Putting my money where my mouth is

Cats. Dogs. Expenses.

Examinations. Innoculations. Blood tests. X-rays. Surgeries. Flea protection.

And that doesn't include food, litter, toys.

Having a pet, properly, is an expensive business.

Now let's talk about this "properly" bit.

I recently acquired an add-on cat, Maggie, through a set of unfortunate circumstances happening to Maggie's previous owner. Oh, and my particularly soft heart. (I'm a sucker for a furry face.) Because when I see a loose dog loping happily down the street, I figure it's somehow my responsibility to find its owner or give it a new home. Because when I see an un-spayed female dog, I spay her. Because when I see a doggie with a "cherry-eye" I get the vet to operate on it.

They can see me coming a mile away. The animals. And the vets.

"There's one born every minute."

I have been part of the SPCA. I have walked with them in the St. Patrick's Day parade. I have volunteered there, looked into their building schematics, figuring out their heating and ventilation problems. Walking their dogs. Cleaning cat cages. Fostering a cat - who, unbeknownst to anyone, had hepatitis, and losing my own cat because she contracted the disease from the cat I fostered, breaking my heart twice for the price of one.

Some people are "called" to the ministry, or the priesthood.

Some people are called to work with children. To teach. To be doctors and nurses. To help the homeless. The elderly.

Animals are my thing. I've picked Ghandi's saying for my email "signature." 

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated”

I knew the name of the cat down the street (Murphy) a full EIGHT YEARS before I learned any of the names of Murphy's family.

When my mom made me watch "Turner and Hooch," I was furious with her, because I asked her before I agreed to watch the movie, whether the dog died or not. She said no. The dog dies. I saw her looking at me sideways a few minutes before the dog dies in the film. She tried to defend herself by saying "I forgot!" To which I replied, how the F***K can you forget the MAIN CHARACTER dies?!!!!!! Because, to me, Hooch was the main character. Tom Hanks was an EXTRA. Are we clear?

This is not something I decide. This is beyond my control. Oh, I can control my actions. I can make decisions whether or not I can afford to spay this cat or that dog. But I cannot control the pull on my heartstrings, any more than I can ignore the sound of a baby crying.

The sound of a baby crying is in our instincts. If we're human at all, we want to stop that sound. We cannot sleep through it. Like an air-raid siren, we are not meant to sleep through it.

And protecting animals is in mine. From disease, from pregnancy, from trauma, from fleas.

If I could, I'd give every single Caribou up north a dose of  "Revolution," the flea protection. And a mosquito net.

If I could, I'd feed every single polar bear. Every deer.

Alas, I cannot spay and neuter and protect from heartworm and fleas every dog and cat in the North America.

But I recently, in my trip to Louisiana, helped one dog and one cat, spaying the dog and having her cherry eye operated on, giving her innoculations and hearworm and flea protection. And giving the cat flea protection.

And I recently said I'd pay for Stepson's dog to have her blood tests and innoculations and spaying.

And tonight I took Maggie in for an examination, overnight stay, stool check, blood test, and x-rays to determine the cause of the liquid we're finding on her nether regions.

And when that's done, I have to pay for her innoculations, and Bijou's, and her flea protection, and Bijou's.

My first Husband, D, said one time that he kept working hard to keep me in furs. And he meant the live ones.

So I realize now why I go to work.

It's to keep myself in furs.