A Little Bit of Hope

When things go bad with kittens, they go REALLY badly. We rescued a sweet little litter of babies with their Mom last week. We knew 8 week old Hope had a birth defect. She had no joints in her back legs and would drag herself around. The shelter had wanted to euthanize her right away.

It was agonizing trying to decide what to do for this baby. But we decided that this kitten deserved a chance. The least we could do would be to allow our vet to look at her. With our vet - there's always hope. It seemed ironic that was our kittens name too. D- rescued the whole family and we took Hope into the vets today.

The news wasn't good. I arrived late with my own cat this morning to find D- and another foster Mom in tears - Hope was in their arms. Our vet looked a little pale (which is tough to do for an Indian guy!). He felt that Hope's quality of life would be very poor. She'd never be able to make it in and out of the litterbox. She would forever fight infection in her back end because she could only drag her hind quarters around.

Little Hope was mewing - biting our fingers playfully . Her eyes danced as kittens usually do. She didn't know that she didn't have a "quality of life" or what we were going to be forced to do.

Two more foster parents showed up with their cats. J- was there too and we decided together to say goodbye to Hope. The vet injected her with a sedative, but Hope was a fighter and wouldn't go to sleep. It was an agonizing 10 minutes as we waited for the sedative to kick in. Dr. took her and mercifully put her to sleep with an overdose of anesthesia gas.

It was merciful for ALL of us. Not just Hope. We can move forward now. Poor D- was in shambles. She had loved that little Hope for the past week. I loved her the moment I saw her little face.

When I posted this picture of the litter, I had planned on circling Hope's picture. But I guess it doesn't matter which one died today. All that matters is that we loved her.

Where there's love - there's hope.