I am sitting here typing trying to sort through all the jumbled emotions as to what could have prevented, Squeales, the neighborhood stray cat's, death. Let me give you some background on Squeales.
First off, I want to say that our neighborhood has had tons of stray cats coming and going for years. The longest I would ever see the same strays would be for about a year, and then the the strays either found homes or disappear. My husband and I would try to catch the strays, feed them and either keep them or put an ad in the paper for them. (We have a beautiful Himalayan adopted stray cat!!) Anyway, Four years ago, a mother stray cat gave birth to a batch of kittens in our backyard bushy brush area. As the kittens grew and got older, we fed them outside but could never catch the kittens nor the mother. The man next door was able to catch the mother cat and have her neutered after the kittens were grown. A week after she was fixed, she ran away. Eventually all the kittens disappeared EXCEPT SQUEALES. It was rumoured that some neighbor was poisoning cats....Anyway, Squeales was not just one of those cats tha you would see for a year and it would disappear...Squeales was with us for 4 years. Squeales would come into our house once a day for food but you could NEVER get close to pet him. We named him Squeales because he was always meowing..It was really a cute meowing sound, not an annoying one...OUR NEIGHBOR, the man who fixed the mother calico cat (Let's call him JOE), also adopted Squeales but he named the cat GRAY CAT.....Squeales was pure gray with the sweetest, biggest, kindest yellow, honey eyes you ever saw.... I was always amazed at how Squeales lasted 4 years and didn't just disappear in a year like all the other strays. I would have kept Squeales for my own, but we were sharing the feeding responsibilities with the next-door-neighbor man,JOE.
......We had talked with the JOE about Squeales and he claims that he always feeds him twice a day. I told him that Squeales comes into our home a few times a week for food and he said that was fine with him...
SO HERE'S THE SITUATION THAT TOOK PLACE RECENTLY....About two weeks ago, Squeales was in our home and I noticed a wound on his head. I have seen and cured many cat head & body wounds myself or with the vet's help, so I assumed that JOE had seen the wound as well. (Remember JOE had taken a mother stray into the vet to fix it so I assumed he would take Squeales into the vet if the cat needed that).
Joe was retired and seemed to live well and I assumed he had moeny laying around to care for cats. I was in a rather penniless situation at the time, but I could have borrowed money from a family member for vet help and reimbursed the person after VET INSURANCE I had paid for it)..
....Anyway, here is where the GUILT COMES IN....My husband stays up later than I do and he says he kept seeing Squeales in our house every night-hiding in the closet and under the bed. Every time he attempted to catch the cat, he couldn't. I told him to get he cat cage that has the automatic door shut-thing attached, and to put food in there and lure the cat in the cage (THE CAT WAS STILL ABLE TO EAT FOOD so we thought that if he has an appetite it may not be THAT sick)...BUT MY HUSBAND IGNORED this request to get the cage and put the food in the cage for the cat....I told him if he could CATCH the cat in the CAGE, we could take it to the vet....But for whatever the reason, he didn't bring the cage to the cat when he SAW the cat.
...As for me getting the cage to catch the cat, I was not running into the cat when he was EXCEPT ON THURSDAY MORNING, I did finally see Squeales out in the backyard. I was able to get up closer to him and realized that he had a HUGE wound on his BACK...I tried to catch him with my hand but couldn't...I got the cage but the door handle was broken, which meant, I would have to set the cage outside and WAIT until the CAT got INTO the cage and then RUN UP and SHUT the CAGE door....Squeales could still walk, not that good, but he still could get away FAST, so I didn't think my cage idea was going to work....While I was pondering the situation as to if I should set it all up and sit and wait to see if it would work or not, MY BACK GOT THROWN OUT badly....Is that wild or what? Now my back hurt after seeing the cat's back hurting...Was I absorbing Squeales pain somewhat? Feeling like I was not helping but hurting the situation, I 'let it go' and figured that Squeales will probably LIVE because I had seen so many cats with wounds that do live.....I figured when I heal my own back, I will face the situation....Meanwhile, let my husband or JOE figure out what to do.....
....IT took 4 days to get rid of my back pain...Neither my husband nor myself saw Squeales at all....I was wondering why?? Then I got a knock on the door...It was JOE....He usually brings bread to us from the senior center once a month, and there he was...I asked him about GRAY CAT as he calls the cat.....He paused and started to talk very slowly..I knew the cat was dead... He told me that 4 days ago, he saw the cat and it couldn't walk anymore. He felt he should just take it to the pound and have it put to sleep...Now he LOVED THE CAT and fed it twice a day...plus he brought the calico cat to the vet and paid good money to have that cat fixed...so I asked him WHY he didn't bring the cat to the VET FIRST?? Even the people at the POUND aske him the same thing???? But he said he truly felt he was doing a good thing by putting the cat down.....(I didn't tell him this but had I known he was going to do this, I would have taken the cat to the vet myself, money or no money,...)..I didn't want to make him feel bad because he DID feed the cat for four years and he did take care of the mother cat. ..... I guess had I had this to do all over again here is what I would have done:
1) I would have made my husband fix the cage door and keep the cage with food in the cage, in his room where Squeales would come. He was seeing the cat more than I was and had a better chance to catch him.
2) I would have gone to JOE and told him we were aware the cat had a wound and tell him that we think it should go to the vet if anyone catches the cat, and he did NOT want to PAY for the vet, that we WOULD PAY for the vet.
3) Even though I threw my back out, I would have taken that broken cage outside and at least TRIED to catch the cat in the cage, even if I had to run up and shut the cage door, and hope I could get there before the cat got out.
...So with that all said...I guess this is a learning experieince for next time. IN the meantime, I live with the guilt that I should have paid more attention to the situation if I didn't want it to end up like it did. I had no idea that JOE would have the cat put down.
People may say.."What are you so worked up about a STRAY CAT" but if you saw his EYES and heard that cute meowing, you'd know......I don't even want to live in this house anymore...We have been looking to buy a home and move out of this rental anyway, but now I really want to move....I know guilt follows you everwhere, but a change of scene to get my mind off of this would be healing....I just wish I would have been more pro ACTIVE instead of passively thinking the cat would just GET WELL like all the other cats with wounds I have seen get well...I had no idea Joe would put the cat down. I guess he truly FELT IT WAS HIS CAT because he didn't need to ask us about it.
He knows I am home all day like he is, so he could have asked me first....I think he said something to be that anyone can do whatever they want to a STRAY CAT, so he figure neither himself nor myself really owned the cat......Again, had I been more PROACTIVE maybe the vet could have saved the cats life......