in the military. So without further ado...
Being a Military Wife is:
~knowing that nothing will ever go the way you planned, and learning to accept that fact.
~throwing a silent temper tantrum, while only allowing your husband to see a few small tears, when he tells you that you will be moving 3000 miles away from your family and friends...and you have just 3 weeks to prepare for that move.
~accepting the fact that the career path that I chose to follow years ago, is a career path that I won't be able to follow in this life.
~a last minute vacation in Hawaii, at a 5 star hotel, for just the cost of a $1000 plane ticket, when your husband is sent there for a week and you can go visit him.
~not having a real honeymoon, but taking an amazing 3 week trip/move across the entire country, seeing things I would never have had the chance to see otherwise.
~getting settled into a new home with the knowledge that in just 3 short years, you will have to pack up, move again, and get settled into a new home once again.
~understanding that your furniture will always have scratches and dents on it and that those scratches and dents are memories of all the moves you have made.
~learning how to become a plumber, electrician, chef, veterinarian, doctor, mother AND father, because your husband won't always be around to do these things himself or to help you with them.
~waiting by the computer each night, hoping Skype will work, just so you can say "Hi." "I love you." and "Goodnight" to your husband while he sits in the hot dessert of Iraq and you sit in your comfortable home in the United States.
~understanding Murphy's Law, and welcoming Murphy into your life, because anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, while your husband is deployed.
~celebrating anniversaries, birthdays, holidays and special occasions alone.
~accept your role as a "dependent" while living your life independently.
~learning to smile through the tears.
~knowing that there is always another military wife to call... That there will always be someone who can cook you dinner when you are sick, drive you to the ER when you break your ankle trying to fix a ceiling fan, and listen to you and understand you when all you need is someone to listen and understand.
~learning how to ask for help.
~hearing "I don't know how you can do it" over and over, but taking those words as a compliment, not as an annoyance.
~bursting with pride for the job your husband does and the things he sacrifices daily for you, your family and his county.
~learning that even when you feel weak, you're stronger than you think.
~celebrating your husband's accomplishments, and beaming when he tells you that he couldn't have done it without you.
~making new friends, only to have them move 3 months later, then making new friends again, and then you moving 4 months later.
~enduring pain and loneliness time and time again, but knowing that your time spent apart will lead to even better times spent together.
~praying every night for God to keep your husband safe and out of harms way.
~slowly starting to realize that the question "where are you from?" gets harder to answer, each time a new move occurs and another home is left behind.
~feeling anger towards your husband, knowing that it is entirely unwarranted, and that the things you are angry about aren't his fault.
~making plans and being "guaranteed" that your husband will be home for those plans, only to have plans change just a day before they happen.
~knowing that a wife should be number 1 in a husband's life, but accepting the times when he has to put you as number 2, because sometimes duty trumps all other plans, wants and desires.
~learning how to talk in acronyms.
~embracing the slogan "Home is where the Navy sends us", because as long as you're together, you'll always be "home".
It may seem that many of the things I wrote were bitter and angry mixed in with a little happiness and fun, but the truth is, I'm not bitter or angry. At times I feel like I am. At times I feel like screaming "I hate the Navy". At times I tell my husband that I do hate the Navy. I cry. I get irritable. I wish for my old civilian life back. But in the midst of all that, I look at my husband and the love I feel for him is overwhelming.
There will always be a small part of me that longs for the easy life I had before.
There will always be a small part of me that wishes I had taken the path to follow a career goal.
There will always be a small part of me that hates the fact that I have to mow the lawn and scoop the litter boxes when he's gone.
There will always be a part of me that will cry and scream and stomp my feet (but only in my head), while smiling and nodding at him when he tells me where we are moving to next.
I'll always cry when he leaves, but I'll always smile when he returns.
The truth is, I love my life, because I love my husband. When I married him, I knew what I was doing. I knew what I was getting into. I knew the basics, but I never dreamed it could be as hard as it is. The funny thing is, I wouldn't want it any other way. Being a military wife has forced me to be strong and brave. Its forced me to do things I would have refused to do if I had a choice. Its forced me to broaden my horizons and appreciate the little things in life.
Now, I can't imagine life any other way. I lived another life once, but it seems so far away. The truth is, if my husband ever leaves the Navy, that will scare me. I don't know how to make the transition back into civilian life. I know that kind of life is easier, but the truth is that it doesn't even appeal to me anymore. I'm still going to get mad. I'm still going to have moments when I wish we could just be a "normal" couple. But those moments will pass, and as our lives move forward I'll embrace every new opportunity, every new home, and every new friend and every new challenge. I'll continue to stand beside my husband, supporting him and loving him. Because that's what being a military wife is to me.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Tulip Time!
Every April, tulips bloom in Washington. So far the annual Skagit Valley Tulip Festival is one of the things that I love most about Washington. Last year it was absolutely beautiful. This year it was absolutely beautiful. Now we're in the weeks after the festival and the tulips are all dying off, so I'm already looking forward to next year's festival!
The "festival" really isn't a festival per se. Its more of fields and fields of tulips all over the Skagit Valley area. 2 large farms open up so visitors can in and look and all different types of tulips, and buy local Washington artwork and crafts. Mr. V and I went to check out the tulips a few weeks ago, back in April, so here are some pictures from this year's festival:
The "festival" really isn't a festival per se. Its more of fields and fields of tulips all over the Skagit Valley area. 2 large farms open up so visitors can in and look and all different types of tulips, and buy local Washington artwork and crafts. Mr. V and I went to check out the tulips a few weeks ago, back in April, so here are some pictures from this year's festival:
Sunday, May 9, 2010
A little A-Z about me
The best thing about this blog hop I joined is that it gives me ideas about what to write about. I stole this survey from one of the blogs I read. I copied it, to come back and fill out later, and now I can't remember which blog I stole it from. So if I stole this from you then thank you (and sorry for not giving you credit for it)!
A little about me:
A little about me:
A to Z of Me
A. AREA CODE: 360 - That would be Whidbey Island, Washington
B. BED SIZE: Queen. Though I am trying to convince Mr. V to upgrade to a King. 2 people and 9 cats don't fit very well in a queen :-(.
C. CHORE YOU HATE: Making the bed. I despise it. I've actually slept on the mattress with just a blanket just to avoid making the bed.
