Yesterday, Marlow launched herself on me like a torpedo. I got out of her cage in a hurry and did some hard thinking and a lot of praying last night. I finally decided to take her into the vet and talk to him about her off-the-wall behavior and aggression. I have had so many feral moms before, but she just feels different any way I look at it.
Dr. Steve said that based on what I have shared with him about her behavior and how she bit me three days ago, he is bound by the law to send her into the Oregon Health Department so they can test for rabies! I know she doesn’t have rabies, she has demons- not sure which is worse.
He said he knows the cost is prohibitively expensive but then he paid me a back-handed compliment and said “Mary Anne, I really like you and what you do for cats. If I just euthanize her and not follow-through with the testing and she does have rabies, you die. I have to live with that and I don’t think I can! In fact, I know that I couldn’t.”
So- Marlow has been put to sleep and no I wasn’t there because just the sight of me sends her spinning out of control. They will then send in her body to be tested and I will know by Friday. Not a bill I wanted and again I KNOW she doesn’t have rabies, but I understand their stance on this. I had one cat when I was growing up that had rabies and I remember it like it was yesterday. He was a huge, fluffy black cat who hunted gophers in the back field near our home. He came home one day foaming at the mouth and snapping at the air. My father turned the hose on him and while he was shrieking and shying away from the water, my dad caught him in a net and put him in a box and took him around the corner. I remember the gunshot and then nothing.
Rabies is rare in this part of Oregon so not only do I have to come up with the cost of this test now, but I am not allowed to have Marlow after she is gone and give her a decent resting place.
I told her I was so sorry about all of this but her aggression is escalating and I had to weigh all the pros and cons of keeping her here on earth- and for who’s glory would I do that? So I could eventually say proudly that I was able to socialize these demons at rest, or do I look at that whole picture and understand she was like a loaded gun with a defective trigger and just let her have peace.
It was a hard choice and it is going to be an expensive way of finding my own peace- but again, I don’t think she has rabies.
sometimes giving them peace is all we can do….just sorry it has to be so hard.
My heart goes out to you for that incredibly difficult choice, and the memories it brought back to the surface from your childhood. And, my prayers to Miss Marlow… for what she may have endured in her lifetime at the hands of humans.
You did everything you could, and that’s all anyone can do.
That must have been a painful decision. But sometimes, the damage is just more than anyone can fix.
purrrrrss for you and Marlow. At least, her kittens will have a nice life.
What a difficult decision. I cant imagine having to walk through that. Maybe one day inwill need to a remeber this situation. Marlow did the best she could and gave you some wonderful kitties. I know you will now be able to be a surrogate mom to these kittens and train them up to be great cats. I know you will be talking to them and explaining things as well :). I am praying for you and the kittens.
Mary Anne I am so very sorry. A few years ago I had a GSD that was the runt of the litter.. The breeder should have culled him but didn’t. Me, being the softie that I am, took him in. As a pup I saw things that just weren’t right with him. Long story short, he was euthanized at the age of 16 months old after having bitten me several times! It broke my heart but he wasn’t happy with his demons. Sometimes we have to do things that go against everything we believe in as animal lovers.. You releashed Marlow from her demons. Thank you for that. You were responsible and she is at rest. ((((Hugs)))) to you.
I struggled with this for a few days. I kept hoping that she would mellow out and instead she became more aggressive. She arrived here on April 16th- when I went to capture her inside that apartments, she bit me several times (I chalked it up to her being upset that I had her kittens tucked away in a carrier). On May 2nd she left Jedi Night alone overnight when the weather got really cold and moved the rest of her kittens to a warm closet. She (Jedi) almost died. Then on May 4th she tried to smother Solo by covering his mouth completely with hers and so I took him and put him with his sister downstairs. On May 8th I caught the kittens fighting over her remaining nipples and saw she was drying up so I took the remaining kittens from her and got bit twice. She has bit me more times than any other cat I have had here. And she is cunning- she either goes for my head or my feet and she doesn’t scratch- she bites. She also won’t back-off, she keeps coming like a demonized energizer bunny. Most cats when they attack, they back off, circle, watch you but she was just relentless.
I asked if they were going to examine her brain could they look for a tumor- but no, they are only going to look for the changes in the brain of a rabid animal. Do I think she is rabid? ABSOLUTELY NOT! I went this route before with some baby skunks I had hand-raised and all the skunk babies had to die because the people we set the skunks (in a cage) on their land for just a few days so they could get used to the new home- thought the skunks were “so cute” that they allowed their 3 year old grandaughter to go up to the cage and pet them! She got bit for her trouble and we got the call late at night that all the babies had been rounded up by animal control and killed. 🙁 There were six of them and none of them were rabid.
My point is the extra money to pay for this expensive test shouldn’t have happened. Even if she was rabid, I would only be infected the last ten days of her disease when she was actively showing signs of rabies. But, you can’t fight the “experts” so I caved in and told them to go ahead and test her but I already know that her disease went deeper than that. What she has can’t be found or cured- some cats are just damaged goods and unfortunately- she falls into that category. I need to go and explain to her kittens what happened to her as they used to call out to her at night and she would answer them. Tonight, when they call out- she won’t be around to answer- they will just have me and each other now for comfort
Could she have lived out her days as a barn cat or was she too aggressive for that even? I have never had a feral cat brought into a home, so don’t know what to expect. She had kittens so perhaps she was just protective?
She was aggressive with the other cats, other people and even taking her out of the situation temporarily (one of my friends kept her for 24 hours) the aggression was to much for Dee to manage and she sent her back to me. As she told me when she brought Marlow back “Mary Anne if you can’t handle her- who can?”
I have had many feral moms here and yes, they get aggressive-protective but as the kittens get bigger and they start to trust the humans in their life- the aggression goes away. There was just something off about Marlow- my vet suspected a brain tumor or that she had been hit in the head a few times as a kitten.
A couple of years ago I was working with older feral kittens at my veterinarian’s. I’d go in for a couple of hours every day, take them – individually- out of their cages. Let them run around the room, play with a wand toy, hold and pet or brush them.
There was one that rather than calming down just got more and more aggressive. No hissing / warning, just out and out biting attacks.
My vet euthanized her, sedating her first so it was peaceful. She told me there was nothing else to do – the cat couldn’t be a barn cat, just releasing her was unfair to the cat (to try and make a life for herself as a 4 month old and wouldn’t have been kind even to an adult cat.)
Some, she said, just have something wrong in their brain and cannot find a way to trust in their mind, regardless of what kindness / love we give them.
It sounds as if she wasn’t rabid. You would have seen positive signs of it by now. Marlow was just violent, for some reason. The poor animal. You couldn’t have done anything else. I will see about a donation to help with the costs.