Tuesday, October 01, 2013

Get Hurt Trying

I've been struggling the past week.  We've had kittens die from recalled Iams food.  How can you console a loving foster parent that she inadvertently gave cat food that killed 3 of her kittens?   We can go into the legal ramifications of the company that poisoned the cats...yada....yada...yada.  There were no vet bills to be reimbursed.  The kittens vomited once and died within 20 minutes.  No other symptoms.  I don't want to talk about food recalls in this post.  I'm just too pissed to have an intelligent conversation about it.  

I'm sure I'll hear from lots of caring rescuers asking if it was Distemper....blah blah blah...no, it wasn't.  It was the food...on a recalled cat food list that came out yesterday.

Last night, I offered to help a black kitten that was found in a ravine.  He is about 8 weeks old, starving, dehydrated, etc.  I picked him up this morning (from a friend of the finder) and found that he was almost dead.  The fleas were jumping off his tiny body and his gums were white with anemia and dehydration.  He was  starting to have seizures as I quickly wrapped his tiny body in the towel and jumped in my car.

I don't remember driving to the vets.  I remember being flipped off by another car and almost running over a Mom and child in the crosswalk as I sailed through far too quickly.  The vet wanted to euthanize the little guy, but I really wanted to TRY.  That's all I wanted....just to TRY.  Damnit, he survived in the wild and he deserved for a rescue to try to save his life.  The managed to get an IV into his dehydrated vein, and treated him for hundreds of fleas that were slowly killing him. As I type this blog post, he's still alive.

All we can do is try, right?  Both of the people that I'm talking about - our wonderful foster Mom and the woman that kept the black kitten last night TRIED.  I get sick of hearing people whining about "Ooo, I could never foster, because I'd get too attached."  Well...shit.  Get hurt TRYING.


7 comments:

Anonymous said...

My vet told me over a year ago, never feed Iams, just way too many recalls.

Connie - Tails from the Foster Kittens said...

Very strong and vibrant purrs for that little black kitten. I've seen a vet do a blood transfusion for flea anemia and it helped quite a bit..

Faith J. said...

I agree totally! I don't want to live my life being "safe" and "protected". I want to step out and make sacrifices and do something.
Thanks for trying to help that kitten. Looking forward to an update on him.

Random Felines said...

we hope the baby at the vet makes it. and purrs to you and the foster who lost those kittens.

we couldn't agree more - mom says put up or shut up....if you aren't helping, then you don't get a vote.

Caroline said...

Wow you've been through the emotional wringer. I think you made the right decision with the black kitten, even though the bills will add up, you couldn't save the IAMs (they pretend to care about your pet!) kittens but at least you tried with this little guy. Bravo and I hope he makes it. To the IAM Kittens foster Mom, my thoughts are with you. It's the company's fault not yours. Would suggest we all boycott them.

Anonymous said...

That kitten would benefit from B12 injection - it would stimulate blood cell production in the bone marrow.

Where is the IAMS recall posted? I would like to share it with others.

Thanks

blindwheels said...

I love black cats, have had a few friends tell me about how vets seem to sometimes give up on them faster than the supposedly 'cute ones'... (that just PISSES me OFF...

IAMS sucks, (imo, worse than Whiskas, even though I HATE whiskas & wouldent even feed it to rob ford!)

how is that little Black guy doing btw?

Purrs..
Em