D. DOG'S NAME: I don't have a dog. And even though this is supposed to be an A-Z survey, and "cat" doesn't start with a D, you're going to learn the names of my cats anyway :-). Wendy, Patches, Sheena, Moses, Oreo, Phantom, Oscar, Marmalade and Samantha...and I also have a rabbit named Peter
E. ESSENTIAL "START THE DAY!" ITEM: My cell phone. I check my email on it before I even get out of bed.
F. FAVORITE COLOR: Blue.
G. GOLD OR SILVER: Silver or white gold
H. HEIGHT: 5' 2"
I. INSTRUMENTS YOU PLAY: None right now, but I played the clarinet in elementary and middle school.
J. Job: Babysitter/Nanny
K. KIDS: Not at the moment...and probably not for a while...if ever...I love kids and I love babysitting, but I'm perfectly happy with it just being Mr. V and me for right now (and the fur babies of course) :-)
L. LIVING ARRANGEMENTS: I own a home in Oak Harbor. Its me, Mr. V, the kitties and a rabbit
N. NICKNAME: Brooklet
M. MOM'S NAME: Kim...and don't call her Kimberly (its not her name and it makes her angry)
O. OVERNIGHT HOSPITAL STAY: No overnights for me, but I've had 4 same day surgeries and spent a day at the hospital
P. PET PEEVE: Burnt out Christmas lights. Seriously, they drive me insane. I hate looking at houses that have lights burnt out at Christmas time. I'd be more than happy to change the lightbulbs for people and I begged my parents to let me go door to door to do this when I was little (they told me that would be rude). I realize this is weird, but it seriously drives me nuts.
Q. QUOTE FROM A MOVIE: "There is such a thing as fate, but it only takes you so far. Once you get there the rest is up to you." - Can't Hardly Wait
R. RIGHTY OR LEFTY?: Righty
S. SIBLINGS: No actual siblings, but I have 2 step-brothers from my dad's new wife, and one step-brother from my mom's new husband. I spent my entire life as an only child though so even thinking about having step-brothers is weird. They came once I had been in college for a few years already.
T. TIME YOU WAKE UP: Usually between 8 and 9am. Unless Mr. V isn't working. Then I'm awake at 5:45 because the cats insist on waking me up demanding to be fed.
U. UNDERWEAR: Victoria's Secret low rise bikinis...thats probably more than you wanted to know about me huh?
V. VEGGIE YOU DISLIKE: Squash, eggplant, radishes, beets, okra (and for the record, I never even knew what okra was until I moved to North Carolina), and my #1 disliked vegetable - lima beans...yuck
W. WAYS/REASONS YOU ARE LATE: I need to have reasons? How about this reason - I'm me. I'm just always late. Most of the time I can't even tell you why I'm always late. I just am. And thankfully I have friends who know this about me and they don't hate me for it :-).
X. XRAYS YOU'VE HAD: Teeth and sinuses (well the sinuses were a CT scan, but thats sort of the same thing), I've also had a brain MRI done, and my arm was x-rayed years ago when I sprained it (I thought I broke it)
Y. YUMMY FOOD YOU MAKE: I'm really not a good cook but my favorite, and easiest thing to make is roast beef and mashed potatoes - the easy way. I boil some brown gravy, take some deli sliced roast beef, drop it in the gravy to heat it up, mash up some potatoes, add some cajun spices and you have a full meal :-). I also make my grandma's chicken nuggets. Small pieces of chicken breast, dipped in butter and then rolled in Ritz crackers and then baked. Soooo unhealthy but so yummy :-).
Life on an Island
This morning I was stomped on by 9 cats, because Mr. V slept in and didn't have to go to work at 5:30am. However, he usually feeds the cats at 5:30 when he wakes up, so needless to say, by 5:45 the cats were pretty ticked off that they hadn't been fed yet and they chose to take it out on me. Why they didn't stomp all over him is beyond me. That coupled with the fact that Mr. V snored all night long, while I laid there wide awake, has made me a pretty cranky Brooklet today. For those of you who don't know me. You don't want to be around me if I haven't had a good night's sleep - trust me.
Being cranky gives me a good excuse to vent about random things today...mainly life on a small island.
There are definitely some downsides to living on an island in the middle of the Puget Sound. The biggest downside being that there is only one way off the island, in the form of a really old bridge, that while pretty with a nice view, looks like it can crumble to pieces at any second. That's the only "normal" way to get off the island. The other 2 ways are via 2 ferries. One at the south end of the island and one sort of in the middle of the island.
Problem #1 is the Port Townsend-Keystone ferry. Its small. Very small. But its the only way to get yourself to the Olympic Peninsula (big thumb-like part of Washington on the coast) without spending 5 hours on the road. Reservations are a must because getting a spot on the ferry without reservations is hit or miss. I've managed to get on it without reserving a spot before, but that's never guaranteed. In fact, once I was the very last car that they let on. So if you want to take a trip to the Peninsula, you can't do it spontaneously. Even if you get on the ferry with no reservations going TO Port Townsend, there's no guarantee that you're going to get on the ferry coming back.
Aside from the reservation issue, this is the smallest ferry in the area, and Whidbey is prone to some horrible windstorms, which also shuts the ferry down (this happened to my friend about a week ago as she was trying to come back from Port Townsend). The larger ferries run fine in the wind. This tiny one, not so much.
It also shuts down if the tides are too low too.
I've heard stories about the ferry shutting down for various reasons, but I never experienced it for myself until a few weeks ago. Mr. V and I took a weekend trip to Forks and the Olympic National Park (pictures to follow in another post). Everything went smoothly on the way over there. The way back, however, did not go well. We had everything planned. We had our reservations. We even got to Port Townsend early enough to possibly get onto an earlier ferry if their were spots available. But when we got to the ticket window, a very bored looking man told us "Sorry no ferry." That took a second to process. What did he mean "no ferry"? We could see the ferry sitting right there. He seemed bored and annoyed as he explained to us that the ferry was broken and he had no idea when it would be working again. Fantastic. Mr. V asked him what we were supposed to do. He told us to go to Kingston. For the record, I had no idea that there was even a town called Kingston in Washington. It turns out that Kingston is about an hour south of Port Townsend, on the Puget Sound side of the Peninsula. From there you can take a 45 minute ferry to Mukilteo, and then hop on the ferry there, land on the south end of Whidbey Island and then drive for 45 minutes home. All together this put us back home 3 hours later than we originally planned. I suppose thats better than the 5 hours it would have taken if we had driven down the whole Peninsula, through Seattle and then back up to Whidbey. The kicker of this all was when I got a phone call as we were halfway to Kingston from a woman who told me "I am just calling everyone with ferry reservations to tell them that the ferry is broken." Well thanks lady. You were about an hour too late. That phone call would have been helpful before we got to Port Townsend! Needless to say, I never knew how much I appreciated bridges before that day.
Problem #2 is the lack of stuff on the island. I'm sure many, many people can argue that living in a quaint area, without lots of suburban development is just grand. I would agree to a point. However, I think I would function better in an undeveloped area, that had a well developed area close enough so I could get to it without wasting an entire day in the process.
This past Friday Mr. V and I went to Mt. Vernon, a good 45 minutes to an hour away, depending on traffic. The road leading off of Whidbey is a 2 lane road so getting stuck behind an 18 wheeler is basically my worst nightmare as I drive off. So what's in Mt. Vernon? Everything. Whidbey has a Walmart. A very small Walmart. Walmarts that aren't Supercenters are typically 5 times the size of the Walmart here. Mt. Vernon has every restaurant you can imagine and every major retailer. However, it just seems like such a hassle to get there all the time. Whenever we go into town we have to arm ourselves with a list of stores we need to go to because it never fails that we end up back home, having forgotten something important.
