Dump & Run

Our rescue had an adoption event Saturday at the local Tractor Supply.  Things were going swimmingly, with one cat already adopted out, when I saw an obviously distressed woman carrying a cat carrier, heading toward our tables at a fast clip.

"Oh crap," I muttered to the head of the rescue.  "It's gonna be a dump and run."

Yep.  It was.  A six-week-old kitten, very ill.  The woman said she lived in a trailer park and rescued the kitten from under a neighbor's trailer.  She said she had taken it to a vet, who put it on Clavamox for four days (Lie #1 - nobody puts a cat on antibiotics for only four days).  She said the vet told her that the cat had a cold, but it wasn't contagious.  (Lie #2 - the cat was obviously suffering from an upper respiratory condition, which is very contagious.)  She said the vet told her it was a girl cat.  (Which turned out to be Lie #3).

The head of the rescue took the cat, out of pity, and handed it to me while she tried to figure out what to do with it until the event was over and she could take it to her house. 

Teeny little kitten, shivering, its eyes so matted shut with goop that it couldn't see, dirty and sneezing and wheezing.  I wrapped it in a tshirt to warm it up, went to the restroom and wet down another t-shirt with warm water, and started cleaning the goop from its eyes.  The eyes were bright red - conjunctivitis. Oh, lord.  The thing was PURRING.  Like CRAZY.

Hmmm, I wondered.  What would Sandra Bass do?  (Because Sandra Bass is my new hero, obs.)  WWSBD?  Well.  I grabbed a carrier, put the kitten in, and took it to the local walk-in vet clinic.  A hundred and forty-one dollars later (which I paid out of pocket because the rescue is broke) (the rescue is always broke) (ALL rescues are always broke, except for the local Humane Society, which takes in over HALF A MILLION DOLLARS A YEAR and yet mysteriously turns down  EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO CALLS THERE LOOKING FOR HELP but don't get me started on that), we walked out (well, *I* walked out - the kitten was in the carrier) with Clavamox, terramycin, and a bandaged hand from where the kitten scratched the sh*t out of me as the tech was taking its temperature.  (I told the woman who runs the rescue that she needs to name it Talon.)

The kitten went to a foster home and is now doing swimmingly.  Oh, and it's a boy.

 And, as always, one could argue that it's a waste of money, that it's silly to spend that money to save one kitten when there are so many others, when there are people in need, and yada yada yada.

I just keep telling myself the starfish story.  STARFISH STORY FTW.

Ha.  That kitten's a born salesman, 'cause he got me to cough up a hundred and forty bucks.  On meds for him.  Go figure.