Kittens we don't want

Our man in Havana

There is a vast difference between rescues & the local pounds - most rescues have a no kill policy - only sick animals are put to sleep not healthy ones that can be given a chance.

Thank you for giving the kittens a chance If you need advice at all - just ask.

Themadhouse

If the kittens tested positive for feline aids they would have to be put down.

I'm sorry but i find this statement just as upsetting as the opening post to the thread.
You can test kittens for FIV but they can test positive due to maternal anitbodies present, but they usually test negative later. they should be re tested at 6 months old to be sure, but it could be too late by then if they have been PTS!
FIV is not an automatic death sentence, there is no need to PTS in a lot of cases...... Plenty survive and live with cats that have tested NEG for FIV. They can have a long and happy life if someone is will to give them the chance.
I know one big boy who is probably about 17 years old, still going strong, tested pos 9 years ago, prob got it a long time before that!
Nothing is cut and dry and yes there are an awful lot of times when it is nicer to PTS but not all the time....

Lukin, i'm glad you have decide to give the kitttens a chance to live....
As bond-007 said, rescues have a low kill rate, they will only put to sleep if absolutly neccessary, not because they have too many.
The rescue that i foster for last summer had 63 kittens at the one time, thats not including the family cats. Tough going in a house with no cattery....

Tabitharose

Themadhouse wrote:

I'm sorry but i find this statement just as upsetting as the opening post to the thread.
You can test kittens for FIV but they can test positive due to maternal anitbodies present, but they usually test negative later. they should be re tested at 6 months old to be sure, but it could be too late by then if they have been PTS!
FIV is not an automatic death sentence, ...They can have a long and happy life if someone is will to give them the chance.

saved me writing something similar

kyra

doctor evil wrote:

Kyra, pot calling kettle black?.

The issue has been resolved, no point in posting to give your self a higher moral grounding.

sorry, been away for a while and have just seen the thread.
no need to jump at me throat though :eek:
happy the issue is resolved

good luck

emma27

Hellrazer wrote:

Feline aids is a different matter than the OP posted about--he wants to kill kittens that may or may not have any problems.
If they had posted that the kittens did have feline aids I would be the first to recommend euthanasia.

Im sorry you dont like the fluffy wuffy nature of the way we mod this forum but I will not tolerate issues of animal cruelty here regardless of how "humane" its supposed to be--theres enough of that in other fora on boards.

Doctor Evil-maybe someone should stick a needle in you and put you to sleep. Would you like that? for someone else to make the decision to end your life. Their is nothing humane about putting animals down unless of course if they were sick or had been in an accident. If you have ever owned any kittens you should know that they have feelings too.

doctor evil

An animal cannot comprehend when it is about to be put down, you would have more credibility if you did not label animals with human emotions.

Hellrazer

doctor evil wrote:

An animal cannot comprehend when it is about to be put down, you would have more credibility if you did not label animals with human emotions.

So now animals have no emotions???
:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Hellrazer

emma27 wrote:

doctor evil-maybe someone should stick a needle in you and put you to sleep. Would you like that? for someone else to make the decision to end your life. Their is nothing humane about putting animals down unless of course if they were sick or had been in an accident. If you have ever owned any kittens you should know that they have feelings too.

Emma27-Just to let you know personal attacks on other posters are not welcome here.Because youre new Im only going to warn you this time.
Richie

uberwolf

Hellrazer wrote:

Op banned--Im not in the mood for threads like this.

No discussing animal cruelty of any kind whether it be of the "humane" kind or not.

Why the ban when this doesn't appear to be against the charter? Cruelty is willfully or knowingly causing pain or distress to others, humane treatment is the antithesis of this. This forum is for the discussion of pet related issues, and you're preventing said discussion because you're not in the mood?

Is there an alternative place on boards for this discussion? The OP living on a farm may have a far less sanitised attitude to animals, but a better understanding for it.

The_Minister

I was thinking the same thing Uberwolf, the ban was totally undeserved. Putting down unwanted animals is a acceptable way of dealing with the problem.

JB1

The_Minister wrote:

I was thinking the same thing Uberwolf, the ban was totally undeserved. Putting down unwanted animals is a acceptable way of dealing with the problem.

No.It's not.

