People Stink

About 7:30 tonight, Missy started barking her "there's something here" bark. I assumed it was my neighbors out for their evening walk, and I really didn't think about it much. I walked over to the door to call the dogs in for the evening, and Missy was sitting sphinx-style in the yard, tail wagging, in front of a pile of something I couldn't make out. Standing there, I suddenly saw it move.

I was out the door as fast as I could slip on my flip flops and go. As I got closer, I realized it was a kitten by the pointed ears. I had thought it was a rabbit. Sometimes the dogs catch young or unwary rabbits in the fields, but they never bark about it. The kitten was tiny. There was no blood on it, but it was meowing pitifully and didn't seem to be able to move.

Grabbing it as gently as I could, I ran for the house. Its shoulder looked disjointed, and from the wetness of its fur due to Missy's mouth, I couldn't tell what was wrong with it. I found a box from a recent eBay shipment, placed a dishtowel in, and took the box into the kitchen and the strong lights there.

I was so relieved that there was no blood. I figured Missy's prey drive kicked in when she saw the tiny furry moving thing and that she had broken and punctured with her huge powerful jaws. The kitten continued to mew. It tried to hiss at me a couple of times, but mostly, it was confused and afraid.

Taking an old vet syringe, I fed the kitten four full measures of milk. At this point, I wasn't sure if the kitten would even live more than a few moments. It was breathing so hard, and I couldn't tell whether or not Missy had paralyzed it. All I could do was try to make it feel as safe and comfortable as possible for whatever time it had left.

I checked in on it, gave it some more milk, and talked to it and petted it. I was almost shocked to see the tiny front claws knitting as I stroked it gently. If it could move its front paws, maybe it wasn't really paralyzed totally.

I went to eat at Mom and Dad's and came back with a can of soft cat food (mine don't eat cans) and steeled myself to find whatever I would find when I looked in the box. The kitten raised its head and meowed at me. I fed it tiny spoonsful of the fishy canned food, and it ate as if it hadn't had food in a long time. After it ate, it actually pulled itself up for a minute. If it can do that, maybe nothing is broken after all.

I don't know if the kitten is male or female yet. I don't want to traumatize further by turning it over to look. It rolled over when I was rubbing its belly, but its tail was in the way. I decided to name it Dillon after Dylan Thomas because all I could think of when I first put it in the box was "Rage, rage against the dying of the light." The name will fit a male or female. I don't know if it will live yet. It may have injuries inside that I don't know about. All I can do is give it the best home I can for as long as it's with me, the same as I do with all my other animals.

The thing about this whole situation is this: when I picked the kitten up from the yard, I saw a white van parked down the road in the pull-off to our pasture. A person was standing in the pasture looking toward the house. I know, even though I can't prove it, that these are the people who threw this kitten out on me. If Missy was a little more violent and a little less used to cats, she could have torn that kitten into pieces, literally.

Those people were not only so irresponsible that they had not spayed or neutered their adult cats, but were so totally uncaring that they flung a nearly helpless creature out into a yard with a pit bull, and I guarantee they saw Missy when they stopped because she was out and about at that time.

If I could find them, I would shoot them for both actions. Both were acts of senseless, thoughtless cruelty to something too tiny, too innocent and fragile to survive it. Actions like these make me really despise my race. I don't know if Dillon will survive, but I hope that those people never get to own another animal again as long as they live. They don't deserve it. What they do deserve, perhaps some form of divine justice will provide.