I’ve wanted to find the time to write something proper here again, but haven’t found the time. But now I have to because I need to get this off my chest.
Today we nearly ran over a cat.
We swerved, but the car in front didn’t and neither did the car behind. This happened right as we were passing our house.
There was a flash of black and white as we swerved around it and we both saw it moving it’s leg in the air. Mum shreiked “Oh god, it’s still alive” and started panicing about not wanting to stop and deal with it, but that we were about to park and and and.. so I said I would and had to shout to stop her going on about it because it was just making it worse.
We parked and walked back toward the house. It seemed to be gone, but had actually been taken to the pavement by someone, possibly the person in the car behind.
I wish it had already been dead, but as mum tried to sneak into the house I couldn’t in case someone thought we’d done it and were trying to run away.
I could hear it yowling, and I still can. Short strained cries full of pain and fear. The group around it were trying to take care of it, trying to call someone but no one had the RSPCA’s number.
I called 118118 and got put through to a message saying their call center is closed on Sundays. So I ran up the road to the boarding cattery, but that too was closed.
By the time I got back he was gone. I think it was a he. He looked like he must have been a well looked after tom, but with no collar. Glossy soft fur, still warm. A little red of blood and a swollen tounge in his mouth, and a gap between his open eye and it’s lid. It took me a bit to realise his head wasn’t even the right shape anymore.
That’s why I don’t know if he was a he even. His body shape couldn’t really be trusted anymore. But from a distance he was still a beutful sleeping little kittycat.
I’ve been working solidly these past 7 hours trying not to think about it, but I can’t anymore and it keeps punching me in the mind. I can’t stop crying, or hearing his yowling. It keeps echoing and I can’t stop from sobbing every time it does.
In a weeks time someone will put up missing posters and I’ll have to call them.
I can’t stop thinking if there was something else I could have done, or if I should have tried to put him out of his misery.
There was absolutely nothing you could have done for the poor thing beyond what you already did. The fact that you cared about this cat and didn’t simply leave it like most people would makes you a good person. The owners of that cat, even though they’ve suffered a tragic loss, will receive closure in knowing what happened – a lot of cat owners never get that luxury. My neighbour’s cat has been missing since September and a great number of things could have befallen it.
I found a dead cat once next to a 40 MPH road – a big, chunky tuxedo cat. It hadn’t been gone long – a few hours maybe. I went up to it to see if it had a collar, but it didn’t. Like you, I had no one to phone. I had to leave it lying in the bushes for the foxes and crows, knowing that someone out there was missing their kitty and may never know what happened to it.
The RSPCA are, unfortunately, over-stretched and are reluctant to act in a lot of cases unless major cruelty is involved. As awful as it sounds the only people you can contact are the council, who may or may not show up, sweep up the animal and take it back to their waste centre. Not a fitting end.
Stay strong, time will help.
“The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.”
— Charles Darwin