Not on My Watch: To KoKo's Owners-You Lousy Piece of Shit!

This is just terrible, This makes me sick to my stomach.
How can anyone do such a thing, these people are truly 1st class scum.
I hope Koko gets adopted to a loving, caring home and gets the treatment she really deserves.

This is where I insert my GODF*CKINGDAMMIT! Animated GIF. People can be so awful! :-(

Wow, I shouldn't have read this before I had my first cup of coffee.

In Nh we are making great strides with dogs when it comes to population control and spay and neuter education/programs.But for some reason we still have a long way to go with cats. The level of ignorence you encounter when dealing with people not fixing their cats or vetting them is astounding.
Cats are looked at as "free" pets.When acting on the impulse to get a cat -it is obvious no thought is given to the cost of decent food for the cat or vetting and definately most people are ignorent to the fact that a cat needs to be part of your family,given attention and is a lifelong RESPONSIBILITY!
The insane "reasons" people give for wanting to adopt from me are mind boggling! From -"my kid wants a cat" to "It will match my furniture" - I am constantly surprised by the lack of understanding for another living being and the attitude that they are disposible.
To those of us that are responsible pet "parents" -continue to love and care for your pets, continue to help those that are not so fortunate to have experienced that kind of love and continue to educate through example and conversation those people not so enlightened. Be bold -talk to potential customers at pet stores, spread the word about spay and neuter programs in your area to those that breed litter after litter (google "spay and neuter clinics").Be angry and be active!

Beautiful girl. Looks to me like the "kitten" wore off and they didn't want her anymore. People like that shouldn't REPRODUCE, let alone have pets.

One Friday morning I was about ready to leave for work (4am). I noticed Horus wasn't bugging me as usual. When I searched high and low, worried sick, I found him in the litter box. He scratched and scratched, whimpered, then came out. He went to his cat bed and squatted, whimpered, then rolled over and licked at his privates. Of course, the first thing I did was call work and tell them I couldn't be in immediately, even though I didn't have leave.

I took Ho to the vet ER (you know how expensive those places are!), and waited for him to be examined. He had full urinary blockage! It was getting to be critical at that point. He was admitted for the day with a catheter and IV fluids. He stayed overnight because my regular vet wouldn't be open all weekend. I went to work several hours late then rushed back to the ER to visit.

I was financially strapped at the time. However, I worked out a plan with them and the almost $800 bill was paid off after numerous months. But, my Horus got better and we watch his diet and water intake.

Another cat that I lost before Horus came along, Tabby Sue, she had undetected HCM we found out. She screamed out one morning and when I rushed to her, she was coughing and limp. I tried my best to do CPR, but she passed away in my arms. This was at 4am as well. I called the vet's office (was living elsewhere on 1/2 the income I had at the time of Horus' problem) and left a page for the vet. She said to be there at 8 when they opened. I drove an hour from my place into downtown Philadelphia on a FRIDAY MORNING and sat on their doorstep until they opened (I only waited about 15 minutes). They were so comforting. They set up to have her cremated, but I wanted to know what happened to her to make sure it wasn't contagious (she was an extremely healthy cat and had been playing fine, enjoying treats, and acted normal 4 hours before she died). They said a necropsy would be $300 or more. I didn't have that kind of money, but I had to know. I again set up a payment plan because I had other cats and needed to know what happened. That's when they found the HCM.

Sorry to have babbled forever, but no matter how financially strapped you are, you 1) consider that before you acquire a pet, 2) go to any lengths to set up a payment plan with the vet should something happen, and 3) do whatever you can for your pets to ensure their safety, health, and happiness. Although, I can't say I'm surprised. After 3 years of volunteering at a shelter, I heard some doozies. The worst one to date: "We adopted this kitty a week ago, but she just clashes with our furniture. Can we give her back and get one that will better complement our house?" It was at that point that I gave up on humanity.

Oh the poor baby! I'd love to find her former owners and rip them a new one because obviously they've neglected her. I'd take her myself if our dog wasn't such a diva and rejected new animals in the house, and I know my parents would if they hadn't just rescued a little siamese/american shorthair cross.

I'm going to plug this in a few places and hope somebody adopts this sweet little cat.

If there are TV or newspapers around close, contact them. Most local TV news love cutesy human interest stories. You get a fifteen second sound bite and one or two pictures on the evening news, and Koko will be the most sought-after kittie in the state, at least for a few days.

But calm down a bit first. Yelling and screaming and calling names can be therapeutic, but it doesn't do much to help Koko. Take a breath.

