Dear Ferret Folks-

This isn't one of my funny posts. Sorry. Rather I am writing about
something I saw happen years ago that relates to the VA Beach
situation.

My Mom had a friend, an older lady who raised and showed fancy Persian
cats. She was well respected by her cat show peers, and was a true
friend to cats everywhere. She was also lonely for human companionship,
didn't have much of it. She got most of her love from her cats. She
also had a job that gave her a certain amount of respect in the
community. (Not cat related!) She helped a lot of people over the
years.

Well...she wound up having a lot of cats. They were meticulously cared
for in her home. Many of them spent the nights in their own personal
kitty carriers if they were sick, healing, or with kittens. They got
the best food, beautiful medical care. Nobody who knew the lady could
imagine *anything* bad being allowed to happen to her cats.

But something bad happened to the lady. She went back to drinking,
something she had stopped doing for years, and it was bad. Very bad.
This was not a teeny slip, this was a full-blown ugly alcoholic
relapse, lasting weeks. It made her ashamed, and that made her drink
more. It was a vicious circle. Finally, having lost all self-respect,
she lost the ability to care for the cats. And being a loner, nobody
knew it.

By the time the police were called about the smell some of the cats,
trapped in their carriers, had died in them. Her cats were starving,
some apparently escaped from the house and were never seen again. The
lady lost her job and the special lisence that went with it. She would
never get that job back, never. And once she sobered up there were
profound legal consequences. She was legally forbidden to own any more
pets, ever, if she wished to remain out on parole instead of in jail.
Life as she had known it was over.

Not too long after that, sober once again, she collapsed with a sudden
brain aneurisym that took her life. I am not exaggerating when I say
that I think the guilt killed her. That, and the news coverage, which
labeled her a crazy, irresponsible animal hoarder. It wasn't true. Was
she responsible for the deaths of the cats? Yes. And yes. And yes. In
the most tragic way, yes. Was she an animal hoarder? No. She cared for
those cats beautifully, their needs came first, for years. They were
her family. But when she picked up that first drink, her life reached a
tipping point, and collapsed under its own weight. The collapse killed
her a surely as it did the cats.

I will never forget her, her *crushing* guilt in the aftermath of her
relapse. I will never forget thinking that people just plain shouldn't
have more animals than they can take care of, if something awful
happens.Not alone. Not alone like she was. She had no back-up, nobody
else who could have helped to prevent the deaths of the cats once their
she was unable to do so. They were hostages. Helpless hostages.

God, the media coverage was horrible. She was pointed at and stared at
wherever she went. People meowed at her, and snickered. Nobody who had
seen the meticulous care she gave her cats would have labeled her an
animal hoarder if they had seen the cats *before* she reached that
tipping point...

I think that every animal owner should stop every now and then and
think "what would happen to the little guys if I got hit by a bus
tomorrow?" I'm not suggesting that any of us are likely to go on a
drunken binge at any time in the future, or that the lady in VA Beach
did. I think she just sustained a physical injury, and didn't have a
human network strong enough to "take up the slack" when she could no
longer provide her usual excellent care to the ferrets. If you ask
yourself the bus question and draw a blank...you should start to think
about changing your circumstances. Now. Before something terrible
happens because life is fully capable of throwing banana peels beneath
our feet with no warning.

When all was said and done, my mother's friend died from grief. She
really did. And so much of that grief was preventable. If only...

Alexandra in MA

[Posted in FML 5871]