Usually we spend an entire day in Mt. Vernon, but on Friday we actually made great time! I wanted to go to Joann's and Michael's for some crafting needs, and for the first time ever we made it back home before 4pm. But then I looked in our bags and realized that we didn't have one of our bags. It turns out that the lady at Joann's had actually given us 2 bags. But she only handed us one. I guess its partly our fault for not noticing that she had put our stuff in 2 bags, but in the end, she did forget to hand us one. Thankfully, we called and they still had our bag of stuff. Mt. V wanted to just return the stuff in the bag so we didn't have to go back, but out of our 2 bags, that was the bag that had everything we went in there for in the first place. The bag we took home had random stuff that we bought on a whim. So yesterday, we drove back to Mt. Vernon, got our bag and came back home, feeling like we wasted a few good hours of the day.
So thats my random venting for the moment. I miss living somewhere that had roads connected to it in all directions. I miss living somewhere where I can have all of my necessities met without needing to spend my entire day getting to those necessities. I like being in a smaller town, but you have no idea how much I wish a larger town was at least close to us. That would be my ideal living situation.
On that note, I'm going to go take a nap, if the cats will let me. Maybe I can manage to lose this crankiness for the remainder of the day.
Being cranky gives me a good excuse to vent about random things today...mainly life on a small island.
There are definitely some downsides to living on an island in the middle of the Puget Sound. The biggest downside being that there is only one way off the island, in the form of a really old bridge, that while pretty with a nice view, looks like it can crumble to pieces at any second. That's the only "normal" way to get off the island. The other 2 ways are via 2 ferries. One at the south end of the island and one sort of in the middle of the island.
Problem #1 is the Port Townsend-Keystone ferry. Its small. Very small. But its the only way to get yourself to the Olympic Peninsula (big thumb-like part of Washington on the coast) without spending 5 hours on the road. Reservations are a must because getting a spot on the ferry without reservations is hit or miss. I've managed to get on it without reserving a spot before, but that's never guaranteed. In fact, once I was the very last car that they let on. So if you want to take a trip to the Peninsula, you can't do it spontaneously. Even if you get on the ferry with no reservations going TO Port Townsend, there's no guarantee that you're going to get on the ferry coming back.
Aside from the reservation issue, this is the smallest ferry in the area, and Whidbey is prone to some horrible windstorms, which also shuts the ferry down (this happened to my friend about a week ago as she was trying to come back from Port Townsend). The larger ferries run fine in the wind. This tiny one, not so much.
It also shuts down if the tides are too low too.
I've heard stories about the ferry shutting down for various reasons, but I never experienced it for myself until a few weeks ago. Mr. V and I took a weekend trip to Forks and the Olympic National Park (pictures to follow in another post). Everything went smoothly on the way over there. The way back, however, did not go well. We had everything planned. We had our reservations. We even got to Port Townsend early enough to possibly get onto an earlier ferry if their were spots available. But when we got to the ticket window, a very bored looking man told us "Sorry no ferry." That took a second to process. What did he mean "no ferry"? We could see the ferry sitting right there. He seemed bored and annoyed as he explained to us that the ferry was broken and he had no idea when it would be working again. Fantastic. Mr. V asked him what we were supposed to do. He told us to go to Kingston. For the record, I had no idea that there was even a town called Kingston in Washington. It turns out that Kingston is about an hour south of Port Townsend, on the Puget Sound side of the Peninsula. From there you can take a 45 minute ferry to Mukilteo, and then hop on the ferry there, land on the south end of Whidbey Island and then drive for 45 minutes home. All together this put us back home 3 hours later than we originally planned. I suppose thats better than the 5 hours it would have taken if we had driven down the whole Peninsula, through Seattle and then back up to Whidbey. The kicker of this all was when I got a phone call as we were halfway to Kingston from a woman who told me "I am just calling everyone with ferry reservations to tell them that the ferry is broken." Well thanks lady. You were about an hour too late. That phone call would have been helpful before we got to Port Townsend! Needless to say, I never knew how much I appreciated bridges before that day.
Problem #2 is the lack of stuff on the island. I'm sure many, many people can argue that living in a quaint area, without lots of suburban development is just grand. I would agree to a point. However, I think I would function better in an undeveloped area, that had a well developed area close enough so I could get to it without wasting an entire day in the process.
This past Friday Mr. V and I went to Mt. Vernon, a good 45 minutes to an hour away, depending on traffic. The road leading off of Whidbey is a 2 lane road so getting stuck behind an 18 wheeler is basically my worst nightmare as I drive off. So what's in Mt. Vernon? Everything. Whidbey has a Walmart. A very small Walmart. Walmarts that aren't Supercenters are typically 5 times the size of the Walmart here. Mt. Vernon has every restaurant you can imagine and every major retailer. However, it just seems like such a hassle to get there all the time. Whenever we go into town we have to arm ourselves with a list of stores we need to go to because it never fails that we end up back home, having forgotten something important.
Usually we spend an entire day in Mt. Vernon, but on Friday we actually made great time! I wanted to go to Joann's and Michael's for some crafting needs, and for the first time ever we made it back home before 4pm. But then I looked in our bags and realized that we didn't have one of our bags. It turns out that the lady at Joann's had actually given us 2 bags. But she only handed us one. I guess its partly our fault for not noticing that she had put our stuff in 2 bags, but in the end, she did forget to hand us one. Thankfully, we called and they still had our bag of stuff. Mt. V wanted to just return the stuff in the bag so we didn't have to go back, but out of our 2 bags, that was the bag that had everything we went in there for in the first place. The bag we took home had random stuff that we bought on a whim. So yesterday, we drove back to Mt. Vernon, got our bag and came back home, feeling like we wasted a few good hours of the day.
So thats my random venting for the moment. I miss living somewhere that had roads connected to it in all directions. I miss living somewhere where I can have all of my necessities met without needing to spend my entire day getting to those necessities. I like being in a smaller town, but you have no idea how much I wish a larger town was at least close to us. That would be my ideal living situation.
On that note, I'm going to go take a nap, if the cats will let me. Maybe I can manage to lose this crankiness for the remainder of the day.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Rest in Peace Meepers
On April 27th we lost an important member of our family. Our 2 year old cat Meepers died very suddenly and very unexpectedly. Mr. V and I took his death pretty hard, and just over a week later, we still miss him more than ever.
