All she had to do was sign a piece of paper

I wrote a little while ago about how I was no longer affiliated with the rescue for which I had been volunteering.  Long story short, the woman running it had gone from "rescue" to "hoarder", and I did not want to be associated with that.

I have started volunteering for a new rescue, a well-run, well-funded rescue, who offered to put Callie and Bindi, the feral fosters, under their umbrella.  I would continue to foster them, and the new rescue would pay for their vetting/food/etc.  The ideal scenario!

The new rescue contacted the old rescue, as the woman running the old rescue needed to sign a release form transferring ownership of the ferals.  A formality which happens all the time between rescues, usually when one rescue becomes overcrowded.

She refused.

Nope, she said.  She wanted them back.

In the year and a half I have been fostering these cats, she never once asked how they were doing.  She never once offered to help pay for their food (I did the math; I have spent well over $500.00 in food alone for these two cats), or to take them to the vet to get their shots updated, or even to pay for their flea treatments.  Not once.


And now she wants them back.  Out of pure spite.

Oh, and then she qualified it.  Well, she said, she guess she'd let me adopt them, as long as I paid her a hundred bucks, and as long as the new rescue agreed to never, ever hold adoption events in the store where she currently holds hers, and as long as nobody ever said anything bad about her ever.  (I'm not even kidding.  She had inserted a requirement in her list of demands about not smack-talking.)

Well.

 










Legally, this is a tricky area.  I have had possession of the cats for over a year, during which I made repeated verbal requests for her to come and get them, which she ignored.  As recently as October, I had asked her to come take the cats, with no reply.  However, her name is on their most recent vet records, from when they were spayed, so technically, she could make a case for ownership.  BUT.  See again:  I have the cats.


Complicating the matter is the fact that these cats are not really adoptable.  They are feral, but honestly I'm not even sure they'd make good barn cats (the fate of some ferals), because they're not real great hunters.  But again, I am prepared to continue to care for these cats.  And I would have no problem with them going to another home, and until recently I would not have had a problem with them going back to her home.  But not now.  Not when there are far, FAR too many cats at her home because she won't stop taking them in.  Her home is currently overrun with cats who are not up to date on their vaccinations, who are not leuk-tested, and who are not taken to the vet when they are ill, because she is overwhelmed and out of control.

But little miss crazypants wants the two ferals back.

 The new rescue and I informed her that her attempts at extortion and coercion were not appreciated.  That we would hold events whenever and wherever we wanted.  We advised her that free speech was still a thing.  That if she wanted the cats back, she would have to come to my home this Saturday and crate them herself.  That if she did not show up on Saturday, she was, basically, sh*t out of luck.

We'll see if she shows.

Crazy cat people.  Holy F*CK.