On Sunday Dr. Thompson and I went down to San Jose Animal Care and Services to pick up the last two of the three cats we pulled for Foothill College's vet tech program. These cats will be well cared for an adopted by the students at the end of the Quarter (a much better life than being PTS in San Jose).
While I was there I took a tour through the kennels to look at the cats that were due to be PTS. Needless to say, I ended up pulling 5 amazing adult cats and 2 litters of kittens from their Euth list. One of the cats I pulled was a 1.5 year old tabby tuxedo boy who looks very much like my very own dear, departed boy, Tibby Toes, except a bit heftier. He had come in as an over the counter surrender with a microchip and no notes in his records that the owner had been notified so we contacted the woman listed by Home Again as his last owner.
Enter sob story here: Apparently his owner had come upon very hard times and her cats (2 of them, a bonded pair of brothers) had been being cared for by a co-worker/cat sitter. Apparently said cat sitter grew tired of, or was no longer able to care for them so she surrendered them both to SJACS on 9/18/08. Additionally, only one had a microchip, the one we pulled. When we discovered that Tyson, our name for him as he had been named Harley, had a sibling we called SJACS immediately as Tyson is clearly a very sad cat and misses his brother.
The news was tragic. I discovered that Tyson's brother was PTS on 9/28/07 as soon as his stray hold was up. He never even had a chance. Stories like this break my heart, I can hardly bear the unfairness of it all. This poor boy will never see his brother again and has no idea why his world was turned upside down but in spite of it all he's an amazingly sweet boy.
I know shelters are full to the rafters and healthy beautiful animals die by the millions in the US everyday for no reason other than a lack of space, but I still cry for every loss. Here's some cute Tyson face for you. 
Written by: LH
3 comments:
Oh my goodness that brought tears to my eyes. You all are so wonderful at Nine Lives. Tyson now has a fair chance in life because of you. If only his brother wasn't put down. I hate hearing stories about that.
I know you probably hear it a lot, but THANK YOU for being so wonderful and trying to take in as many cats as you can. You are all hero's in my book, and I am sure many others books. :)
I have personally seen several cases where SJACS did not do their homework regading incoming animals with microchips. I live in San Jose, and my cat, dog, and three rabbits are all chipped, but I would be SO worried if something ever happened and the ended up there!
Do you have any idea what laws exist regarding contacting of microchipped pets' listed owners? I think a letter to the Mercury News might be helpful here....
hi, i've just found this blog and i'm so happy to find it. i'm planning to run an institution or something like it here in my city (bandung, indonesia) to do so much like what you've been doing with abandoned cats.
you might visit my blog (http://kemaneaje.multiply.com), but all written in indonesian. :)
but, you can see pictures of my cats. they were abandoned, i took them off the street, and now they live together with me and my husband. we have 8 cats now (rhonda, sigo, lady and her 5 kitten).
you can also e-mail me at yulita_rosa@yahoo.com, my Yahoo! ID is yulita_rosa.
thank you very much for taking care of those cats... :)
Post a Comment