PS: I posted something about Koko on Catster's Rescue, Adoption & Happy Endings forum. Might help. But Catster wouldn't let me include a link directly to this post -- language problems. ;-)

This makes me SOOO angry I could spit fire!!! I am at my limit with kitties in my household so I am doing what I can to spread the word about this poor little girl. No animal deserves this!! THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A DISPOSABLE PET!!! Why can't humans understand this?? If you adopt an animal, you are signing on as their caretaker FOR LIFE!!!

Praying for good news for Koko,
Cory (Nico, Simon & JayJay)

I've been in rescue nearly 40 years. Pretty much seen it all, so I am not going to take the easy way out and jump into the mob scene crucifying these people. If they were the assholes everyone thinks they were, they would not have dropped their kitty off at the shelter, they'd have driven her out to the woods and thrown her out of the car. Or off a bridge.

Obviously this situation is far from ideal. I'm fairly sure that the vets there are no different from the ones out here, and none of them take payments; you must come up with all the money at the time of service. Any exceptions are as rare as hen's teeth. So just throwing mud at KoKo's erstwhile owners is too simple; we need to fight a system and a culture in which everything is all about money; lots and lots of money. These people felt they had nowhere to turn with this cat, and they no doubt knew that if they brought her in themselves, they'd be attacked, judged, and made to feel even worse than they already did.

We as rescuers need to do better. We need to inspire confidence in the pet-owning public and make it easier for people to own pets and be successful at it. Making it harder, with onerous anti-pet legislation, Limit Laws (which affect us rescuers and our foster networks too!), and that obnoxious, self-righteous, put-upon, I-Walk-On-Water-and-am-a-saint attitude just drives people further away. They don't turn to us so we can help their families and pets succeed in their relationship. They are afraid of us.

And they dump off darling little kitties in carriers at shelters in the middle of the night. I know that it's easier to just be pissed off at these people, and that no one wants to hear this, but the truth is that we are creating a lot of these situations ourselves with our air of entitlement and unapproachability.

I can't TELL you how many homes our rescue and our national rescue secretaries have SAVED simply by being available, friendly, and nonjudgmental, but it is easily in the hundreds. This is not rocket science. Take off the mantle of sainthood and rage and reach out to help these families KEEP their pets. Stop scolding. Stop finger wagging and name-calling. Be a source of information, comfort, and counsel to pet owner so those families stay happy, healthy, informed and intact.

And only if a home situation absolutely cannot be saved, then take the animal in without rage, sanctimoniousness, or disapproval. Be grateful that you can provide that service to that animal and yes, to his family...because this is a sacred calling in so many ways, and one we should feel honored to perform. A surrendered animal is simply one who hasn't found his/her real home yet, and there is an owner waiting for that animal. What a blessing to be the agent of that change!

This is a BEAUTIFUL little cat whom I would love to have in my home and who would be cherished and protected for the rest of her life, as are my own two spoiled rotten cats and two dogs. I am on the Board of our 501c3 rescue here in California. One of my cats was recycled here from a situation where too many other pets stressed him to the point of him acting out and inappropriately urinating. Cats will let you know when they aren't happy...and my cats are in a peaceful, clean, quiet home. And they are happy, and use their litterboxes.

Sadly, the Georgia rescue/shelter regs make it impossible for anyone without their special state license to do a damn thing to help. We've been through this before with dogs down there, and even a longtime, 501c3, reputable rescuer IN Georgia wasn't allowed to assist a dog on death row because of these idiotic rules.

Seems Georgia can't seem to make up its mind whether it wants to help animals, or just break all our hearts with these stories and pictures, then kill the animals.

I recommend directing some of this energy towards fixing that situation, and sooner rather than later. An entire nation is standing by, wanting to help...and we can't.

And it just kills us.

These people obviously should not have adopted ANY animal. At least they didn't boot outside or throw it in the nearest lake - I know that's not much, but at least the poor guy still has a chance at adoption. Cute little bugger!!!

I'm sad, almost teary eyed. A part me feels that this decision was made by the parents, not the children. Koko looks handsome and cute, hell look at the name, cute too! My fear is that the parents MADE the children write those notes, perhaps as a means to divide the guilt the PARENTS had and wanted to place on the children. If that is the case, it is a form of child abuse, and can only hope that something is done about it. I hope the children can overcome the actions of the parents, as I'm sure it will be tough, if not, we can only imagine what negative effects it will have on them.

I don't think of it too much as finger pointing, or being totally pissed off and sad, I think it's the truth. The ones who suffer from this situation are the children AND Koko, as mentioned who is incapable of speaking for himself.