Meepers was the only cat that we had from the very first day he was born. Back in Jacksonville we trapped his mother, a semi-feral cat, and she gave birth to him about a week later. She was a young cat, who didn't know what to do with her baby, so when he was born Mr. V was the one who had to cut the umbilical cord and bottle feed him to supplement the lack of nursing he was getting from his mother. He was the only kitten in the litter, and as soon as he was born, his mother tried to get away from him. There's just no possible way that he would have ever been able to survive in the Florida swamps alone like that so I take comfort in knowing that we gave him a life that he never would have had elsewhere. He probably would have died on the same day that he was born.
Out of all of our cats, Meepers was definitely the most spoiled. When he was born I had read articles about kittens that are the only child. Everything I read said that they actually function a lot like humans that are only children. They didn't have litter mates to socialize and play with, so they liked to be alone a lot. Even though we had other cats in the house, Meepers was definitely an only child. Once we moved to Washington he claimed our office as his room. We keep this room cat free, but Meepers was allowed in. He would meep at the door to let us know he wanted to go in, and he would meep loudly when he wanted to go out (can you tell we were original with his name? He always meeped and never meowed.) He spent most of his days just sleeping in a patch of sun in the room. He did get along with the other cats, but he spent most of his time in that room just happily enjoying his life and his time away from the other cats.
He was also pretty spoiled and looking back now, I'm glad that we spoiled him. He was the only one Mr. V tolerated on the counters. He got to eat our table scraps. He got one on one attention from us when he was in the office and we were sitting at the computer. As I'm typing this now, I miss having him sitting in my lap here purring.
About 2 weeks ago we noticed that Meepers seemed lethargic. Since that's never a good sign with cats we took him to the emergency vet. There he had x-rays taken and the vet suspected heart disease, but couldn't be sure with just the x-rays. She recommended a follow up appointment with our regular vet and a possible visit to a cardiologist. The x-rays also showed that he was constipated, and a urine test showed he had a UTI, so we assumed that was the reason for the lethargy. She sent us home with some medicine and everything seemed ok for the moment.
That weekend we went on a short vacation to the Olympic Peninsula and Meepers came with us. He seemed to be having a blast spending time with just us and no other cats. He seemed to get better with each day that passed. The day after we got home from the trip, I took him in for his follow up appointment with his regular vet. That's when we got some bad news. This vet couldn't detect any heart problems, but he did an ultrasound of his kidneys and diagnosed polycystic kidney disease. PKD is a degenerative disease that has no cure. I was devastated. However, with a special prescription food and medicine cats with PKD can live many years past their initial diagnosis. Its basically a ticking time bomb just waiting to go off, but no one has any idea when it will. So we went home with this news.
Over the next week Meepers acted even better. He loved his new food and he was playing and acting completely normal again. Then on the 27th, I took him back for another follow up appointment. The doctor was supposed to look at his kidneys again and figure out what was going on. The week before he was still on some antibiotics so he waited until everything was better before really taking a look at the kidneys.
And thats when it happened. Everything was fine that morning. He played. He ate. He drank. He used the litter box. Then we got to the vet. Within minutes of putting me in an exam room, my poor little Meepers made a horrible sound, and just collapsed and died. It happened so fast. No more than 15 seconds could have gone by. The vets and vet techs were fantastic though. They moved fast and tried to revive him, but they were unsuccessful. I didn't understand what happened. I was crying. And of course it figured that Mr. V had had his flights canceled for about a week straight, and that day he was flying.
The vet came in to talk to me and told me that the only thing that could have caused this was his heart. The emergency vet must have been right in suspecting heart disease, but its so hard to see and diagnose. He talked with me for a while, and I learned that even if we had known, there would have been nothing that we could have done. Heart disease is the cause of 90% of all sudden deaths in cats. It was slightly comforting to read that collapsing and dying that quickly is pretty standard with this disease.
I guess I was just shocked because I had expected his kidneys to kill him eventually, but I NEVER thought that he would die that quickly and from something other than his kidneys. I'm thankful that it happened at the vet though because I don't know how I would have handled that if I had been home alone with him.
I think the saddest, yet happiest thing for me is that it seems clear that Meepers was never meant to live in the first place. I mean look at the facts. His mother tried to abandon him moments after he was born. He had kidney disease. He had heart disease. The poor little guy was so sick right from the beginning and we never knew it. In fact, until a few weeks ago we thought that he was actually our healthiest cat. But I guess we gave him 2 happy years of life. At least he got to live a life at all, and I like to think that he was happy with us.
I read that cats with HCM (the heart disease that he had) live an average of 736 days. That breaks down into 2 years and 1 week. Meepers was exactly 2 years, 1 month and 1 day old.
I miss him so much and so does Mr. V. We had him cremated and tomorrow afternoon I have to go pick up his ashes and I am dreading that because I know its really going to become real at that point. He was our little buddy. He was our baby - the only cat we had from the day he arrived in this world.
So to honor him, here are some pictures of our little boy Meepers:
(one day old)
(one week old)
(a rare occasion - snuggling with his mom)
(baby Meepers)
(sorry for the picture of my butt but I always thought it was cute when he laid like this)
(always a new way to be comfortable)
(hide and seek)
(sleeping Meepers)
(I always thought he had an angry old man face :-))
(this is where he hung out every night while I got ready for bed)
(another angry old man look)
(teenage Meepers exploring the outdoors for the first time)
(He was an inside only cat, but since he was born inside, we took him out one day, and this was the first time he ever saw what outside was)
(yes we're those people...we had a birthday party for him. And I'm glad we did - it was his last birthday :'-()
(relaxing after his birthday)
Meepers was the only cat that we had from the very first day he was born. Back in Jacksonville we trapped his mother, a semi-feral cat, and she gave birth to him about a week later. She was a young cat, who didn't know what to do with her baby, so when he was born Mr. V was the one who had to cut the umbilical cord and bottle feed him to supplement the lack of nursing he was getting from his mother. He was the only kitten in the litter, and as soon as he was born, his mother tried to get away from him. There's just no possible way that he would have ever been able to survive in the Florida swamps alone like that so I take comfort in knowing that we gave him a life that he never would have had elsewhere. He probably would have died on the same day that he was born.
Out of all of our cats, Meepers was definitely the most spoiled. When he was born I had read articles about kittens that are the only child. Everything I read said that they actually function a lot like humans that are only children. They didn't have litter mates to socialize and play with, so they liked to be alone a lot. Even though we had other cats in the house, Meepers was definitely an only child. Once we moved to Washington he claimed our office as his room. We keep this room cat free, but Meepers was allowed in. He would meep at the door to let us know he wanted to go in, and he would meep loudly when he wanted to go out (can you tell we were original with his name? He always meeped and never meowed.) He spent most of his days just sleeping in a patch of sun in the room. He did get along with the other cats, but he spent most of his time in that room just happily enjoying his life and his time away from the other cats.
He was also pretty spoiled and looking back now, I'm glad that we spoiled him. He was the only one Mr. V tolerated on the counters. He got to eat our table scraps. He got one on one attention from us when he was in the office and we were sitting at the computer. As I'm typing this now, I miss having him sitting in my lap here purring.
