Time for Tom

killingchivalry:

vincentxanthony:

Please reblog.

You might remember that I posted this picture last month talking about how sweet this feral cat was to trust me after time and eventually let me hold her and carry her around. 

Oh, also, we found out that “Sebatsian” was actually a girl, who my mother dubbed “Mew-Mew”. My mom isn’t the best at naming pets. Anyway, after however many times of my parents telling me that we shouldn’t have shown that cat care, and them seeing how warmly it received me, they eventually started to show her love as well.  After I had returned back to SF, I would often get updates from my parents about how little Mew-Mew was doing.  The would feed her, and eventually let her into the house to just hang out with my parents while they were doing things.  My father particularly grew attached because he liked having a kitten perch on his belly.  My mom, one who never liked cats and even has an allergy started to love the kitten. She knew, however, that it was against her best interest to have her there, so upon my suggestion brought her to the closest shelter.  Don’t worry, folks, this shelter from what I hear is a no-kill shelter.  Cara has even told me that she heard from multiple people that it was.  Even my mother heard from some of her friends.  This place is a no kill shelter.  Got it.  So they drop off the little cat with reluctance, and give them the instructions to contact them if there is an issue with adoption, because they would like to adopt her. 

Days pass.  My father sends an email on September 29 to find out how she’s doing.  No response.  October 5 my father follows up asking again what has happened.  No one responds until the next day when they inform him that Mew-Mew was euthanized. The cat was there about 2 weeks. TWO WEEKS. This kitten couldn’t have been more than 12 weeks old.  They didn’t post about her on the website, they didn’t have any photos up. 

Their reasoning?  This is a direct quote from the email they sent my father:

She did not respond well to the busy shelter life and was very fractious while she was with us. Please feel free to give me a call if you would like to speak further on this matter. I am very sorry that we were not able to find a home for this kitten.

IT WAS A FERAL CAT AND YOU PUT IT IN A CAGE.  Yes, it will be ill tempered.  Yes, it will not like being around other cats. Did you miss the point where we said we found the cat hanging around outside of our house? You can’t cage a wild animal and expect it to be OK. 

My father sent an angry reply.  I told them I would.  I sent them one this morning.  It reads:

To whom it may concern,

It has come to my attention that recently your shelter has put a cat to sleep that my parents had brought in with the explicit instructions to contact them if there were any issues with the cat resulting in an inability to adopt - which should generally be common practice with the surrendering family, anyway. I recommended that my parents bring the cat to your shelter after I was informed by NUMEROUS people that you ran a NO-KILL shelter.  So this means that a great number of people are uninformed as a result of either a lack of initiative to spread the word about what your shelter does, or someone in your facility is propagating false information.  Either way, I am disgusted and appalled with the way your facility handled this particular case, and I can only hope that this isn’t the way that it’s frequently dealt with. I’m also understanding that you neglected to respond to my parents email to you at the end of September, waiting only until after they followed up their own email a week later to respond; that’s just poor business practice.  Sometimes emails fall through the cracks, but you’re an institution that deals with actual living creatures.  If a hospital failed to contact even the person who brings in a John Doe before euthanizing, there would be hell to pay.

It is with this that I inform you that you will no longer get my support, nor my recommendations.  You will, however, be receiving a boycott, negative press, and a possible series of angry emails from animal rights activists from around the country.  You locked a feral cat in a cage and killed it when it you found it didn’t like that.  You should be ashamed.

So with this I ask my friends on here to send them angry emails.  Show them your disgust.  That’s all we can do.  Tell the Southern Ocean County Animal Facility that they’re wrong.  Send them letters, give them phone calls.

Southern Ocean County Animal Facility
321 Hay Road
Manahawkin, NJ 08050
(609) 978-0127
socaf@ochd.org

the picture reminds me of my kitty. :((