June 21st, 2013
Today Hannah and I took another kitten to the veterinarian. This was not a kitten we discovered on the street, however, it was discovered by the daughter of our family we are staying with, Anh. The story goes:
Anh was driving with her cousin when they saw a man throw a kitten into a trash bucket and then throw it into the garbage pile in the street. Anh, who has always had a care for animals...of which included a few incidences of stopping quickly to lecture grown Vietnamese adults on how to properly treat a pet... urged her cousin to stop and pick up the kitten. When they got to the kitten, they discovered the kitten was cut very badly in three different spots, two of which ran from the top of the back all the way down toward the belly...probably averaging around 2 and a half inches each on either side of the kitten. The kitten was bleeding badly. When they showed Huong, the mother, she instantly said they need to bring her to the vet. The vet did stitch up the kittens' cuts, but was not very helpful in the long run because when they treated the kitten, they kept the kitten behind closed doors so the family couldn't see it. This Animal Hospital is known for being very careless along with not treating the animals correctly. The hospital told the family that the kitten was given two shots...but the name of the shots were not given and the receipt Anh showed me later that day only had two Vietnamese words on it, both of which I would find out later what they said. Anh had been given vague instructions to stay away from solid foods and to only feed the kitten water, milk, or very soft, rice soup.
Hannah and I got to the house around 2:30 p.m. when Anh showed us the kitten, half worried and half excited. Hai, the son, said that we could take the kitten if we would like, since he knew we were looking for a second kitten as a playmate and both the mother and the daughter are fairly scared of cats. Hannah and I did feel the urge to help the kitten, but I was rather weary of just taking the kitten in as our own. To bring a kitten with 3 large cuts back to health takes a level of care we knew we were not at yet. Also, we had been told a story about abusive humans to this kitten. I was not sure if there would be any learned, violent behavior from the humans. My first goal is to raise the kitten we have now. Hannah and I went upstairs and when Anh knocked on the door to ask for a box to put the kitten into, we ended up hanging out a bit and talking about what might happen to the kitten. I watched the kitten as it was really scared and tremendously weak. We called our Vet and told him the whole story. He said it is good for the kitten to eat or it will have no energy at all. He also expressed a deep concern to see the kitten since we were not sure what shots were given and how much. He said it was very common for vets in Vietnam to give improper dosages of any medicine to animals. That was it. We decided to bring the kitten to him.
So there we were again headed to the vet with another kitten in less than a months time. The doctor ended up taking a look at the kitten. Surprisingly, it didn't have fleas. Another male. The doctor said it was extremely weak from extreme lack of blood. When I showed him the receipt from the other hospital, he shook his head and told me it said, 'diagnosis and treatment' (a typical vague generality common in Vietnam). He decided whether we were planning on taking the kitten or not, it still needed to stay in his care for some time, and so we left the kitten with him to give it some fluid and a close watch.
6/23/2013
We have seen the kitten twice since we left him with Dr. Nghai. Each time we have seen him, he has looked much stronger. Today we met with a woman who runs an organization called ARC named Sawano. ARC is a program that is dedicated to rescuing strays, bringing them to stable health and finding a home for them. This is an extremely large challenge in Vietnam since a majority of the population still has the common belief that animals such as cats or dogs are only flea infested, disease ridden creatures that do much more harm than good if touched, let alone taken care of.
Just to give two slight examples, on our way home from meeting with Sawano, Hannah and I stopped off at a Juice stand to order 10 freshly squeezed orange juices...for the family, Phong (our old neighbor who we hadn't seen in over 7 months which is a damned shame because him, his wife Huong are the nicest two one could have a chance to meet in HCMC), and ourselves. While we were waiting I was holding Cargo and blowing on his belly because it calms him down and he was starting to claw and bite on anything he could get his paws on. An older woman selling lottery tickets (an extremely common job for the elderly to make a living) was walking by when she saw me doing this to our kitten. She stopped and stared with an extremely disgusted look on her face. She told me in Vietnamese she didn't like what I was doing and that I should stop. Hannah just smiled and said, 'you don't like cats?'. The old woman said, 'No, I don't.' Hannah then smiled and said, 'We love cats...we are from America." The woman walked away slowly in disgust. Also, the man who was carefully and peacefully making our orange juice asked right before we went to leave if our cat was from America. Hannah happily told him Cargo was a Vietnamese kitten. The man seemed shocked as we drove away. He, like many others, are fooled about the looks and attitude of the kitten, since I'm sure they've never ran into a kitten that has been taken care of in Vietnam. They imagine only a kitten that great could come from America. I'm not bragging on the looks of our kitten for he's a pretty normal looking cat, it's just that he is clean, well fed and calm because he is treated with care...and this is what is extremely shocking to most Vietnamese people.
Sawano had another kitten for us to look at to see if we wanted to adopt him as a playmate for Cargo. I was expecting a kitten around the same age since I had heard straight from her that it was important to find a kitten close to the same age. The other cat's name was Thyme and was about twice the size of Cargo and about 2 months older also. The other kitten was a little protective, consistently swatting at Cargo, which in combination with Cargo's complete lackadaisical composure, turned into a very sort meeting between those two. Unfortunately, I felt quickly that this was not the right kitten to adopt. On the other hand, when we saw the other kitten with the 3 cuts today, we both had a much better feeling about taking it home and seeing if she can live a normal life with us and Cargo. She was much more energetic than Cargo, but still not aggressive like the other cat. I believe it is just a little younger than Cargo.
Dr. Nghai said he wanted to keep the kitten for just a bit longer which is good since the kittens can't really get in contact with each other because Cargo doesn't have a vaccination yet. He was treated for ear mites a week ago. It will take to next Saturday to totally clear the ear mites and during that time we cannot get the vaccination for him. Dr. Nghai did say we can take off his stitches this week though!
No comments:
Post a Comment