Animal Shelter = Wal-Mart...NOT!!!

[Rubyred]

If I was working at that shelter I would have taken the cat back and told the woman that she wasn't allowed to have another cat but would be recieving a check in the amount of the adoption fee, whatever it was.

She obviusly doesn't value the poor cat at all if she thought she was going to just "return it and get another one".

Omg..when we adopted my chocolate lab he had so many issues we could have written a book. Not to mention that we paid a 200 dollar adoption fee for a "purebred" puppy with no papers.

We were also told that he had a slight case of kennel cough, a little bit of mange that he was being treated for and that he was 4 months old. Ha!

Turns out he was about 9 months old and his growth was so stunted (he supposedly came form a puppy mill raid..thats the only part I believe) that he appeared to be 4 months old. He also had a pneumonia so bad that he almost couldn't breath because his lungs were so full of fluid and he didn't actually have mange, he had some sort of wird skin condition that still pops up every now and again for random reasons (he's also allergic to EVERYTHING).

Yeah. But 5000 dollars later we still have Guinness and he is a happy healthy dog who my mom and I never even considered "returning".

Same with my other two dogs and 4 cats.



Pets are not playthings, they are living breathing creatures and should be treated as such. Period.

[kurisu7885]

I'm glad both of these ladies had their cats taken back and pray they never got another, ever. People like them tend to show little regard for the life of animals, and soon by extension humans. I hear about it all the time on Animal Cops and it angers me.

Anyway, we lost several birds one summer, and we didn't have any pets for a while. Then, one weekend my parents went out of town, nad lo and behold they came back with a cat, a little gray kitty wit ha white belly and face, white sock paws, and a little gray splotch on his muzzle. He's adorable, and after a while became our lovable Nimkii, whic kmeans thunder in Cherokee, which fits a little ball of energy like him. We also call him Nimmy, Nimmers or Nimmy kins, and he respons to all of them.

[Barefootgirl]

Omg..when we adopted my chocolate lab he had so many issues we could have written a book. Not to mention that we paid a 200 dollar adoption fee for a "purebred" puppy with no papers.

We were also told that he had a slight case of kennel cough, a little bit of mange that he was being treated for and that he was 4 months old. Ha!

Turns out he was about 9 months old and his growth was so stunted (he supposedly came form a puppy mill raid..thats the only part I believe) that he appeared to be 4 months old. He also had a pneumonia so bad that he almost couldn't breath because his lungs were so full of fluid and he didn't actually have mange, he had some sort of wird skin condition that still pops up every now and again for random reasons (he's also allergic to EVERYTHING).

So the people at the shelter were economical with the truth about him to say the least. Perhaps that explains why unsuitable people get pets from shelters - because some people at shelters can't be bothered with the truth and will say anything to free up a cage, and similarly, will turn a blind eye to anything to prospective owner says.

Guinness is a great name for a chocolate Lab, by the way. i am glad he has a good home with you now.

[HYHYBT]

I don't care if my kitty doesn't match the carpet.

I thought the expression was that they were supposed to match the drapes...

[BookstoreEscapee]

My cousin found our cats on his boat. They were 2 or 3 days old, and he found them when he went to clean it the day after it was put in the water last May. He heard a weird noise while he was hosing things down, and opened up a cabinet and found a pile of little drenched furballs There were 4 of them and we ended up with 2. (Ironically, the boy loves to play with water and the girl will watch but she doesn't want to get wet! ) His wife raised them for 7 weeks and then we took them and the others went to 2 other friends of theirs (they already have 1 cat and my cousin is allergic or he probably would have kept all of them!).

When my parents had them declawed, they couldn't use the regular litter, so we tried those paper pellets that are too big to get into the wounds. My little girl didn't like those. She would pee in the litter box (at least we never found it anywhere else...) but the other she would do in the hallway. Outside my room, of course, where the hall turns and it's nice and dark. Luckily it was only a little over a week before they got their regular litter back.

[BusBus]

I thought the expression was that they were supposed to match the drapes...

It astounds me how irresponsible some folks can be about their pets. Just like children, you take the good with the bad.

My sister and I each got a kitten when I was thirteen. She found hers in a classified ad and I got mine a couple of weeks later from an SPCA. Hers was good and healthy, but when I brought mine home, both of them started having the runs with blood Did we run her back to the SPCA and demand an exchange/refund/pets for a year? No! We took them to the vet, got them some meds, and they were good to go. When you bring home a pet, you love them instantly. How can someone just un-love a pet just like that?

[XCashier]

How can someone just un-love a pet just like that?

Simple: they never loved the animal in the first place. People like that don't love anyone or anything but themselves.

I acquired my avatar cat Trouble when our neighbors dumped him on our doorstep because they were moving and couldn't be bothered to take him along. Their loss. He's been a loyal, loving cat ever since, because we've been loyal and loving to him.

Those hags in the previous posts could've learned the joy of having a four-legged friend, but they're too superficial to appreciate it.

[moekosowl]

Oh my god the stories in this thread made me cry and laugh. I sobbed over the cat that didn't match, but the loved-to-bits 5000 dollar dog had me smiling again.

[kurisu7885]

. How can someone just un-love a pet just like that?