The right way is making sure it does not happen in the first place.Get your cats and tom cats spayd.
If you haven' take responsibility and find them homes.They live, they breathe they have every right to live.They have every right to LIFE.Who do we think we are that we have the right to end it?

doctor evil

Hellrazer wrote:

So now animals have no emotions???
:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Animals don`t have emotions in the same way you and I have emotions. They live minute to minute and do not have the same comprehension as humans.

JB1

doctor evil wrote:

Animals don`t have emotions in the same way you and I have emotions. They live minute to minute and do not have the same comprehension as humans.

Oh yeah?than explain to me why it is that so many dogs and cats cease eating when their owners are not around or have deceased?How it comes that cats that have been together all their lives keep searching their mates for month?
There are tellings about dogs that wouldn't move from their owners grave..
Animals don't have an understanding of time.They certainly have an understanding of emotion-they FEEL them!

Hellrazer

Hellrazer wrote:

Lukin--Thanks for making the right decision.And I apologise for being so harsh at the beginning of this thread.
My offer still stands if you have any problems at all finding homes for them.
Richie

Uberwolf and The Minister.Ive already apologised for my harshness and reinstated the OPs access.

And The Minister--I disagree that killing unwanted animals is an acceptable way of dealing with the problem.I found homes for all those unwanted kittens within a couple of hours of this thread going up.

doctor evil

They have simplifed emotions, they may feel things but to the same complexity, as I have already reiterated.

doctor evil

Hellrazer wrote:

I found homes for all those unwanted kittens within a couple of hours of this thread going up.

What about the animals that otherwise would have gone to those homes, can`t play Superman to them all which is the point myself and others are trying to make.

Hellrazer

doctor evil wrote:

can`t play Superman to them all which is the point myself and others are trying to make.

I think the point youre trying to make is that its the "easier" route to kill these animals than even people even bother their a*ses to try find homes for them.

Thats what sickens me.

Myself and a few regulars here keep in touch with rescue centres and anyone who needs help rehoming can just put a post up here and we`ll all do a "superman" to help out.

doctor evil

I`m not saying its the easier route but I`m not naive enough to think its only the sick and wounded who should be pts.

JB1

doctor evil wrote:

I`m not saying its the easier route but I`m not naive enough to think its only the sick and wounded who should be pts.

Than I pitty you.Because in my view your understanding of 'human' is completly different to mine...and thank god many others out there.
I can only hope you will never be in a position to make that call-for the anmials sake and your own.Because it will be the harshest thing you ever have to do-taking away the right to live from something innocent.Remember, you can NEVER give it back.
Poor you.

JB1

doctor evil wrote:

They have simplifed emotions, they may feel things but to the same complexity, as I have already reiterated.

I wonder how you'd know?Ever been a dog?
Did you ever see an anmial mourn over something?Did you see a mum cat look for her kittens?Did you see the behaviour of a swan when his or her mate got shot?

You don't know.No-one does because no-one has ever been an animal(or at least remembers it)But the facts are on the table.They do mourn and they do feel emotions.They might just not complicate them in a way humans tend to do.Lucky them.

uberwolf

this is a nice piece from the Sunday Times a couple of weeks ago.

A dog's wagging tale is evidence enough of emotion. But back to the origin of this argument - comprehension of being put down, I don't think any animal is likely to recognise that. The only cruelty might be to the mother, but no crueler than nature itself can be.

Sunday Times wrote:

The kill was before first light. The funeral took place that afternoon.

A lioness, returning empty-bellied from a nocturnal prowl in Botswana’s Chobe National Park, spotted a baby elephant separated from its herd in the night and walking uncertainly along a shallow valley.

Her muzzle and pale stomach only inches from the ground, her tawny coat almost invisible in the grey gloom, the lioness made its feline stalk to within 15 metres downwind of its prey, then exploded into a rush and pounce. Claws sank into the elephant’s neck, pulling it to the ground, jaws tearing open the exposed throat. The baby elephant would have died without a whimper.

Over the next two hours, the lioness enjoyed a leisurely breakfast, watched by her three cubs hidden in a grove of the woolly caper bush overlooking the valley. Only when she exchanged places with them – allowing three smaller mouths to explore the crimson tunnel she had made into the carcass – was there activity from the surrounding trees.

