Saturday, September 13, 2008

RIP Pinto

Pinto, one of the cats we rescued from the Henderson Animal Shelter last year, died this morning.  His previous owners - hey, people, if you’re searching the internet and you lived in Henderson and dumped your elderly cats named Pinto & Shiner at the Henderson Nevada Animal Shelter in late 2007 - you’re awful people, awful parents, and you didn’t deserve the affection these cats probably had toward you, because you dumped them knowing that no one would want to adopt 14 & 15 year old scroungy looking cats.  You didn’t even take good care of them before you dumped them - they had to be shaved because they were so full of mats.  Your phony tears and crappy excuses of how you couldn’t keep them even one more day, which cost us $200, but “loved them” so much, was just worthless b.s.  Not once did you ever call to see what happened to them.

Here’s what happened to them.  Firstly, we changed Shiner’s name because it was dumb, and the only thing that sounded close enough, that we could think of, was Skyler.  So, from now on, the cats will be called Pinto & Skyler.  Anyway, because the owners were such jerks, we had to spend three hours in rush hour traffic (roundtrip) to save their cats, because they wouldn’t hang onto them one more day, when we would be out in that area.  So, three hours in traffic, $200 to the shelter to get them out, and the trip home in a car smelling of terrified cat pee.  These poor cats went from having a home their whole lives, to be unceremoniously dumped at the noisy shelter, to being picked up by strangers, to going to stay for a couple of days at a strange (ours) vet’s office.  The cats looked so gross that they both had to be shaved.  Skyler was so terrified that he bit the tech who was shaving him.  Then, finally, we took them home to be quarantined in our guest bedroom.  Pinto was sick from being at the shelter (and from the stress, we discovered), so he couldn’t be near any of our other cats.

Finally, after months of meds, good food, and attention, they turned into beautiful cats who groomed themselves and they were happy.  Unfortunately, Pinto still reacted to any sort of stress by getting sick (neon green snot, blech), and a couple of weeks ago when our air conditioner died, he didn’t handle it very well.  It was only a day and a half before my parents helped out and got us a new a/c unit, but Pinto never fully recovered.  The rest of us felt lousy for days after that (it got up to 100 degrees in a couple of rooms in the house), but poor Pinto took it harder.  We were gone for a few days this week, which may have also contributed to the little guy’s (he weighed maybe 6-7 pounds) stress.  He stopped eating & drinking for a day, so we took him to the vet yesterday and got some antibiotics.  Leigh-Ann gave him his pill, some sub-Q fluids and a few bites of food.  Unfortunately, about five hours later (it was late & we went to bed) when she went to check on him, he’d already died.  I’m happy that he had a better life with us, but sad that we could never adopt he and Skyler out to a nice family, so they could live out their lives like regular cats.  But, no one wants an elderly cat that’s going to cover their walls with snot - not even us, but we put up with it.  We’ll scrape and repaint now.  We’ll also try to integrate Skyler with the rest of the cats.  He’s healthy, adorable (he’s tiny, but long-haired) and he doesn’t seem to be afraid of the dogs.  We put in him the master bedroom with Phoenix & Cricket while Leigh-Ann was getting Pinto ready to be dropped off at the vet’s to be cremated, and while he ran from the obnoxious Cricket (she’s annoying with a new cat for about 24 hours, then she either ignores them or wants to play with them), he didn’t seem afraid of her.  Perhaps we can find someone who wants to adopt him, but in the meantime, he’s doing okay.

Man, what an exhausting week.  Oh, and to top it all off, Cricket has diarrhea from some new food.  She doesn’t react too well to change, but I was out of her regular stuff and rather than make some, I thought I’d try some of the new raw food we got.  Phoenix loved the rabbit (poor bunnies), and Cricket seemed to really like it too, but her system said, “No rabbit, chicken.”  It’s not too much of a surprise because we can’t give the dogs beef either.  So, chicken it is…and the big dogs score more meat.  Anyway, need to nap…for like a month.

Here are pictures of Pinto and Skyler.  They actually looked much better than this - these were pictures from early on.  We’ll get some new pictures of Skyler up soon.

 

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1. I’m so sorry about Pinto.  It’s a good thing, though, that he had you guys to provide such a great place to live out his final days.  Thanks for being there for him.

   Kate  on  09/13  at  10:49 PM

2. Oh, how sad! I’m so sorry! *sniff*

   Helly  on  09/14  at  12:19 PM

3. Some people really, really suck. And should not be allowed to own animals. There should be an exam- what will you do when this dog/cat/ferret/pot bellied pig gets sick? gets old and is maybe not so cute anymore?

   it just makes me so mad.

   But you guys are good, good people.

   laurie  on  09/15  at  09:15 AM

4. Oh man, that just sucks.

   You guys have been through a ton this year, and didn’t need this to happen.

   Poor Pinto….he deserved better & certainly found it with you & Leigh-Ann.

   marl  on  09/17  at  05:28 PM

5. So sorry to hear about Pinto! It’s truly shocking how cavalier some people can be about their pets. Pinto and Skyler were lucky ducks to be taken care of by you and Leigh Ann. You two are awesome.

   roro  on  09/17  at  08:38 PM

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