As said ,they didn't give a flip i nthe first place. And I have heard that i ncases ythat disregard can and will spread to human treatment as well, os don't be surprised if we hear som SC stories about them.

[mscrybaby]

Ok I am guilty of the matching pets thing.
I moved here with a black poodle and my sister has a tan pomeranian and a black tabby cat. My son wanted a kitten so we found on and she was gray with cream spots so she MATCHED in with the other animals. My poodle died of old age about a month later I saw this adorable lab on Craigs list that had the listing "going to pound in 24 hours" I couldn't allow it so I called the guy, promised him she would have a wonderful home, he dropped her off where I work with an imbedded collar and I fell in love and took her home.
A few days later my sister was making the remark that we now have all matching animals. Dee is a golden lab, a little lighter then the pom, the old cat was black and gray and Whysky is gray and cream so she matches the dogs also.

The old cat ran away when we moved (stupid sister-another story) and my niece said she had found a cat a few months later that looked like the one who ran away. So we gave him a home and back to all matching animals. I was off work for two months with a broken shoulder and heard a cat crying outside the bedroom window. I thought it was Whysky so I opened the window and reached out to pick her up. Well as I am lifting this cat in the window Whysky walks in the room and I pull in a small black and cream kitten. Figured she would go away but here it is a month later and she is still here.

Sorry a little off topic but had to point out as a taker in of strays I have this knack of getting Matching animals.

[tollbaby]

yeah, but you wouldn't get RID of one of them because it didn't match the others, would you?

[XCashier]

Dogs and cats don't come in that many different colors (varying patterns, yes, but only a few colors); it's not difficult to get matching critters.

At one time, I had alltogether in the same house:

• a grey tabby cat
• a red tabby cat
• a brown tabby cat
• a black cat
• a white cat
• a black and white cat
• a tortoiseshell cat
• a calico cat
• and a brown and white dog!

All but the white cat and grey tabby cat have gone to the Rainbow Bridge, but it was a rather colorful and furry household for a while! And NONE of them matched the room decor!

[MystyGlyttyr]

Let's see what we have.

A number of black cats, a number of silver cats, and a number of brown tabbies.

DQ, who is a brown tabby with huge black patches in his fur.
Chella, a Siamese (and the harbringer of evil)
Toby, who is a weird strawberry blonde color.
Grymlin, an orange tabby.
Spunky, solid white with oddly slick fur.
Lucky, a long-haired brown tabby with white markings.
Osmo, a silver tabby.
Hamlet, a long-haired grey-and-white monstrosity.
and Mattie, who is ALL the colors.

None of them match ANYTHING.

[Dreamstalker]

McGriff doesn't match anything in the apartment, and never did

He probably cost over $5K. We got him after a coworker of my mom's in VT found the very pregnant mamacat badly abused and dumped on the side of the road...the vet was able to keep momcat alive for the delivery. Coworker weaned the 3 fuzzballs, then gave one to us (McGriff was the only polydactyl cat in the litter). He was literally completely hand-raised and had no feline parents.

He got hit by a car shortly after we moved to Boston and had to have his face reconstructed. Then we discovered he had an enlarged heart/murmur.

Our first vet put him on heart meds and he had a heart attack on Christmas Eve one year (that was directly due to the medication--my mom's doctor figured out that a cat should not be on a human heart med). After a wild drive on the Jamaicaway in the snow to the animal hospital and a harrowing few days, he came home, we switched vets and both conditions cleared up on their own.

After my bonehead stepfather let him roam outside one time too many he developed a severe urinary blockage (he had a chronic problem with crystals) and I got him to the vet just in time. Cue an argument with my stepfather when we went to pick him up ("what do you mean he's costing this much? It's just a cat!")

He now has diabetes at age 16, needs insulin shots twice a day and gets a thyroid pill once a day, but he's still happy and cuddly

All the cats I've ever been owned by were strays or shelter kitties. IMHO they have better personalities than purebreds.

[Reyneth]

And I didn't return my pregnant male neutered cat to the SPCA, in spite of it all

Your Nikko and my mom's Sophie must have switched places somehow.

About 2 years ago in the Fall, my mom was adopted by a stray. That looked like it had swallowed a bowling ball. Understandably, everyone thought this cat was pregnant. So she was named, moved into the glassed-in porch and given a box with nice blankets for the kittens.

No kittens were forthcoming. We looked up gestation times and knew it had to be close. She was brought to the vet who said she wasn't preggers, but my sister insisted he be sure - so on an xray or sonogram, he pointed out little baby spines.

Still no kittens. No idea what happened - there was no place for her to hide them. A month or so later, she gets taken in for a general checkup and shots. Had a reaction to the shots and had to go back. So this cat has been to the vet's three times already.

When my sister went to pick her up from being spayed - the reaction was "Oh, the MALE cat?" Sophie was a neutered male and NOBODY knew it until she had been opened up on the OR table.

She still retains her feminine gender designation and female name, however - we call her our "cross-dressing cat." But apparently they switched roles! Sophie (a neutered male) was supposed to be a pregnant female while Nikko was supposed to be a neutered male and turned out to be a pregnant female instead. LOL