BUDDY's Tale - PLEASE Spay or Neuter.

    At the coldest time of this record cold month, BUDDY showed up on our front porch in College Park, literally crying for food.  Thinking he was a pesky neighborhood cat, I tried to shoo him away from the food that was meant for DAISY a remarkable female Calico, who has refused to come in our house for almost 13 years of our care and feeding.  BUDDY looked me square in the face, with a pleading look that said, “Why are you chasing me away, when I am just so hungry?”

     Later that same day, my husband simply reached down to bring BUDDY inside.  BUDDY was settled into a bathroom, and kept apart from the other cats in our home, most of whom had been acquired in just the same way.  Good thing!

     When the Animal Control Officer for our city came, she found that he was neither micro-chipped nor neutered.  We hoped to make him a part of a small, but growing local program of animal shelters and adoption.  In recent years, the Petco in Beltsville, has partnered with the College Park Animal Welfare Committee members to find homes for many lost and abandoned, healthy felines. 

       Unfortunately, upon testing, it was discovered that the approximately five year old, handsome and lovable boy, BUDDY, is FIV+.  When I asked that he be neutered, I had a new dilemma.  I could neither see him be euthanized, nor comfortably provide a home for him, due to our pre-existing number of other cats. 

     It is for this reason, that I write this blog.  In five years of what appeared to be good care of an adult male cat, his human companions had not gone the extra mile to have BUDDY neutered.  Most probably, as a result, he was forced to defend himself from another cat who transmitted the feline equivalent of AIDS to him.  As a result of his infection, there are risks to other healthy animals in a home, if he is permitted to socialize with them. 

     Allow me to clarify.  In separate quarters, an FIV+ cat can often live a happy life for many years.  But if a healthy cat gets involved in a “dust up” with BUDDY and sustains a deep bite wound, that cat’s health could be similarly compromised.  Much of this difficult scenario could have been reduced, if not prevented, by simply having BUDDY neutered. 

     Neutering was quick and as inexpensive as $45, with new opportunities in Laurel.    As a society, we need to reduce the number of healthy animals who are euthanized every year, due to over population, and the number whose health is compromised by a failure to SPAY or NEUTER.  PLEASE spend the modest sum of money required to protect the health of an animal for whom you have assumed responsibility.  His or her life depends on it.