Pets are your responsibility

One of the things that pissed me off over the weekend that I had to swallow and hide and pretend didn't matter for the sake of Family was what my brother and his wife have done to yet another of their cats. Some folks have heard me say a few snide comments about my brother before. He's my baby brother, and when he stops acting like a big baby, I'll stop calling him one.

He does have a very soft heart for animals and children, I can give him credit for that. But he doesn't have a lot of responsibility. He's perfectly happy to take home the cute fuzzy thing, but when it grows up, and he can't take care of it, off to the pound the animal goes. He learned this behaviour from our mother, for which I will never forgive her. For example, George and Colin were acquired from the shelter after my mother dropped them off. I did not speak to her for a month. I am currently smelling Colin's cabbage- scented farts as he sleeps on my lap, but poor George passed on years ago and is buried in our backyard.

When he met his wife, she had two cats, BJ and Midnight. BJ is a holy terror who attacks everyone who visits. Midnight is very sweet and hunts laps. But my sister-in-law loves BJ. Time passed, and my brother wanted a dog, because he loves dogs. So the year they got their first child, he got a big loveable goofy dog. Did I mention he was BIG? The following Kissmoose, he got in his head to get a kitten for his wife, and I did my best to talk him out of it. But he could not walk by the kittens in the mall without wanting to get her one. They named the long haired puffball Sydney, and the poor thing spent most of the time hiding from the other cats and the small child.

When they had another child, they finally realized, "Hey, this is a lot of beings living in this tiny 3-bedroom house." Their solution? Ditch a cat.

They called me. They knew I had volunteered at the pound, and could I recommend a good shelter? I exploded in expletives, of course. If you take an animal home, you take it home. It is your new family member. You get its problems and its joys- and its poop, and you take care of it. And you fix it so it won't breed and make more problems. (At least my brother does believe in spaying and neutering- The PETS anyway). I know the shelters in their area well, and I know how long it would be before a neurotic cat would be killed. I told him to bring the cat here.

We renamed him Pepe, and he's recovered well enough to be out and social and play, and most of the time he gets on with the other cats. You can see his pic here.

I have recovered my anger at their abandonment by now. They do not ask after the cat. But I still brag about him, as I'd brag about any of my kids.

What pissed me off is that I learned that Midnight is not living with them any more. They took her to the shelter. She is solid black, petite, and very affectionate. She may have a chance. But how many people want to adopt 10 year-old cats? I am afraid that she won't have a chance. And they will not tell me which shelter, nor how long ago, and I cannot keep my temper in check to ask for more information. I cannot comprehend how you can keep a cat for 10 years, and then throw it away. It is simply beyond me. I think the only reason why he took the cat to the shelter instead of bringing her here was because of the lecture I gave him last time about ditching pets.

While I don't want to continue to house my family's rejected pets, I will if that is the only option compared to taking them to the shelter. At least here, I know they'll be loved and not tossed out.