Home Features Guilt, recovery & carrying the ghosts: The story of a litter...
“Paws” PERSPECTIVE | Paws for a Cause – Guyana
Doctor’s Note: Paws for a Cause – Guyana (“Paws”) is a local animal-welfare group operating and registered in Guyana as a non-profit inc. The Group works to prevent animal cruelty; to promote humane, ethical, and responsible pet ownership; to advocate for controlling the animal population via spay and neuter campaigns; to educate the public; and to assist in cases of reported animal neglect and abuse. The Group’s work extends beyond dogs and cats, and includes all wildlife in Guyana. Occasionally, the Group would contribute a “Paws Perspective” to the Sunday Times ‘Pet Care’ Column, detailing its experiences in animal welfare.
Animal rescuers and fosters often feel pangs of despair when overwhelmed by the flow and magnitude of cases of cruelty to/neglect of animals. It is not uncommon to be told by our friends and family that we volunteered for this and should not be upset. Indeed, we each made the commitment to take in and care for the sick, broken, injured, inbred animals. And yes, we are acutely aware that some will not survive.
But our grief is real when things go badly. We do not expect everyone to share or appreciate our passion for animal welfare, but our service to these hapless animals will continue, even as we are chided with dismissive or accusatory comments when the miracle we hope and work for does not materialise. Each case is unique, and is dealt with to the best of our capacity and limited resources. While all animals that come into our care are checked out by a Vet, we have to balance our limited budget and avoid expensive tests if there are no symptoms that warrant concern.
Today, we’d like to tell you about the wildly diverging and complicated stories of a litter of kittens and their mother.
A beautiful, 9-day-old, grey-striped kitten came in with her mama and 3 siblings. Their eyes were not yet open, and they needed a safe place to nurse, live and grow, which we were able to provide. As time went on, we started noticing issues, particularly with the grey kitten. She was the one who was developmentally the head of the pack, or the ‘forced ripe’ one. She opened her eyes first.
We marvelled at all of their progress, but a few days after she opened her eyes, it started to look crossed and swollen. We thought it was a minor infection brought on by the aggressiveness with which the kittens fought to nurse, but it got progressively worse.
We imagined that the litter may have been produced by some level of inbreeding, which potentially leads to a myriad of complications. A physical deformity almost inevitably makes an animal’s chances at a normal life and home plummet further. They require extra care. All of the animals that come into our care have suffered, and there are many that have physical deformities as a result of inbreeding, abuse, sickness, or deficiencies. It is very challenging to find homes for these animals.
Our little grey kitten visited the vet frequently. The deepest corners of her eyeballs were cleaned with no sedation, because of her age. The noticeably progressive loss of vision in one eye and the screams of the kitten twice a day as the eyedrops hit the raw parts of her eyes were difficult to witness. Some mornings her eye area looked very shredded and raw, and the eyeballs were not visible. There were such infinitesimal signs of improvement that we would pore over the dozens of pictures we took daily to figure out whether hopeful optimism was justified, or if it was just our imagination.
But she kept up that fighting spirit. She was the first one to “holler” for food when anyone entered the room; the first one to nuzzle and roll around in your lap; and she would fight with her siblings to nurse from their mom. So, we decided to continue following our policy – we would continue fighting as long as she would!
But as the days passed, the deterioration of the kitten became evident, and led us closer and closer to the dreaded discussion about quality of life. It was confirmed she was totally blind in one eye and had some amount of vision loss in the other. We discussed the need for an eye removal, and decided that we were prepared to commit to taking in a one-eyed-blind kitten into our permanent home if that would mean she should go on living happily and in good health. But the turning point arrived at some time during the night. She seemed fine in the evening, but the next morning her appetite was gone, and she could barely move. The Hail Mary never came. She had admitted defeat, which meant that we did, too. The most we could do was to euthanize her and save her the few additional hours of agony. She crossed the rainbow bridge.
The kitten’s death was painful and horrendous, and it still makes this writer physically nauseous every time she thinks about the kitten’s short life being so full of pain. The grief over this kitten runs deep, and the guilt over the potential days of treatment lost before the health issue presented itself more noticeably is not something that has abated months later. This poor kitten was not named because she did not live long enough. As she got sicker, we incorrectly thought that not naming her would take some of the sting out if the worst-case scenario came to pass. She lived and died nameless and in pain.
If you’re at the point in this story where you’re wondering whether we should have euthanized all of them early on, we can understand. But visualize sitting in the room with them to inspect their progress. One jumps into your lap and starts to purr, and looks at you with something akin to devotion; the other manages to jump and use your arm as a ladder, and before you know it, they’re chilling on your shoulder like a parrot. In the meantime, the other decides that their favourite new spot is the hollow between your lower back and the wall. Even after everything you had just been through, how on earth could you consider death when there is so much life around you?
But then her siblings started to wake up with the same squinted cross-eyes.
Part II to follow
If you’d like to offer comments, support, or follow our work, find us on Facebook.com/Pawsforacause.gy, on Instagram @pawsforacause.guyana, subscribe to our YouTube Channel, drop us a line at [email protected], or visit our website at https://www.pawsforacausegy.com.
Animal welfare is everyone’s business. You don’t have to be an animal person – you just have to be a kind person.