All morning, a growing assembly of vultures had flown into view, lining every bough, necks sunken, eyes fixed on the small mountain of flesh. Now they took to the air and paraglided into a semicircle around the dead elephant, landing gaitered feet first, wings unfurled to the span of a boastful fisherman, then promptly folded tight as an umbrella. Undeterred, the cubs continued tearing out flesh from within the armoured hide. They chewed on even when the more daring of the vultures, pink-faced and white-legged, began to edge forward to join in the feast.

This was the signal for the lioness to erupt from the bushes and drive them 20 to 30 metres back in a flurry of wings. But no sooner had she returned to the shade and the cubs resumed their meal than the vultures advanced once more – prompting the lioness to give them another warning dash. This weary process was repeated several times during the morning, but when the noonday sun was blazing into its fiercest heat, the cubs suddenly retreated to their mother and the vultures returned to the trees, leaving the tempting dish unattended.

A dark mound had appeared above the horizon, followed by another, then another and another, all heading in this direction.

As they grew closer, we could see a column of elephants, headed by their matriarch, the grandmother (or even great-grandmother) of the herd, her tattered ears indicating great age.

On they came, until they began to assemble around the bloody remains of the baby elephant, some stamping their feet and snorting in the direction of the lion family they knew still to be near. But most would lightly touch and sniff the body with their trunks and then move to a respectable distance, standing in silent groups.

Still more elephants arrived until there were at least 100 in all, the latecomers filtering their way to the body, seemingly paying their respects, then moving to the rear of the congregation.

All the time, the lions watched from the shade of the bushes, great oval eyes unblinking – perhaps like terrorists relishing the extent of the grief they had caused without ever being able to comprehend the depth of that grief.

Then the matriarch abruptly turned away and began to head back along the valley. Others followed until only one female was left. Our Botswanan guide was certain it would be the mother.
She took a last look at the body, then moved down the slope to where she scented the actual kill had taken place. There she straddled the spot, urinated and defecated, then brushed dust over the small mound she had created.

Finally, she half-raised her trunk in the direction of the lions – more in dismissal than protest, leaving the carcass for them to gorge and the vulture to pick clean. With that, she joined on the doleful procession, now stretching as far as the eye could see, heads lowered, moving trunk to tail in a stately slow march.

So had we experienced the rare spectacle of an elephant funeral? Or had we? Weren’t we investing a primeval animal with human feelings? Were we mistaking their natural solemnity for a formal display of grief? Do elephants really have the capacity for sorrow?

In a paper for the journal of Applied Animal Behaviour Science, Iain Douglas-Hamilton, the founder of Save the Elephants, wrote: “The question of whether there might be emotional or mental suffering among surviving elephants who encounter and interact with ailing or dead elephants is open, but behavioural data suggests this is the case.”

“There’s no doubt that elephants do have feelings,” insists Bob Flaxman, a sturdy, white-bearded veteran of the African bush, now the manager of the Xakanaxa Camp in the Moremi Game Reserve. “They certainly grieve over their dead and look after their sick. I once saw a man winch a baby elephant from the depths of a quagmire, and the grateful mother rushed up to him and wiped the mud from his clothes with her trunk.”

What’s hard to reconcile with this image of caring creatures is the way an army of elephants marches through the African bush with the ponderous progression of first-world-war tanks. Unfortunately, their frequent advances leave behind a swathe of first-world-war destruction: tottered trees left leafless, limbless and splintered, the stricken landscape littered with piles of their half-brick-sized dung like battlefield debris.

Eating for 14 hours at a stretch, an elephant consumes 325 kilograms of food a day. When leaves and fruit fail to fill that giant stomach, it tears off whole branches and eats the wood. Its tusks gouge so much bark from around the stems of full-grown trees that they turn into whitened skeletons and eventually fall at dizzy angles. Trees that survive are pushed sideways to the ground so that their roots can be munched.

Now numbering one for every 14 human inhabitants, the relentless roaming of Botswana’s 120,000 elephants is driving villagers from the land by indiscriminately destroying their crops. Even the staunchest conservationists now concede that some significant culling is necessary.One proposal is to deplete their numbers by taking out the juvenile members of a herd. Having witnessed the display of grief over the death of one baby, it is disturbing to imagine the degree of communal trauma at any systematic slaughter of the young.

