Conference misery::feline_v1

    Dee,
    
    What was the name of the town?  I live in So. NH and would like to keep
    an eye out for the cat if it was in my vicinity.  Did you manage to
    catch a glimpse of the cat's color.  God, it's great you were able to
    get the license # and report it.  We really need a law passed to try
    and discourage this kind of cruel act.  A good stiff fine might do it
    since $ is probably the reason these kinds of people won't take the
    animals to the shelters.  OR, they just don't care enough because it is
    "JUST AN ANIMAL" to them. :-{
    
    Pat
    

    Dee-
    
    Good for you for pushing the issue....and for trying
    to find that poor kitty..
    
    Lynne

    
      I agree...but you gotta remember::This is the NEW America...where
    irresponsibility and stupidity sems to be the norm, and intelligence
    and brains are things to be ridiculed. It happens all the time with
    animals that irresponsible jerks acquire.
    
      Our first cat was just such a case. Miss Meow showed up one day out
    of nowhere with a flea collar...she had been wandering around and came
    into our basement because it was getting cold in the late fall, and
    we've had her now for over 5 years. We believe some brain-dead
    individuals threw her out of a car in front of our house. 
    
      NMY wife was following a pickup truck to work one day about a year
    ago, and while waiting for a red light to change, the passenger door
    suddenly opened and a half-grown German Shepherd puppy was forcebly
    ejected into the street, and the pickup drove off...the poor puppy
    frantically running after it in desperation...not understanding why
    it's master had suddenly abandoned it. Fortunately, my wife was able to
    find a Police cruiser with an officer who was an animal lover in it,
    and they were able to catch the poor, terrified and depressed puppy. We
    found out after calling the local pound that this pup was adopted by
    another officer who was looking for a dog such as this one, and from
    what we've heard since, the pup has grown to be a magnificent,
    well-loved and protective member of his family. Unfortunately, the
    mental deficient who discarded this puppy is still likely wasting the
    earth's oxygen supply by still breathing!!! In the panic of the moment,
    nobody thought to get the license number because they were all
    concentrating on the poor puppies fate..
    
      John McD

    
    	We live in Lyndeborough, NH a small town outside of Milford NH.  The cat
    	was approx. 8-9 months old with a flea collar.  It's a tabby with
    	some white markings around the neck and paws.  I'm going by again
    	tonight and see a few neighbors in the area.  There hasn't been
    	anyone home when I went last night and their phones are unlisted -
    	believe me I tried.   Should I put some food down where they
    	dropped it off?  It might be traveling back to it's home too, since
    	the address the police gave was a few miles down the road from
    	where it was abondoned.  At this point I don't care about the
    	X-owner, I fear for the cat and like I said previously - I hope
    	it wasn't pregant.
    
    	Thanks again  for listening - just to add pain to it all - we
    	buried our neighbors cat two weeks ago.  Hit by a car 1:00 on a
    	Saturday afternoon.  We buried it since they were away on vacation.
    	I had volunteered to feed them.  They are indoor/outdoor cats. They
    	have a door built into their kitchen door that gives them free
    	access to come and go.  No one stopped and said they hit the cat,
    	maybe they didn't realize they did who knows.  Anyway when the
    	owners came back I had the sad news to tell them.  They said "we
    	seem to always lose a cat when we go on vacation - good thing we
    	have two more left!"  I just walked inside and held my two Siamese
    	who are indoor only and said to them - at least we will never find
    	you two dead on the roadside.  They are safe/clean and happy inside
    	chasing each other all around the house.
    
    	-dee
    
    	
    	

    I don't like the new Amercia!!!!!   I think we have too many sick
    weirdo's out there....
    
    Working for the shelter...you hear the most sickest stories.  Priscilla
    has a cat at her house called "throw away" because someone road by
    her house and tossed this little cat out the window....he didn't
    even slow down to do this.  I'd like to toss this guy head in a
    non-flushed toilet...and keep dunking him!!
    
    Sick,,,sick,,,,sick...
    
    Sandy
                                                        

    This note makes me wish we could deal with people who do this the 
    way Steven Van Dahm (is that how its spelled?) did in the last movie
    I saw of his.
    
    He was driving down the road when some jerk tossed a garbage bag out
    of his car.  It landed in the road right in front of SVD's car.  He
    came to a screeching halt and got out and took a look in the bag. 
    There was a puppy in the bag (German shepard I believe) which he then
    took with him.
    
    Later, at the end of the movie he comes across the car of the guy who
    threw the puppy out of the car.  He stops him, gets out of the car and
    socks the guy.  Everyone in the theater was cheering.
    
    Sorry, other than those two scenes, the movie did not stick well in my
    memory and I can't think of the name of it.
    
    Jan

    I think Snoopy was a throw-away--I was visiting a classmate (about ten
    years ago now) and noticed a cat outdoors in the snow.  She didn't
    belong to them, and they wouldn't/couldn't let her indoors because they
    had Pekinese dogs (which some cats could make short work of).  She had
    been there a few days, so I convinced my dad we should take her home.
    
    I don't really blame the owners of the house for not taking her in,
    since they didn't want a cat, couldn't have a cat, had done nothing to
    get this cat, etc. and if you feed a cat outdoors it will never, ever
    leave.  I would tirade about the person who left her there just before
    the weather turned ugly (8 inches of snow), but I wouldn't have her if
    they hadn't left her. (But in the SNOW! part of me says, didn't they
    have any sense when they bought/got her?)
    
