Keep Kitty Inside Please

We Buried Your Cat Today
~ Trish Blassingame ~

Once again, I had to bury your cat today.
Did you know he was gone?
Away from his home?
Will you shrug and say, "I'll get another"?
We cried over him as we buried your cat today.

He was so precious, gray, white and black,
With a tail as full and as gay.
You'd fed him well, treated him right, so why,
Did I have to bury him today?

But you let him out, to roam and be lost,
And he had no chance on our street.
Whatever hit him snapped him in two,
We buried your cat today.

Are you calling right now?
Searching and hunting?
Or will you just shrug it off and say,
"There's plenty of cats, we'll just get another."
Will we bury it too another day?

This is a sad story of a wonderful, loving boy named Eric, who loved to have his belly scratched. I first met Eric 3 1/2 years ago, while working a very large predominately feral cat colony in an apartment complex in Pine Hills, FL. Upon meeting Eric, it was obvious to me that he was not feral (anti-social) and not neutered. I asked around to the residents and finally met an elderly lady, named Marie. Marie had known Eric for around 1-2 years and although he did not "belong" to her, she loved him and allowed him to come indoors with her personal cats. In the mornings, she would let Eric out and in the evenings, allow him back indoors. Because he was not neutered, I took him to be tested for FELV/ FIV and when the results were negative, had him neutered and vaccinated.

I begged Marie to let me take him and place him up for adoption, but she refused because of her emotional attachment to him. Three years later, I received a telephone call that Marie had been moved to a nursing home and that she wanted me to place Eric in a home. I picked Eric up and took him to the vet to be retested for FELV/FIV. Sadly, he tested positive to FIV (Feline Aids). For nearly two weeks, I contacted locals vets and other rescue groups attempting to place Eric in a safe environment with other positive cats or a non-cat household. All my attempts failed and after days of crying, I took Eric to the vets and held him while he was euthanized. My precious Eric went to the kitty heaven needlessly.

The lesson to learn from this story is DON'T LET YOUR CATS OUTDOORS. Had Marie allowed me to take Eric 3 years previously, he would have been healthy and in a home. The biggest fallacy about cats is that they "need" to go outdoors and this is totally untrue. I have 19 indoor cats of my own and they were all strays. They make no attempt to go outdoors because they are content inside my home. PLEASE KEEP YOUR PETS INDOORS where it is safe. They are family members and deserve the best you can give them.
Author: Sue Muller, RAIN volunteer

Rescuing Animals In Need and most other rescue groups require that all adopted cats must be inside only ! We encourage you to make your inside/outside cats inside only.

Too often we see what has happened to cats that are let outside like Eric in the story above..

We have seen the results of cats hit by cars or burned by humans who think it is funny to see a cat on fire. Even pet guardians who love their cats tell us of how they started their car and their cat was up in the hood and was mangled by the fan.

Think of the poison that home owners use on their lawns that your cat may be walking through then licking their paws clean. Rocks in children’s hands, stray dogs, bullets, neighbors who would deliberately put down anti freeze, stray cats with Feline Leukemia or FIV, animals with Rabies. I could go on and on.

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Keep kitty inside please