last pre-Easter post

This will be my last post before Easter Sunday...shouldn't even be posting this morning, Good Friday, but my plans have gone out the window anyway. Kain is at his Dad's, Maria is with my parents, and John is at work...it's just me and Jack today!

Someone pointed out something funny in the post below,,,if you click on the picture of Jack below to enlarge it, you will notice how almost all of the books in his bed are about vehicles of different kinds...even the stuffed toy he's sleeping with is a Thomas the Tank Engine. Shows where his passions lie.

My pet peeve of the week...
We have a cat we have been trying to get rid of. We've had her for probably nearly two years now, we found her as a tiny stray kitten, but she cannot be consistently house trained. We've decided we can't keep her, especially with a new baby coming, and my house is starting to smell like a litter box. I've only put up with it this long for Maria's sake,,,she loves that cat. For many reasons, we decided the most humane thing to do would be to have the vet put her down. We considered finding a home for her as a barn cat, but we didn't think she'd have a good life that way. She goes outside, but rarely and reluctantly and not for very long. She much prefers to stay in. From what I've been told, the barn cat life is not really a great one, and many people don't feed their barn cats at all because they want them motivated to hunt. We couldn't in good faith pass her along to a shelter without telling them that we haven't been able to house train her, because I'd hate for some other family to adopt her and find out that out the hard way. And I figured once they knew that she'd never get adopted. I didn't want to take her to animal control because she'd definitely be put down there, but it'd be more traumatic for her that way than us just taking her to the vet to have it done quickly.

Well, I've found out that I could get rid of one of my children more easily than I can get rid of a cat. The vet was horrified with my reasoning and refused to put her down. She gave me the names and numbers of several no-kill rescues in the area. John called them all and they were all full and couldn't take her. Then he called a couple of humane societies and found one that would put her on a waiting list for "problem animals". That was the best we could do. I was debating the animal control option, but decided to put out the word about our situation to see if we could find her a home as a barn cat after all, and we did manage to find someone that would take her. I hope she does ok there. These are friends of ours, I know that if she can have a decent life as a barn cat with anyone it would be with them. If she was a cat that enjoyed being outside more, I wouldn't be concerned, but I still think the most humane option would have been for the darned vet to put her down, and frankly I'm a little irritated at being treated like some kind of serial killer for trying to do such a thing. I love animals too....more than many people. We are in the process of reducing meat in our diet so that we can switch to organic meat, mainly because the site of Tyson chicken trucks with their filthy birds crammed into cages like so many sardines and knowing they spend their whole lives this way makes me want to cry. So, I am not heartless when it comes to animals, I'm really not. This cat is our 4th, and we really didn't want a 4th cat. I've taken in many strays in my lifetime. She probably would have become a feral cat or road kill if we didn't take her in two years ago. We tried to make it work, and this decision obviously wasn't an easy one or we wouldn't have waited two years to do it. I was going to have her put down because I really thought it was the most humane thing for *her*. She's a young cat, and having her live many years as a barn cat when she hates being outdoors or in a cage at a rescue as a "problem cat" with little hope of being adopted just didn't seem as humane to me. And as much as I love animals, they are not human beings, they do not have eternal souls, and I really don't see anything wrong with having an animal humanely put down when there aren't any other good options.

It has occurred to me that I could have aborted the baby I'm carrying far more easily than I have been able to get rid of a stray cat. What does that say about our society?