I have a bunch of stray cats outside of my home. I feed them daily. One day, about 4 weeks ago, a small white cat showed up. He looked like death. His white fur was completely gray, I could see the outline of his ribs, he had a gash across his nose… the list goes on. He was terrified of the other cats. He was so weak that he couldn’t run away from me, so I grabbed him. He tried to fight, but he was so weak that it was pointless. I grabbed some food and put it in front of him while I held him there. He started to eat. I watched him for a bit. He puked a few minutes after he ate, letting me know that he hadn’t eaten in a long time. I went inside and I started to mentally prepare myself for burying him. A day passed by, he came back again. Another day, he came back. He’s been coming everyday. The cut is healed. His eyes are bright. He’s gained at least 5 pounds. His fur is so white that it’s almost bluish.
Shit like this makes me want to live a little bit longer.
once again my faith in humanity is somewhat restored. i tried rescuing a cat that had been hit by a car once. i found him/her in the middle of a busy street and was a small ball of nerves. we grabbed him/her and raced over to the vet but was hysterical. it kept biting and scratching. needless to say it squeezed out of our arms as we were about to walk into the emergency vets front door and it just hurried out into the darkness. we were covered in blood and bites for the rest of the night until we ourselves arrived at the hospital to treat our injuries.
I hate to be a Debbie Downer, and the story about the white kitty is fucking awesome, but I just wanted to mention that if you’re putting out food for the stray cats in your neighbourhood, you’re probably worsening the problem. Animal populations are smaller when there is a shortage of food, and they have been known to reproduce at a higher rate when there is an abundance of food. So, by putting out food, you’re allowing more kittens to be born into what seems to me to be a pretty tough, miserable life of an urban feral cat. It’s tempting to want to feed them and I understand why people do it, but I think that doing so increases the total amount of animal suffering in the area. I guess it’s just one person’s opinion, though.
What would be even better for the feral cats in your neighbourhood, that would probably allow you to continue to feed them and not increase their suffering, is if you managed to get your hands on individual cats by trapping them, got them spayed and neutered, and then released them again. I think some cities have low-cost spaying/neutering services for this purpose, and those that don’t generally have vets who will charge you much less if you let them know what you are up to. If you did this with a few cats, it would probably offset any population increases due to feeding them. :)
