ASPCA

This commercial always breaks my heart.  The poor animals look so sad and heartbreaking, you can tell that they have truly been abused and neglected.

How can anyone treat a poor, defenseless animal so badly?  I don't understand how someone can take an animal into their home, knowing full well that animal will depend completely on them, then neglect them so badly.

We have three cats and a hamster here in our house.

We love them all dearly.  Our cats are completely spoiled.

We have Smokey, our fat cat, who loves everyone and everyone loves him.  If you pick him up in your arms, he'll quickly snuggle up into your neck and start licking your ear.  He sleeps most of the day away and is the king of the house.  Even hubby would admit that to you.

Then there is his sister Midnight.  A petite, black panther who acts very demure and innocent, but who I'm sure leads a secret, alter-ego life when we leave.

There is actually a nice story behind our acquiring these two.

In our old neighborhood, there was a stray cat that was pregnant.  Everyone in the neighborhood took care of her.  Apparently, we were all cat lovers and worried about her and her unborn babies.  She was well fed and watered.

It was sometime in May; days were mild, but nights were still cold.

Hubby, I and the  kids were sitting on the front steps when we noticed mommy cat run down our driveway with something grey in her mouth.  Thinking she had caught a mouse and horrified that she might eat something so nasty, I had my husband run after her to try to get it away from her.

He caught up with her and as I was turning the corner he hollered for me to come closer.  She was sitting at our back door with this grey mass in her mouth, waiting patiently for something.  As I got closer, there was no mistaking that what I thought was a mouse was actually a baby kitten!

Hubby looked at me, with that questioning look of "what should we do?'  I told him to open the door and she shot in so quick we had to run to see where she ended up.  We found her dropping off her baby under our bed, then running back out the open door.  She quickly came back with another baby.

We were ready for her this time.  I had cleared a spot and placed a soft towel for her to lay her babies.  When she headed out again, hubby and oldest daughter followed her and found two more babies.  Mommy cat carried one home and oldest daughter carried the other one.

And there they stayed until mommy cat decided they were old enough for her to leave.  We kept two, that first grey one, our fat cat, and the runt of the litter, our little midnight.  We adopted the other two out and we regularly see one of them at my sister's house.

Finally, we have Zena (warrior princess) who we adopted about four years ago.  She's a beautiful, yellow long haired brat.  Yes, we have a fat cat and we have a brat cat; the princess (Midnight) tolerates them...barely.

They are all with us until they take their last breath.  It would break my heart in a million pieces to leave them behind if we had to move and I can't even begin to imagine leaving them outside to fend for themselves.

Please, don't adopt a pet unless you intend to care for them their entire life.  They need you and depend on you.