Homeless
Chapter Five
The recovery room is where a couple different things happen. Animals who have just had surgery are taken there to monitored. It also has hospital beds. Rows of cages are built into the far wall where patients who are too sick to go home can stay. Dr. Mac walks over to the cupboard on the far wall and rummages through the top shelf. She pulls up a sign that says DANGEROUS ANIMAL. STAY AWAY! She hangs it on Tiger’s cage.
Tiger blinks his green eyes at Sunita and meows. He looks so sad. Dr. Mac assures Sunita that he will be fine. He just needs a couple days of rest and recovery. Sunita turns to ask Dr. Mac a question. How does she phrase it? She says she’s worried about Socrates and all the other cats. The woman says that Animal Control will take them away, and they all know what that means.
Dr. Mac nods. She hates it when animals are put to sleep for no good reason. Sunita asks if maybe they can help the cats. They can set up an adoption program like they did for the puppies a month ago. Dr. Mac pulls up a stool and sits down. After a long silence, finally, she speaks. Dr. Mac says that the woman has a good point. The size of the colony will continue to grow and grow unless something is done. A pair of breeding cats can have a litter of five or six kittens a year. By the time the kittens are seven months old, they can have kittens of their own. That means that one pair of cats could wind up with eighty kittens in a single year. And the life of a stray or feral cat is short and harsh. And it’s a huge problem. An article she read estimated that there are sixty million feral cats in the U.S., which is as many as there are pet cats. The number of feral cats grows every day.
While Sunita’s intentions are great, Sunita isn’t looking at the facts. There may be a few strays who are used to being around people, but most are feral. You can’t turn a feral cat into a house cat. Sunita’s heart starts to race. If they don’t do something soon, they won’t have any chance of being any kind of cat. And if they don’t find Socrates, he could be put to sleep with the others.
Dr. Mac slowly says there might be another option. There are a few communities that have been trying TVSR programs. TVSR stands for treat, vaccinate, spay, and release. They trap cats in a colony, bring them back to a veterinary clinic to be sedated and checked over for diseases and injuries. They vaccinate the cats against rabies and other diseases, and spay the female cats and neuter the males. Once all of the cats are recovered from surgery, they’re released. They put a notch in the cats’ ears so everyone knows they’ve been treated. They won’t reproduce, they won’t spread disease, and they get to live out their short lives in peace. It might be worth giving it a shot.
Dr. Mac stands up. She says she’ll go down to the colony in the morning to talk to the Animal Control officers. She’ll see if they will let her try a TVSR program. They can look for Socrates as well.