GAIL WHITE Have a heart, don't abandon animals to predators, cold
"Recently someone dumped a family of cats at my house," Mary Carmen Kelly of Youngstown wrote in a letter to me. "This has been an ongoing situation in my area for years. I have lost count of all the abandoned cats and kittens. I have also lost count of how many have been killed by cars, dogs and the elements. I've even had the unpleasant experience of hearing an owl catch a kitten. I cannot rescue any more of them (I've reached critical mass, so to speak). But I have to try to find someone who can help these unlucky little fuzzballs. Especially after what happened ..."
"When they were dropped off, they were very frightened and untrusting," Mary recalls the events. "I left a garage door open, hoping they would come in. Finally, they did. Except for one of them. Early in the morning ... one little one was halfway in the door, thin as a rail and frozen. There were little bubbles coming from his nose."
"I picked him up and held him close to my chest. I ran to get a heating pad and put it on him, massaging his body, hoping to bring him back. He slowly warmed and his body became soft and flexible. But his eyes were wide open. No blinking. I couldn't detect any breathing. Then slowly his lifeless little body began to stiffen as rigor mortis set in," Mary shares the sad ending.
I receive letters, phone calls and e-mails like Mary's all the time. When I read through her account of what happened as she tried to save these 5 cats I got mad. Then the reality really hit me --
I RECEIVE LETTERS, PHONE CALLS AND E-MAILS LIKE THIS ALL THE TIME!
Something wrong
There is something wrong with a civilization that has hundred-thousand-dollar homes, multiple cars and the highest income per capita in the world but we dump animals on the side of the road.
"Why couldn't his owners have had the courage to euthanize him if they didn't want him and couldn't find a home for him?" Mary asks in her letter. "Why did they choose to put him through days and days of fear and hunger and cold, only to end up dead anyway?"
Why, indeed.
There is only one answer to Mary's question, and that is because the owners of the kittens didn't care.
"I love the Creator, so I love His creatures. Period," Marian writes. Truly, the matter is as simple as that.
Marian Bialik of Boardman had a similar experience as Mary's -- except with a happier ending.
One morning while walking through Mill Creek Park, Marian found two puppies in a television box.
"Somebody just pitched them out in the open," Marian informed me when she called. "It was 6 degrees that morning!"
The owner of the television must have been more interested in surround sound and digital color than live entertainment -- not to mention the black and white issue of ethics.
"They had fur as white as snow and it was so soft. One laid on top of the other when they slept," Marian recalls. "I fell in love with them instantly. They wanted to be with somebody constantly. I can't imagine anybody doing this to these animals."
Searched for a home
But Marian couldn't keep the two puppies. She desperately searched for a home.
It just so happens that Larry Sap of Champion was at a local gym working out when he overheard Marian's daughter in-law-talking about the puppies found in a television box.
"She told me the dogs would just melt my heart," Larry remembers his phone conversation with Marian. "And they did."
Today, Tina and Mandy have 4 acres to roam and 2 little boys to play with.
"They sleep next to my feet or on my head," Larry confesses.
"So they've made their way into the bedroom already?" I asked with a laugh.
"The bedroom and my heart," Larry says, his voice just oozing with warm fuzzies.
That's what the owner of the television lacks -- a heart.
gwhite@vindy.com