I decided to post about the cats in my life because they're kind of an insight into who I am, how I've failed and succeeded.
I've had pets my whole life. Possibly my mum's way of teaching me about death, I dunno. The earliest I remember was Asha and Cindy, and then Jazz.
More cats came into my life over time including Meg, the first cat that was officially 'mine'. But it wasn't until I came to China that I got truly involved.
Part 1 - Life
Meet Ash. Ash was a rescued kitty from one of my oldest friends, also living in China. She was a flea ridden abandoned kitten and he nursed her back to health, but she was always undersized. The vets, being Chinese and all, informed us that she was a he, so my friend was in no immediate rush to get the neutering done
Well, it turns out he WAS a she, and a pregnant girl by the time we found out.
Well it was too late at this point, and on Chinese New Year at the stroke of midnight, she had three kittens. Two survived. She was undersized, after all.
The cute one on the left was taken by a coworker, named her WaWa. The ugly one on the right is now by choice, my cat, Smash. He's handsome now.
Now Smash is 3 years old and happy as ever. He's still quite bashful, and incredibly talkative, but by no means a troublemaker.
Part 2 - Death
Unfortunately, Ash had complications from birth we were never aware of until it was too late, and so when it was time, we comforted her and watched her eventually fade and die in the comfort of her home, helpless to do anything but imagine how she felt. The death was so slow, we could practically feel the transition from life to death as it happened. She was, undoubtedly, the perfect cat.
Well, after this, I wanted to be more proactive in the cat rescue community.
There was no way I could make a difference at Yulin Dog Torture Festival or anything like that, but I could do my own little bit.
Outside my apartment, there were cats that would hang out from time to time. One particularly lovely one, I called Meow, got pregnant. I took casual interest, but it was taken care of by the man living below me. But, complications happened.
When the kittens were ready to come out, they didn't. Nobody really knew whether the delay was normal or not until it was too late, and Inevitably, she passed away, one of the kittens dying outside in the cruel world.
This made me determined to do more, and when I saw another cat in the area, I managed to join several cat rescue groups on Chinese social media. This cat was brain damaged, but if taken care of properly, could live a happy, wobbly-headed life.
Unfortunately, I had found it in the gutter starved, and there was nothing we could do. He died in the animal hospital.
This time I was SURE I was going to save one. Soon enough, I came across a tiny little kitten curled up with some human food half the size of its head next to it, too weak to move. Everybody was just walking past, nobody cared.
I went home, grabbed my cat carrier and returned, brought it home with me. There was time to go to the vets, so I took it immediately. They cleaned the fleas, checked for some routine stuff and gave me some syringes and medicine to fatten her up.
She arrived home, much to the displeasure of Smash.
But after 4 days, I returned having seen no change, and she was even lighter than before. I was feeding her all the time, to the point that i was worried I would explode her stomach. I was unaware that I had to keep feeding every 30 minutes to an hour nonstop, among other things. This may have been her downfall.
The professional doctor informed me that she was severely anemic and at this point it was too late, and he convinced me to sign her death warrant. After agreeing, I watched it happen, he handed me tissues as I cried it all away, as I'm starting to now. It was my birthday.
Anyway, Lesson learned. NEXT TIME!
Part 3 - The reprise? Nope
By this point I had been quite involved in the cat rescue community, offering lots of advice to people trying their best to save, making posters for those who needed, giving donations to surgeries and so forth. One in particular, 'One-Eyed Willie', I decided to visit personally after a very successful story of a near-dead cat being brought back to health, albeit with one eye.
I went with a student of mine who also donated to this cause. On the way, we see another cat, starving, black and super friendly. Its fur was all falling out, its skin white like bone. I carried him - We called him Jin - on my shoulder and he made no fuss whatsoever. He enjoyed watching the street pass, it seems.
Long story short, he was anaemic but otherwise healthy - cats lose their fur when anaemic. We nursed him back from severely underweight to somewhat underweight. I visited after work every day for a week or so, played with him and One-Eyed Willie.
Eventually we gathered about 4,000RMB ($600) in donations and found an adopter - A friend of my students. He said his family agreed to it, they signed the kitten adoption forms and filled in all the questionnaires, the rescue community and I were all satisfied.
He took the cat home.
Later he reports his weight. He weighed LESS than when we first found him! This was mortifying and when some cat rescue girls went to visit his home, it turned out he didn't even live with his family, but what the Chinese call and Ant Tribe; where workers live in a very small space with numerous bunk beds, in this case, 10-12 people. There were mountains of bottles, disgustingly uncleaned litter tray and more. The place was a trash pile.
He was taken to the vets and given things to fix the problem and he agreed to give up the cat to more responsible owners.
However.
Rather than keeping in the hospital as the vet strongly advised, he took it home, and it conveniently jumped out of the window. Their room was about 4 stories or so high from the video I saw.
Nobody knows the truth. But the cat was never found again. In his critical condition, he was likely dead long before the search stopped.
Another failure for me. This was the closest to a success story I had gotten, to the point that I was pretty much dancing with joy at one point, proud of myself beyond belief. Who know it could take such a dark turn.
This was the last cat I tried to rescue something.
When you walk in the street and see a box of dying kittens carelessly tossed next to the publish trash can, when you see old people feeding them, perpetuating their breeding habits only to produce dying offspring, when there are no animal welfare laws of any kind, what can you realistically do?
Life is tough.
