Photograph of Turk.

Photograph of Elliot.

Photograph of Turk and Elliot, presumably in their original home.

Between flowers and sills

The cats will know.

“The Cats Will Know” by Cesare Pavese, Disaffections: Complete Poems -1930 – 1050, translated by Geoffrey Brock

This charming and cuddly twosome recently lost their human mom and they were put up for adoption. My tenacious and compassionate friend, Barb, became their foster parent while she looked for a new home for them.  They are Devon Rex cats. These cats are considered mid-sized, but coco-colored Turk is tiny, just a scant four pounds and four years old. Elliot, the beige one, is a bit bigger. I took the two top photographs when I visited Barb and the babies last week.  What little loves they are, each with his own personality.  Poor Elliot is fighting an eye infection and wasn’t feeling too sociable.  Turk is an extrovert and seems to want to play and get to know everyone who walks in the door. They are both cuddlers according to Barb.  Their hair is wavy, and I was surprised at how soft and silky it was despite the waves. So certainly, from the human perspective, they are nice to curl up with. One thing that struck me is that they are quiet. Most of my cats have been chatter-boxes to one degree or another. These seem to communicate more with body language and their big, beautiful, expressive eyes.

Exotic cats like Turk and Elliot are likely to be adopted.  What about the others who may or may not have pedigree or who may be old?  Started me thinking, not for the first time, about the numbers of  orphaned cats and dogs that are euthanized each year in the U.S.  I couldn’t find much on-line by way of recent stats, but just to give a few examples: In 2004 in San Francisco, California, 2.5 animals were destroyed for every 1,000 in human population for a total of 1,892. Fifty-thousand animals were “put down” in the greater San Francisco Bay area in 2003.  Over 25,000 were killed in Manhattan in 2003.  More than 50,000 were killed in New Jersey in 2003, and a staggering 119,340 were killed in Colorado in 2001. It’s sad that we continue to breed cats and dogs and buy pedigrees when there are so many in need of security and care . . . 

The same could be said of human beings.  We make more babies and we jump through hoops to address fertility issues when there are so many children already here who need us.  According to the Journalism Center on Children and Families, approximately a half-million children live in supervised care in the U.S.  That number is decreasing – not due to decreasing numbers in need – but due to changes in laws that make adoption easier and quicker.  Full details on that are on the Center’s website.

In California, there are currently about 80,000 children and youth in foster care. Stats show that as a consequence of their early life experience disproportionate numbers of former foster youth are among the prison population. I suspect that California is not alone in this. One statistic estimated forty-percent of those in prison were former foster youth. 

With so many orphans and abused in many species – including our own – perhaps we should think first of giving them homes and families before breeding more. I’m not sure that’s a popular view, but there it is.

This post is dedicated to Barb who cares for so many cats; Smiley Jo who bottle feeds the “infants” at the local SPCA; Ann who always adopts blind cats that no one else wants; and, my world-class son and my daughter-in-law who took Gypsy in when I was too sick to care for her.