About 2 weeks ago we noticed that Meepers seemed lethargic. Since that's never a good sign with cats we took him to the emergency vet. There he had x-rays taken and the vet suspected heart disease, but couldn't be sure with just the x-rays. She recommended a follow up appointment with our regular vet and a possible visit to a cardiologist. The x-rays also showed that he was constipated, and a urine test showed he had a UTI, so we assumed that was the reason for the lethargy. She sent us home with some medicine and everything seemed ok for the moment.
That weekend we went on a short vacation to the Olympic Peninsula and Meepers came with us. He seemed to be having a blast spending time with just us and no other cats. He seemed to get better with each day that passed. The day after we got home from the trip, I took him in for his follow up appointment with his regular vet. That's when we got some bad news. This vet couldn't detect any heart problems, but he did an ultrasound of his kidneys and diagnosed polycystic kidney disease. PKD is a degenerative disease that has no cure. I was devastated. However, with a special prescription food and medicine cats with PKD can live many years past their initial diagnosis. Its basically a ticking time bomb just waiting to go off, but no one has any idea when it will. So we went home with this news.
Over the next week Meepers acted even better. He loved his new food and he was playing and acting completely normal again. Then on the 27th, I took him back for another follow up appointment. The doctor was supposed to look at his kidneys again and figure out what was going on. The week before he was still on some antibiotics so he waited until everything was better before really taking a look at the kidneys.
And thats when it happened. Everything was fine that morning. He played. He ate. He drank. He used the litter box. Then we got to the vet. Within minutes of putting me in an exam room, my poor little Meepers made a horrible sound, and just collapsed and died. It happened so fast. No more than 15 seconds could have gone by. The vets and vet techs were fantastic though. They moved fast and tried to revive him, but they were unsuccessful. I didn't understand what happened. I was crying. And of course it figured that Mr. V had had his flights canceled for about a week straight, and that day he was flying.
The vet came in to talk to me and told me that the only thing that could have caused this was his heart. The emergency vet must have been right in suspecting heart disease, but its so hard to see and diagnose. He talked with me for a while, and I learned that even if we had known, there would have been nothing that we could have done. Heart disease is the cause of 90% of all sudden deaths in cats. It was slightly comforting to read that collapsing and dying that quickly is pretty standard with this disease.
I guess I was just shocked because I had expected his kidneys to kill him eventually, but I NEVER thought that he would die that quickly and from something other than his kidneys. I'm thankful that it happened at the vet though because I don't know how I would have handled that if I had been home alone with him.
I think the saddest, yet happiest thing for me is that it seems clear that Meepers was never meant to live in the first place. I mean look at the facts. His mother tried to abandon him moments after he was born. He had kidney disease. He had heart disease. The poor little guy was so sick right from the beginning and we never knew it. In fact, until a few weeks ago we thought that he was actually our healthiest cat. But I guess we gave him 2 happy years of life. At least he got to live a life at all, and I like to think that he was happy with us.
I read that cats with HCM (the heart disease that he had) live an average of 736 days. That breaks down into 2 years and 1 week. Meepers was exactly 2 years, 1 month and 1 day old.
I miss him so much and so does Mr. V. We had him cremated and tomorrow afternoon I have to go pick up his ashes and I am dreading that because I know its really going to become real at that point. He was our little buddy. He was our baby - the only cat we had from the day he arrived in this world.
So to honor him, here are some pictures of our little boy Meepers:
(one day old)
(one week old)
(a rare occasion - snuggling with his mom)
(baby Meepers)
(sorry for the picture of my butt but I always thought it was cute when he laid like this)
(always a new way to be comfortable)
(hide and seek)
(sleeping Meepers)
(I always thought he had an angry old man face :-))
(this is where he hung out every night while I got ready for bed)
(another angry old man look)
(teenage Meepers exploring the outdoors for the first time)
(He was an inside only cat, but since he was born inside, we took him out one day, and this was the first time he ever saw what outside was)
(yes we're those people...we had a birthday party for him. And I'm glad we did - it was his last birthday :'-()
(relaxing after his birthday)MilSpouse Blog Hop
I was reading my friend NavyGirl's blog - Marrying the Navy and came across this. There is another blogger, a fellow military wife, hosting a blog hop for blogs written by military spouses. I sort of skimmed through it at first, but then went back and decided to join in. When I started this blog I planned on updating it much more often than I do, so I figured if more people were reading it, then maybe I would be more motivated to keep up with it!
The rules state that I'm supposed to introduce myself in this post, so for those of you that already know me, feel free to ignore this. For those of you who don't. I'm Brooke aka Brooklet, married to a Navy pilot for 2 years. I refer to my husband as "Mr. V" in this blog. He's a P-3 pilot stationed at NAS Whidbey Island in Washington state. We've been here since August 2008. Prior to living here we spent about 8 months in Jacksonville, Florida where Mr. V was in flight school to learn how to fly the P3. He was winged in Corpus Christi in October 2007, which is where he did most of his flight training. We met in Corpus Christi (though I'm from New Jersey originally).
We're both a little cat crazy, as proven by the 9 cats that live in our house right now. (we had 10, but one recently died, which will be in another post.) We rescue strays, socialize feral cats, and practice TNR (trap, neuter, return) for those completely feral cats. Our friends know us as the crazy cat couple, but we love the furballs and proudly sport the crazy cat couple title :-).
Since moving up here I've developed several new interests which include quilting and card making. I've always been into crafts, but my artistic talent is lacking, and I hope that one day the creations I make will actually not look homemade!
Life in Washington state has been a little hard to get used to. I can't say that I hate it here. But I CAN say that life out here is completely different from life on the East Coast, and I am crossing my fingers that we will be heading back to Florida in about a year and a half.
My blog is sort of random. I talk about military life stuff, but also just about every day stuff. I can definitely call myself a military wife in the sense of thats who I am. I married a guy in the Navy, which sucked me right into this lifestyle. However, I also like writing about other things in my life, because I don't want to be known as just a military wife. So hopefully you will find some of the things I write about interesting :-).
In the meantime, I'm excited about this blog hop and looking forward to reading more military wife blogs. I lurk around on some military spouse message boards, so I'm always interested in hearing about other people's experiences and meeting new people! If its your first time reading this blog, please let me know. I promise I'll try to become a little more interesting and update this thing a little more often!
Here's the link to the blog hop: Riding the Rollercoaster
The rules state that I'm supposed to introduce myself in this post, so for those of you that already know me, feel free to ignore this. For those of you who don't. I'm Brooke aka Brooklet, married to a Navy pilot for 2 years. I refer to my husband as "Mr. V" in this blog. He's a P-3 pilot stationed at NAS Whidbey Island in Washington state. We've been here since August 2008. Prior to living here we spent about 8 months in Jacksonville, Florida where Mr. V was in flight school to learn how to fly the P3. He was winged in Corpus Christi in October 2007, which is where he did most of his flight training. We met in Corpus Christi (though I'm from New Jersey originally).
