On one of my visits to the shelter, about a month ago, I saw a brown tabby female that immediately started talking, or rather yelling, at me. The shelter vet said she'd just come in, had a cold, and wasn't eating. Rachel, the shelter staff I've worked with so much on adopting my FIV+ boys said the cat was about 15 and had been dropped off by her owner because "she couldn't care for her anymore". I wanted to take her right then, even though I'd just adopted 2 more cats, but I couldn't because she was going through the admissions process. On my next visit to the shelter, two weeks later, I asked about her and found out that she'd been euthanized because she was in later stage renal failure and they couldn't get her to eat. So I guess her owner simply used the shelter as a cheap way of getting someone to take care of her cat's last stage of life. I was so angry, I'm still angry, and I wish so very, very much that I'd persuaded them to let me take her with the promise to take her right to my vet. Even if the forced feedings and twice-daily sub-q fluids hadn't worked, she would have been in a home environment at the end. Is this the way people want to be treated at the end of their lives?!

My life has been greatly enriched recently by my adoption of several cats that are in their teens. There is nothing to compare with seeing Dagda, who had been in a shelter for more than 5 years, slowly come out of his very tight shell so that he now romps around with a catnip mouse and can't wait to lean against me every night. Or seeing Dude, who looked as though he would be grateful for death because his bloody mouth pained him so much and he was so tired of many years in a shelter, now toothless but racing around the house with friends, lolling in the sun on the deck, and gazing into my face in welcome each morning. How can these people give up so much joy and love.

Donna - don't you have an extra space for a cat now that you won't be getting Pumpkin?