An alternative is to cull a percentage of the elders. But this would shatter the social hierarchy of the herd, in which age is revered and the adults are responsible for the upbringing and disciplining of the young, especially teenage bulls. “The only realistic way to make any sizable reduction in numbers,” says the game-camp manager Bob Flaxman, “is to take out a whole herd at one go. That would be the cleanest, kindest method, with no survivors left to grieve or go wild. But are we ready to go that far?”

If UK animal-rights activists were driven to mount overnight commando raids on a tiny Scottish island to rescue hedgehogs under threat of culling, it’s not difficult to calculate the degree of worldwide fury at what would be seen to be wholesale massacre of these gentle giants.

For, regardless of the urgent need to limit the massive damage they are clearly inflicting on their environment, elephants are universally regarded as the most majestic of our fellow mammals, seen as sharing many of our emotions. And that makes us pretty sentimental too.

Nala

doctor evil wrote:

Animals don`t have emotions in the same way you and I have emotions. They live minute to minute and do not have the same comprehension as humans.

Had you seen my godfather's dog after his owner died you would think differently. He wouldn't eat, he wouldn't even lit his head. He just laid there with his head on his paws. When his owner's coffin was being put into the hearse he jumped in beside it and wouldn't get out. He had refused to get in a car his whole life. He was the healthiest dog you could meet but within 2 weeks of his owner's death he died himself.

I went to America last summer and apparently my cat sat at our gate for 3 weeks solid staring up towards the train station waiting for me to come home. Even the neighbours were saying they couldn't bear to see her moping like that.

JB1

That is nature taking it course Ueberwolf.Who gives us the right to do the same?The lioness you're having in your quote is hunting for food.We dispose of kittens Because they are IN OUR WAY.That is cruelty and selfishness.Nothing more, nothing less.

JB1

And remember:The elephants are only following natures call.

They have done so for thousands of years.Nature can cope with it.It's the Homo sapiens that can't.Nature has it' own way of controlling species.We 'humans' have escaped that controll.And look what we're doing with it.We're taking over the planet.And it's NOT going well because we are a society of disposal..we dispose of anything that gets in our way.Dogs, Cats, anything...and we will always use the excuse that nature is doing the same.
but no, Nature is NOT.

uberwolf

JB1 wrote:

and we will always use the excuse that nature is doing the same.
but no, Nature is NOT.

The nett effect is the same to the cat. Unless you believe the cat is capable of distinguishing between various means its offspring might meet their end.

JB1

Indeed, the net effect is the same on the cat.It's the 'human' arrogance that disgusts me of thinking they behave natural.

Our man in Havana

doctor evil wrote:

An animal cannot comprehend when it is about to be put down, you would have more credibility if you did not label animals with human emotions.

I disagree! When my very old collie cross Pippa had a bad stroke & needed to be put to sleep she screamed when they took her to the vet - screamed! She knew her life was about to end! So they do understand thats why many dogs get upset & nervous when a visit to the vet is in order!

stovelid

The_Minister wrote:

I was thinking the same thing Uberwolf, the ban was totally undeserved. Putting down unwanted animals is a acceptable way of dealing with the problem.

Crap. You can't take an animal on as a pet, neglect to (cheaply) spay them and then just bump off their offspring because it's not convenient for you.

I'm sorry, the thread will just go round in circles. It's obvious that putting down animals is not legally wrong but do you honestly expect regulars on a pets forum to agree with this. :eek:

doctor evil wrote:

They have simplifed emotions, they may feel things but to the same complexity, as I have already reiterated.

I find it very hard to believe that you own dogs or cats. If you do, you shouldn't TBH. This is not an attempt at anthropomorphism but my cats demonstrate fear, anger, and sadness. Whether or not this is at the same intensity as humans is beside the point.

JB1

Bravo.

doctor evil

stovelid wrote:

I find it very hard to believe that you own dogs or cats. If you do, you shouldn't TBH. This is not an attempt at anthropomorphism but my cats demonstrate fear, anger, and sadness. Whether or not this is at the same intensity as humans is beside the point.

Charming, by making a post like that the thread will go round in circles!. The point I was making (for the last time) is that animals emotions are not as complex as a persons. An animal may grieve for the loss of offspring but this would be short term compared to a woman who has lost her child.