We're both a little cat crazy, as proven by the 9 cats that live in our house right now. (we had 10, but one recently died, which will be in another post.) We rescue strays, socialize feral cats, and practice TNR (trap, neuter, return) for those completely feral cats. Our friends know us as the crazy cat couple, but we love the furballs and proudly sport the crazy cat couple title :-).
Since moving up here I've developed several new interests which include quilting and card making. I've always been into crafts, but my artistic talent is lacking, and I hope that one day the creations I make will actually not look homemade!
Life in Washington state has been a little hard to get used to. I can't say that I hate it here. But I CAN say that life out here is completely different from life on the East Coast, and I am crossing my fingers that we will be heading back to Florida in about a year and a half.
My blog is sort of random. I talk about military life stuff, but also just about every day stuff. I can definitely call myself a military wife in the sense of thats who I am. I married a guy in the Navy, which sucked me right into this lifestyle. However, I also like writing about other things in my life, because I don't want to be known as just a military wife. So hopefully you will find some of the things I write about interesting :-).
In the meantime, I'm excited about this blog hop and looking forward to reading more military wife blogs. I lurk around on some military spouse message boards, so I'm always interested in hearing about other people's experiences and meeting new people! If its your first time reading this blog, please let me know. I promise I'll try to become a little more interesting and update this thing a little more often!
Here's the link to the blog hop: Riding the Rollercoaster
Friday, April 2, 2010
Alley Cats
There is a wonderful organization called Alley Cat Allies. I have a link to them already in the sidebar of this blog, but recent events made me want to promote them a little more.
Alley Cat Allies is a national non-profit organization dedicated to protecting cats. They mainly focus on humane treatment of feral cats and they get their ideas across through education and facts. I have to point out that they use facts because while they are definitely an animal welfare organization, they aren't crazy like PETA (have you seen PETA's "Kittens of the Sea"? Google it if you haven't. Its good for a laugh.). ACA is the organization that began the idea of Trap, Neuter, Return, and instead of me re-writing all of this, I'm just going to copy and paste a note that I posted on my Facebook page a few days ago, which explains the sad, recent events that sparked my idea of making Alley Cat Allies more well known.
Most people who know me know that I have a house full of cats. I know that there are a lot of people who probably think we're crazy cat people and some people who appreciate what we do. Every single one of our cats is our own rescue. None of them came from a shelter. They all just wandered into our lives somehow.
My first cat was Wendy, and she arrived in my life via my old roommate who found her at her old apartment complex. (actually to be completely accurate, my first cat was Misty, but she bonded with my dad almost instantly and she quickly became his cat and not mine.) I wasn't a cat person until I got Wendy. I didn't dislike cats, but I really never gave much thought to them until I suddenly had a very sick stay cat on my hands. By nursing Wendy back to good health I started to realize that cats are actually very affectionate animals and very loyal to their owners. I always imagined them being snobby and aloof and while thats true to a point, they are also very, very loving pets.
After Wendy, I got Patches. She is actually Thomas' cat, and we found her living at a beer brewery in San Antonio, Texas. She was walking from table to table begging for food and when we asked the waitress if she had a home, we found out that she was a stray being fed by the brewery and the staff there would be thrilled if we took her and gave her a good home. So Thomas "claimed" her and took her home.
Shorty after that, Cledus arrived in our lives. He was a very tiny, very sick abandoned kitten. He lived for only 8 months :-(. He came into our lives with a horrible upper respiratory infection but we managed to get him healthy from that. Then right after Christmas in 2007, Cledus suddenly got very sick, very quickly. I was home in New Jersey at the time and we rushed him to an emergency vet, where he tested positive for leukemia (he had tested negative months earlier). Leukemia is possibly the most traumatic of all cat diseases in the sense that a cat can carry it for years and be fine, but when it hits, it hits hard and fast. By the time we found out that he was sick, it was too late to save him and we opted to have him euthanized that day. We were both so upset and I cried for days.
Since that day I have heard from many other people that while cats can die from a variety of different illnesses, leukemia is by far the worst, simply because of the way it comes on so suddenly and so unexpectedly. Our vet here on Whidbey, who has been a vet for many, many years, even told us that he's had cats with leukemia and its possibly the worst disease to go through, and he wouldn't wish it on anyone. Cledus' death from leukemia is what brings me to the point of this post.
Until this point I hadn't become a crazy cat lady yet. However, I was so upset and traumatized by his death so I set out to research feline leukemia. While researching it I came across a lot of information for something called "Trap, Neuter, Return (TNR)" It was something I had never heard about before, but something that I now fully support. I'm sure almost everyone has seen stray cats wandering around at some point in their lives, and I'm sure people have heard of animal control coming out to collect and kill these strays. Well, recent research has proven that trapping and killing is a completely ineffective way at managing the feral cat population. I didn't know that. I never liked the idea of killing cats, but at the same time it made sense to me that if there were too many strays wandering around, then trapping and killing them was a way to lower the population. I was wrong and so were they.
If you google "Trap, Neuter, Return" you'll find lots of articles and information about how this has been proven to be the only humane, effective way at managing feral cat colonies. The ASPCA and the Humane Society of the United States support TNR. Shelters all over the entire world support and promote TNR and if you read the information, it will actually make sense as to why this is the most effective thing. I could launch into a discussion hours long about why I also support and participate in TNR, but if you google it, the info on the first page you find will speak for itself.
After Cledus died we went back to Jacksonville where we had some feral cats living around our apartment complex. By this point I had decided to set out on a mission to save the cats of the world from feline leukemia. I can't save every cat in the entire world and I know that, but I can at least help some. A spayed/neutered feral cat has less of a chance at contracting feline leukemia because it isn't a cancer in cats, its a virus spread by the saliva in bite wounds and blood. Sterilized cats are less likely to fight and therefore less likely to spread this disease around. We found out that Jacksonville has a city wide program that helps people with TNR. At this point we found out that lots of cities all over the whole country fund TNR programs. So we trapped 2 feral cats, had them spayed, and then decided to socialize them. Most feral cats are too wild to be socialized but if they are caught young enough, they are more likely to become friendly cats. It took us a while, but we succeeded. We kept one of the cats and found a great home for the other one. We also trapped a 3rd cat, who was friendly from the start, and she was also pregnant. She only had 1 kitten and we still have that kitten (who is 2 years old today!) We found her a good home, but Thomas was pretty attached to the kitten and wouldn't part with him :-). And finally before leaving Jacksonville we trapped a 4th cat who was very battered and beat up, but also VERY friendly and loving, so we kept him too. The point of TNR is to release these cats back outside, but at the same time, we didn't feel it was ok to release friendly cats back outside when they had the potential to be good housecats.