    I can't forget the time I found out my friend's mother had abandoned
    two mother cats with three or four litters of kittens (some from cats
    they kept).  She had told us she sold them to a pet store.  I found out
    because my friend was arguing with her brother and he decided to
    reminisce (sp?) about how 'funny' the cats looked as they drove away
    (yes, their mother was demented enough to TAKE HER CHILDREN with her on
    this mission.)  My friend was understandably upset about this, she had
    named all the kittens, etc, and her brother was repeating them all to
    her, speculating on their fates, etc.
    
    Sigh.  Sometimes I don't know who is the biggest jerk.
    
    Lisa Dean and Snoopy

    Or the conversation around the lunchtable today, when someone
    I *used* to like (as a friend) talked about how he got rid 
    of his cat....
    
    He said; "But, I slowed down, first"  Before he pushed the cat out the
    window.  
    
    
    L

    My daughter found a kitten that had been *dropped* out of a car window.
    Actually, as it turned out, there were two of them.  We brought the 
    scared, hungry, hurt little baby into the house.  She purred the whole
    time that we held her.  She ate everything that we could possibly give
    her and just wanted to be held and cuddled.  We found her a wonderful
    home with a friend but she soon started showing some weird symptoms. 
    When my friend brought her to the vet there was found to be brain
    damage due to being dropped out of the car and landing on her head.  It
    hadn't shown up right away.  We thought she was just confused and
    scared.  The vet said she could only get worse so my friend did the
    right thing and had her put to sleep.  Shortly after that we found the
    second kitten, a twin to the first.  That one died a horrible death
    which I won't print here.  I still feel responsible for not finding the
    second kitten a home right away.
    
    Needless to say, I am not very sympathetic to people that just *toss*
    their animals away like a rag-doll.  My suggestion is to drop them from
    an airplane without a chute and see if they bounce.  I figure that's
    about the same as dropping a kitten from a car.
    
    
    Sandi and the Storm Troopers (who do have chutes)
    
    

    My ex-girlfirend's cat was an abandoned kitty...
    
    At two and a half years old, this cat is also now a terror...
    Someone will be stroking her and then the stupid cat would turn 
    around and CLAW the petter...it's a gorgeous cat, but it's also
    a schizo...the owner's hands and arm hav all these claw marks...
    
    Could the cat still be suffering from the abandonment after
    all that time?  It has a very "pissy" attitude towards everyone...
    I don't bother petting it anymore...I like my hands.
    
    B.

re: -.1

	There can be lots of reasons for a cat to behave like this but often
it's just that the cat doesn't want to be petted right then and she's just
letting you know that as clearly as she can.  Cats also often get overstimulated
and react like this.  Almost always cats give clues when they're about to lash
out.  If you are petting or stroking a cat and it begins to give clues the best
thing is to calmly stop and let the cat determine when/if she'd like you to
resume.  Sometimes they'll walk away and sometimes they'll settle down.  Some
of the clues my cat used to give was a twitching of the skin on her back or a
twitching of her tail or turning her head to watch my hands.  I got to the
point where I could ususally tell when I was about to get nailed and I would
just stop and let her control what happened next.  After I started doing this
I almost never got bitten or scratched.

	An early trauma can certainly have an impact on a cat, but giving them
some control over what kind of attention they get and when can help overcome
that.

Brian

    One of my cats was an abondoned kitten. One night when I came home from
    work around midnite (waitressing), I heard this terrible yowling and
    crying, and something HURLED itself at my feet!! It was a kitten about
    3 mos old! I picked him up, and his belly was full, so I thought he
    belonged to the litter down the street. My husband got dressed, took
    the kitten down to the house with the momma cat, and tossed him into
    the yard, thinking he would recognize home and stay there. Well, he
    marched right back up the street behind my husband, meowing all the
    way. So Ray took him again, took him down to the house with the momma
    cat, tossed him again, and RAN back with the kitten right behind him,
    meowing and carrying on! So Ray tried it ONE MORE TIME, and ran like
    hell back home, but that kitten wasn't going to give up! So we left him
    in the care of our Old Fat Cat for the night (our outdoor cat, who was
    always willing to put up with kittens), and the
    next morning I had my daughter drop the kitten at the house with momma
    cat on her way to the bus stop. Well, when the woman took the kitten
    and started to put him in the box with the rest of the kittens, she saw
    that our kitten was twice as big as her kittens.... hence, it wasn't
    one of hers!!!! No wonder he wouldn't stay down there! He parked
    himself on our doorstep, and adopted US. There was no way out of it!
    
    I found out much latter that the reason his belly was so full was
    because my daughter and her friends had found him earlier in the day
    and had been feeding him all day long.
    
    Simon was with us for six years before I had to put him down because of
    feline leukemia. He was a joy, and I was heartbroken to lose him.
    
    ng   
                                          

    A couple of suggestions:  have him checked out by the vet for any
    medical problems ( atoothache, etc.).  Also i second the business of
    his possibly getting overstimulated, and some cats have areas of their
    bodies that are off limits to petting (tummy, back near tail, etc.)
    

    The fact that your lucky and wonderful kitty found its way to you
    via a cruel and abusive act does not make that act any less cruel
    or abusive.  For every lucky kitty who finds a home there are many
    many who die horrible, painful deaths.  There will never be any
    justifiable reason for such an action regardless of the outcome.
    
    Nancy DC
    

    Well, I hope you don't think I was EXCUSING the person that tossed
    Simon. I fully realize that if one kitten was tossed, he probably had 
    brothers or sisters that were tossed also. No, I do not forgive the
    person who dumped Simon, nor do I feel that the outcome in any way
    justifies the act. 
    
    ng 

    re: .15 - I didn't really think you did, but I wanted to be sure
    that no one else felt that the "ends justified the means" either.
    :^)
      nancy\