I look at the pictures and cant help be cry out, what has this cat done to be thrown out like that? And with that comes the very cold reality... this is just but one lone case pointed out... there are thousands, probably more, that are just like this.

I wish Koko the best, in the hopes that he will get a new home and loving family. If he doesn't then I'm sure we can be thankful that he doesn't have to put up with such a pathetic world.

I agree with wendy--we are in a relatively poor state, but it is common to see souped-up SUV's out in the driveway, designer clothes on the whole family, and a dog on a chain in the back yard. We are in a sad situation when "things" take precedence over a living creature. I believe what goes around, comes around....and that KoKo's "pet" dumpers have some hard times ahead. It's not hard to imagine what their kids will do in 50 years when mom and dad are incontinent and inconvenient....children learn by example.

If you are reading this, please do what you can to help educate people about the reality of pet ownership, **before** they adopt or buy a pet!!!!

Well, koko sounds like one patient and very cool cat. I am sure she is better off without the note lady and her poor kids (if, that really was a child.. and I think it most likely was a real note..from her kids that is.. sigh). Number one, not very good parenting showing them how to just dump a cat and leave. What horrible parenting skills, let alone the fact that she has no clue what happens to her baby cat. I agree with the general consensus of the above comments.. the previous owner just took the easy sleazy way out. Too bad we don't have video and can show it on the news, as a sort of example for people NOT to handle it this way. Happens at veterinary offices daily. Sadly.

Brutus is our huge watch cat. He's a great pal. He's a tuxedo shorthair inside cat. We also have Persian named Lulu. Lulu is delicate and dainty. She's a little spitty with Brutus but he plays too rough for her. They snuggle together. We also have 13 year old Magic the collie and 5 year old Lucy the Japanese chin. We've got a big house and nobody seems to step over anybody. We brought Magic with us from Norway, as we did Lulu. It was expensive to fly them here, but of course. What else would a person do? They're family members. Oh, Lulu is erm 8 years old now. She's gorgeous!

One night Brutus was acting funny. It was a Saturday. He was looking at me funny and sort of moaning. He went to his cat box, tried to scratch around a bit, and walked out, rolling on the floor upside down and looking at me with kind of sad eyes. I ran him over to the emergency vet, thinking he had something wrong, terribly wrong. They took him and put him in this room where I wasn't with. They wouldnt' let me go in there with him, the vet tech just took him. Guess that's their practice, although I didn't like it. It was 11 PM by the way. This little tiny vet came out and introduced herself. She told me Brutus was constipated. I said, 'wow I'm embarrassed I didn't know it was just that'.. and I was kind of laughing.. but .. she said, "nope, you don't need to be embarrassed.. (but I was!). She said it's better to have brought him in, as they have something called cat blockage, (here is where I learned about something pretty important).. and described what he could have had. I suppose somewhere in my subconscious I had read about cat blockages and maybe thats why I raced him over there.. but Brutus was given some medicine, (which he HATED taking).. and he was fine. My husband teased me and teased me whenever I coo coo'd baby talked him.. with things like "honey, Brutus has a funny expression on, lets go spend a thousand at the ER vet again, that was fun". But you know, so what. I tell him, 'Hey big daddy, if you were crouching and couldn't go potty and were howling, I'd take you to ER too'. So there!

The thing that bothers me about koko's previous family, is that they have two other cats, and children they are teaching to be like them. Wish I could take them by the hand and show them what kind of fate cats get when they are dumped. The euthanasia room at the kill shelters are a very sad place.

Good on you for saving and posting Koko. Hopefully she is on to a better future. Thanks for bringing some much needed light on the dumping situation. Going to go feed my cats some salmon and hug them ..

Poor Koko! I'm surprised these people didn't simply dump her out on the street somewhere. How can people be so cruel? It's too bad we can't lock these people in a large plastic crate they can't open, with no food or water, so they can sit in the heat and see how it feels.

I have adopted 7 kitties, most of whom were dumped on the streets and left to fend for themselves. Luckily, they were rescued by TNR groups and I got them from the rescuers (and one from a shelter). Each one has thier issues, and some have health problems, but I do, and always will do, everything possible to help them live the best, healthiest life possible. I just can't imagine doing anything else.

Humans like to think we're better than other animals...Well, we brought these animals into domestication, which makes us responsible for taking good care of them and giving them long, happy lives. Anyone who does less, should be ashamed of themselves.

I hope Koko finds a good home with humans who will work with her. I wish I lived close enough to adopt her :(