Then we moved to Washington where we helped another lady trap and neuter some cats living under her house. Then somehow along the way more ferals and strays found us and we ended up with 10 cats of our own. Then finally we ended up with 6 feral cats living in our backyard. Its like we have a sign on our heads that says "All cats are welcome here!" The cats in our backyard were young, but already completely feral. We trapped 2 of them and had them spayed, and we were planning to do the same with the rest, until they suddenly disappeared about 2 months ago.
Yesterday (March 28th) we received the sad news that the cats were found dead in our neighbors backyard, where they had also been living. The neighbor suspects that they were poisoned and she is pretty sure she knows who did it. This was so heartbreaking to me, especially since I've become such an advocate of TNR. I'm not stupid. I know not everyone likes cats. But at the same time, there are animals that I don't really like (small yappy dogs and ferrets are what I can think of at the moment) but it would NEVER cross my mind to kill them! One of our neighbors has a little yappy dog that drives me insane, but the thought of poisoning it would simply never cross my mind. In fact, as much as that dog annoys me, if it was hurt or injured or sick, I wouldn't even hesitate to take it to a vet, because thats just simply the RIGHT thing to do! I don't feel like you have to be a crazy animal rights activist (ahem...PETA) to even see how wrong and how heartbreaking this is. My own mother hates cats, and will admit that, but even she can't believe that someone would poison them on purpose.
I can't do anything to save these cats, even though I originally tried to, but I CAN promote TNR a little more and at least make people aware that it exists. There are also deterrents to keep cats out of your yard if they are really driving you crazy. Heck, when I was growing up there was a groundhog that lived underneath our shed that drove my dad crazy because it ate all of our flowers, but did he ever think to kill it? No! Because thats just not what you do! Alley Cat Allies is one of the main supporters of TNR and you can find lots of information, including local programs to help through their website.
I just want people to know that you don't have to love cats. But there ARE ways to deal with them and maybe if more people understand the benefits of TNR then they will be more likely to support it. TNR IS effective and if more people know that then maybe less people will be inclined to kill innocent animals. Several states, including Washington have made animal cruelty a felony. If the person we suspect is found guilty of having killed these cats, he can go to jail. Thats not some crazy animal rights group making that law. Its state lawmakers. The fact that its even a law shows that its not just groups like PETA that support legislation against animal cruelty. Alley Cat Allies has been very effective in getting local lawmakers to understand the benefits of TNR and they have started education programs around the country to encourage the use of TNR. TNR is also something practiced world wide and in the case of an organization called Save a Gato is even supported by the National Park Service. If you check out the website for Save a Gato they have links to other TNR sites around the world. The numbers speak for themselves. I've always been an animal lover, but even I didn't understand until recently just HOW effective TNR really is. I feel like if more people were aware of it, and more people understand how great the benefits are, then maybe people like my neighbor won't find it necessary to kill innocent animals :-(.
I've always silently supported TNR, but after finding out that our own feral colony was killed by some horrible person, I think I'm going to make more of an effort to make people aware of it now. Hopefully some of you reading this will actually check out the links to Alley Cat Allies, Save a Gato and simply google "Trap, Neuter, Return" for more information.
The really sad thing is that Mr. V and I reported the cat killings to the police (on behalf of the neighbors too), and they promised to help us and reassured us that it was in fact a crime to kill animals intentionally in Washington state. He passed the case on to animal control and an officer contacted us this past Monday. Let's just say that we found out very quickly that neither the police nor animal control cares at all about what happened. In fact, they tried to turn it around onto us and accused us of breaking the law by having too many pets, who weren't registered with the city, in our backyard. The animal control officer also told us that TNR is illegal here (which we researched and it isn't true) and he came up with excuses as to why it was ok to kill the cats. My personal favorite was "Old people don't like when cats poop in their yard." Really??? Its nice to know that no one here cares enough about animals to do anything about this. I wouldn't care so much, except that Washington law states that killing domestic animals (and feral cats are considered domestic animals) is illegal, but apparently the law enforcement here doesn't care about that.
I contacted Alley Cat Allies and they will be sending me information to give to people about TNR. I know it may not fix this situation, but maybe it can help change someone's mind. I used to think that killing cats was the only way to control the feral population. I didn't like it, but I thought that it was what worked. All it took was me reading Alley Cat Allies website one day and doing a little research of my own for my mind to be changed. So even if one person changes their mind, to me that will be worth it.
Alley Cat Allies is a national non-profit organization dedicated to protecting cats. They mainly focus on humane treatment of feral cats and they get their ideas across through education and facts. I have to point out that they use facts because while they are definitely an animal welfare organization, they aren't crazy like PETA (have you seen PETA's "Kittens of the Sea"? Google it if you haven't. Its good for a laugh.). ACA is the organization that began the idea of Trap, Neuter, Return, and instead of me re-writing all of this, I'm just going to copy and paste a note that I posted on my Facebook page a few days ago, which explains the sad, recent events that sparked my idea of making Alley Cat Allies more well known.
Most people who know me know that I have a house full of cats. I know that there are a lot of people who probably think we're crazy cat people and some people who appreciate what we do. Every single one of our cats is our own rescue. None of them came from a shelter. They all just wandered into our lives somehow.
My first cat was Wendy, and she arrived in my life via my old roommate who found her at her old apartment complex. (actually to be completely accurate, my first cat was Misty, but she bonded with my dad almost instantly and she quickly became his cat and not mine.) I wasn't a cat person until I got Wendy. I didn't dislike cats, but I really never gave much thought to them until I suddenly had a very sick stay cat on my hands. By nursing Wendy back to good health I started to realize that cats are actually very affectionate animals and very loyal to their owners. I always imagined them being snobby and aloof and while thats true to a point, they are also very, very loving pets.
After Wendy, I got Patches. She is actually Thomas' cat, and we found her living at a beer brewery in San Antonio, Texas. She was walking from table to table begging for food and when we asked the waitress if she had a home, we found out that she was a stray being fed by the brewery and the staff there would be thrilled if we took her and gave her a good home. So Thomas "claimed" her and took her home.
Shorty after that, Cledus arrived in our lives. He was a very tiny, very sick abandoned kitten. He lived for only 8 months :-(. He came into our lives with a horrible upper respiratory infection but we managed to get him healthy from that. Then right after Christmas in 2007, Cledus suddenly got very sick, very quickly. I was home in New Jersey at the time and we rushed him to an emergency vet, where he tested positive for leukemia (he had tested negative months earlier). Leukemia is possibly the most traumatic of all cat diseases in the sense that a cat can carry it for years and be fine, but when it hits, it hits hard and fast. By the time we found out that he was sick, it was too late to save him and we opted to have him euthanized that day. We were both so upset and I cried for days.
Since that day I have heard from many other people that while cats can die from a variety of different illnesses, leukemia is by far the worst, simply because of the way it comes on so suddenly and so unexpectedly. Our vet here on Whidbey, who has been a vet for many, many years, even told us that he's had cats with leukemia and its possibly the worst disease to go through, and he wouldn't wish it on anyone. Cledus' death from leukemia is what brings me to the point of this post.
