Another happy ending
A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about a kitten I adopted that was dumped at the barn where I board my horses. At the time the momma cat hadn't been seen in a while, so we assumed she was dead or gone. Then I started hearing reports of her being seen, and set out to catch her.
It took a week or two, but we finally caught the cat -- only it wasn't the mother. It was an adult spayed female, and we aren't sure whether the momma ever was dumped with the kittens, or whether this cat showed up at about the same time and everyone assumed she was the momma.
What was perfectly clear, though, was that this cat had no business being an outdoor cat at all, let alone a barn cat: She was declawed. I really don't know what her previous owners were thinking when they dumped her, since without claws she was defenseless -- not that claws would have done much good against a coyote, but at least it might have helped -- not to mention she would have a hard time catching mice and rabbits (the entire point of a barn cat, last I checked).
My mom, who is planning on keeping her as long as she gets along with the other cats, took the cat to the vet and she is in surprisingly good health for having been dumped about a month ago. She is probably two or three years old, the vet said. I suspect that she has been an indoor cat all her life, until her previous owners decided they couldn't keep her, and dumped her at the barn -- and, never having been outside before, she freaked out and stayed hidden.
We think she was living under a small building at the barn, since that's where she was always seen. I also suspect that someone was feeding her (even before I started leaving food out in an effort to catch her), and that's why she isn't skinny from her ordeal. Despite being very affectionate, she is scared by pretty much everything, and I don't think she would have lasted much longer if we hadn't caught her, especially with winter coming on.
The extreme selfishness of people never fails to amaze me -- to declaw this poor cat, and then to decide they don't want it anymore, and instead of taking it to a shelter where she will hopefully find a good home, dumping her in an environment where survival is tricky at best even for a cat with claws! What were her previous owners thinking? ****