“At least don’t hurt them.”
Yes, that is the very least we can do – please do not hurt them. Just let them be.
This story is long overdue but it happened sometime last year when I was ill so I did not have time to write about it.
A neighbour’s mother-cat came to my mum’s house to give birth. She was a beautiful long-haired calico. Now, my mum is blind now but she does not have affinity towards cats. She’s more of a dog-person. And that is why I only touched a cat for the first time (or rather, 3 newborn kittens, ie. Cow, Bunny and Pole) when I was 42 years old and I had found them abandoned by the roadside. We grew up with dogs, chicks, ducklings, rabbits, hens and geese as pets, but we did not have any cats because my mum said they were aloof and she did not have any affinity with them. For the record, my father loved cats! He liked all animals.
My mum’s helper, a kind-hearted person named Siti, informed me and asked what she could do. I went over to check and yes, the mother-cat had given birth to 3 beautiful and healthy kittens. Since the mother-cat was looking after and feeding the kittens, I told Siti to just feed the mother-cat high protein food like boiled chicken. Siti dutifully did this and the mother-cat was happily eating the food every day.
Siti monitored them closely. Bless her kind heart. I told her to put a cardboard box out for the family. Siti took great pains in looking after them too.
Soon after, the mother-cat disappeared for almost a day leaving the kittens unattended and unfed. Siti called me, panicked and said she wanted to feed the kittens. I don’t blame her for worrying, of course, so I rushed out to buy kitten milk, a feeding bottle, a syringe, cotton pads and all the needed paraphernalia so that I could show Siti how to feed the kittens and stimulate them to urinate and defecate after every meal. Despite coming from a kampung in Indonesia, Siti has not had any experience with cats or kittens before and she was really afraid of syringe-feeding the kittens. Her initial reaction was, “No, I cannot do it, I cannot do it, I want to give them away.” Again, I do not blame her for her reaction. But at that time, I was really ill and I could not take them back with me. Also, I knew the mother-cat would surely come back. She could have just gone off to chill out for a bit.
True enough, the mother-cat did come back, but by then, Siti had already learnt to feed the kittens with the syringe! All was well. Whenever the mother-cat went off for many hours, Siti would feed the kittens herself.
But after a few days, a tomcat came into the house compound and he was hostile. Mother-Cat put up a fight and chased him away. Siti was monitoring closely and she too helped to chase the tomcat away.
One time, the tomcat actually caught one of the kittens and carry her away in his mouth. Mother-Cat gave chase, fought with the tomcat and took her kitten back. Siti was screaming and yelling in the phonecall that time but luckily the Mother-Cat was very protective and fierce enough to fight with the tomcat.
So, the family continued staying in the house compound and Siti looked after them. By then, my mum wanted me to find a home for the whole family. She has no affinity towards cats, but she would never ever harm them. But this was during the MCO and I was quite sure that Mother-Cat was not a stray. She has a home nearby. I also did not know of any friend who would be willing to take them as everyone I knew already had their hands full.
But as luck would have it, shortly after that, Mother-Cat took the 3 kittens away with her one day. They have not returned. I hope they went home.
The next thing I might have attempted to do, if I could, would be to have Mother-Cat neutered. But she went away on her own. And I’m really sure she has a home too. And it isn’t easy to catch a cat, I know. I’ve done my fair share of catching adult cats in the past decade now. It takes time, patience and skilful effort.
So what is the very least that we can do for street animals?
(1) Do not hurt them even if we do not like them.
(2) Make sure they are safe.
(3) Feed them.
(4) Get them neutered.
(5) Continue to care for them.
As for (1), this includes not picking up the phone and calling the council, please. That’s definitely hurting them. As much as we hear election promises of bringing more goodies to the people and supposedly making lives better for us, there is nothing in store for street animals. I’ve done my share of asking but there is no response from the politicians. There were empty promises and even back-stabbing, though. But what can we expect from politicians, right?
Animals don’t vote but animal-lovers do. However, animal-lovers are a minority and politicians know this, so they don’t have to entertain us to get our votes. When will this change? When our numbers are big enough so that our voices are heard, when politicians know they need our votes.
When that happens, maybe that clause that classifies all street animals as “kacau-ganggu” (pests) in the council by-laws can finally be removed and ear-notched (neutered) animals will not be captured. Only law-makers can do this. Nobody else can. That is the system that humans have created for themselves – to elect a bunch of humans to rule us.
So, that is all we have been asking for (please spare the ear-notched animals). We are not asking for money. We are only asking for ear-notched street animals’ lives to be spared.
We need a bigger voice before the politicians will hear us.