Until this point I hadn't become a crazy cat lady yet. However, I was so upset and traumatized by his death so I set out to research feline leukemia. While researching it I came across a lot of information for something called "Trap, Neuter, Return (TNR)" It was something I had never heard about before, but something that I now fully support. I'm sure almost everyone has seen stray cats wandering around at some point in their lives, and I'm sure people have heard of animal control coming out to collect and kill these strays. Well, recent research has proven that trapping and killing is a completely ineffective way at managing the feral cat population. I didn't know that. I never liked the idea of killing cats, but at the same time it made sense to me that if there were too many strays wandering around, then trapping and killing them was a way to lower the population. I was wrong and so were they.
If you google "Trap, Neuter, Return" you'll find lots of articles and information about how this has been proven to be the only humane, effective way at managing feral cat colonies. The ASPCA and the Humane Society of the United States support TNR. Shelters all over the entire world support and promote TNR and if you read the information, it will actually make sense as to why this is the most effective thing. I could launch into a discussion hours long about why I also support and participate in TNR, but if you google it, the info on the first page you find will speak for itself.
After Cledus died we went back to Jacksonville where we had some feral cats living around our apartment complex. By this point I had decided to set out on a mission to save the cats of the world from feline leukemia. I can't save every cat in the entire world and I know that, but I can at least help some. A spayed/neutered feral cat has less of a chance at contracting feline leukemia because it isn't a cancer in cats, its a virus spread by the saliva in bite wounds and blood. Sterilized cats are less likely to fight and therefore less likely to spread this disease around. We found out that Jacksonville has a city wide program that helps people with TNR. At this point we found out that lots of cities all over the whole country fund TNR programs. So we trapped 2 feral cats, had them spayed, and then decided to socialize them. Most feral cats are too wild to be socialized but if they are caught young enough, they are more likely to become friendly cats. It took us a while, but we succeeded. We kept one of the cats and found a great home for the other one. We also trapped a 3rd cat, who was friendly from the start, and she was also pregnant. She only had 1 kitten and we still have that kitten (who is 2 years old today!) We found her a good home, but Thomas was pretty attached to the kitten and wouldn't part with him :-). And finally before leaving Jacksonville we trapped a 4th cat who was very battered and beat up, but also VERY friendly and loving, so we kept him too. The point of TNR is to release these cats back outside, but at the same time, we didn't feel it was ok to release friendly cats back outside when they had the potential to be good housecats.
Then we moved to Washington where we helped another lady trap and neuter some cats living under her house. Then somehow along the way more ferals and strays found us and we ended up with 10 cats of our own. Then finally we ended up with 6 feral cats living in our backyard. Its like we have a sign on our heads that says "All cats are welcome here!" The cats in our backyard were young, but already completely feral. We trapped 2 of them and had them spayed, and we were planning to do the same with the rest, until they suddenly disappeared about 2 months ago.
Yesterday (March 28th) we received the sad news that the cats were found dead in our neighbors backyard, where they had also been living. The neighbor suspects that they were poisoned and she is pretty sure she knows who did it. This was so heartbreaking to me, especially since I've become such an advocate of TNR. I'm not stupid. I know not everyone likes cats. But at the same time, there are animals that I don't really like (small yappy dogs and ferrets are what I can think of at the moment) but it would NEVER cross my mind to kill them! One of our neighbors has a little yappy dog that drives me insane, but the thought of poisoning it would simply never cross my mind. In fact, as much as that dog annoys me, if it was hurt or injured or sick, I wouldn't even hesitate to take it to a vet, because thats just simply the RIGHT thing to do! I don't feel like you have to be a crazy animal rights activist (ahem...PETA) to even see how wrong and how heartbreaking this is. My own mother hates cats, and will admit that, but even she can't believe that someone would poison them on purpose.
I can't do anything to save these cats, even though I originally tried to, but I CAN promote TNR a little more and at least make people aware that it exists. There are also deterrents to keep cats out of your yard if they are really driving you crazy. Heck, when I was growing up there was a groundhog that lived underneath our shed that drove my dad crazy because it ate all of our flowers, but did he ever think to kill it? No! Because thats just not what you do! Alley Cat Allies is one of the main supporters of TNR and you can find lots of information, including local programs to help through their website.
I just want people to know that you don't have to love cats. But there ARE ways to deal with them and maybe if more people understand the benefits of TNR then they will be more likely to support it. TNR IS effective and if more people know that then maybe less people will be inclined to kill innocent animals. Several states, including Washington have made animal cruelty a felony. If the person we suspect is found guilty of having killed these cats, he can go to jail. Thats not some crazy animal rights group making that law. Its state lawmakers. The fact that its even a law shows that its not just groups like PETA that support legislation against animal cruelty. Alley Cat Allies has been very effective in getting local lawmakers to understand the benefits of TNR and they have started education programs around the country to encourage the use of TNR. TNR is also something practiced world wide and in the case of an organization called Save a Gato is even supported by the National Park Service. If you check out the website for Save a Gato they have links to other TNR sites around the world. The numbers speak for themselves. I've always been an animal lover, but even I didn't understand until recently just HOW effective TNR really is. I feel like if more people were aware of it, and more people understand how great the benefits are, then maybe people like my neighbor won't find it necessary to kill innocent animals :-(.
I've always silently supported TNR, but after finding out that our own feral colony was killed by some horrible person, I think I'm going to make more of an effort to make people aware of it now. Hopefully some of you reading this will actually check out the links to Alley Cat Allies, Save a Gato and simply google "Trap, Neuter, Return" for more information.
The really sad thing is that Mr. V and I reported the cat killings to the police (on behalf of the neighbors too), and they promised to help us and reassured us that it was in fact a crime to kill animals intentionally in Washington state. He passed the case on to animal control and an officer contacted us this past Monday. Let's just say that we found out very quickly that neither the police nor animal control cares at all about what happened. In fact, they tried to turn it around onto us and accused us of breaking the law by having too many pets, who weren't registered with the city, in our backyard. The animal control officer also told us that TNR is illegal here (which we researched and it isn't true) and he came up with excuses as to why it was ok to kill the cats. My personal favorite was "Old people don't like when cats poop in their yard." Really??? Its nice to know that no one here cares enough about animals to do anything about this. I wouldn't care so much, except that Washington law states that killing domestic animals (and feral cats are considered domestic animals) is illegal, but apparently the law enforcement here doesn't care about that.
I contacted Alley Cat Allies and they will be sending me information to give to people about TNR. I know it may not fix this situation, but maybe it can help change someone's mind. I used to think that killing cats was the only way to control the feral population. I didn't like it, but I thought that it was what worked. All it took was me reading Alley Cat Allies website one day and doing a little research of my own for my mind to be changed. So even if one person changes their mind, to me that will be worth it.
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