Day Twenty-Six

    ****NAMES CHANGED TO PROTECT PORTLAND'S STREET KIDS***** 

I don't know what to say about Day Twenty-Six. Day Twenty-Six is the reason I am behind on blogging. It was not a good day. Not even a little bit. I'll cut to the chase on things and just tell you what happened.

It started out fine. Kitten Lady and I went straight to Fred Meyer where we got rice pudding and cookie dough. I still wanted to make it in time for my oatmeal so we booked it to #1 after we got our first breakfast.

#1 was closed for the day (besides meals) but we decided to lay down for a bit outside in the court yard. A woman and her pitbull was sitting there so I got up to pet the dog. Kitten Lady was still asleep with baby kitten snuggled up under her chin. They were so snug and happy and cute.

The dog was friendly and I had no issues with the owner. I checked the time and saw we had ten minutes until dinner. We were sneaking kitten in and out of #1 by getting her to sleep in the bag after having her run around for awhile before so she would be sleepy. I slipped her out from under the blanket and away from the security of her mother's arms to have her run around so she would sleep later.

Bad move. Bad, Bad move.

I held her as I continued conversing with the dog owner. The dog owner said her dog was good with cats. Because we have been trying to make the kitten not so afraid of dogs I moved where she could see the dog. The owner held the leash tight while I said, "See the doggie kitten."

Everything that happened next was both fast and slow.

The dog owner loosened the leash and the dog began to jump up on me. I yelled "no" and stepped back. I tried to turn and in that moment the dog grabbed the kitten out of my hands. I screamed and hopped down trying to pry the kitten out of its mouth. I put my hand in the dog's mouth to try and shield the kitten from the teeth. In the end I had to use my left hand to pull the bottom jaw down and my right to pry the top jaw up. The kitten fell out fighting and I pushed the dog away from her.

Kitten's Mama scooped her up but poor baby just kept fighting, not sure where she was. I didn't know where the crowd came from but suddenly there were people all around us crowding the kitten. I yelled for them to back up. Covered in blood staff told me to go upstairs for a first aid kit but I told them to bring it down. I wasn't going anywhere.

 After several minutes the baby calmed down and went into complete shock gasping for air. I screamed for someone to give me information to get to a vet. I pushed Kitten Lady through the crowds to get to the vet. She wasn't quite sure what she wanted to do but I kept pushing her on, "We need the vet. We need to get to a vet."

We went to Dove Lewis, an overpriced bitchy face emergency vet office. They wouldn't let us through to see baby girl until I was approved for "Care Credit", basically a credit card to pay for vet services. I had to apply for it because Kitten Lady is not 21. I thought this was ridiculous, to not let someone see their potentially dying pet until they prove they'll pay. What would they have done had I not been approved?

When we went back to the room to await the doctor's news we had to wait forever. With nothing else to do I paced around the space the size of a walk in closet. A doctor with a British accent came in. She had no good news for us but it didn't sound so terrible because of her accent. Okay, that's a blatant lie it was pretty awful.

Baby Girl could not move her back legs. She may have too much internal damage to live. She wanted to put her down immediately as she did not think she would live through the night. She said she would not drink, eat, poop, or pee. However, when she brought Baby Girl in she was alert. She purred when her momma picked her up. I told her mom I would not allow her to put her down if she was so alert. The vet did say there was a small chance she may regain the use of her back legs as sometimes that happens. Even though a small chance wasn't a lot it was still a small chance. We went against the vet and took her home with pain medication. She said that the kitten may not eat, drink, pee, or poop and these were signs she was going to die no matter what we did.

It was a $200 vet bill.

Before we left we offered Baby Girl water and she drank it. We were encouraged. We bought rice pudding and she ate about her weight in it. I told Kitten Momma that Baby Girl is strong. She will make it. I really believe she will.

--mm

Tailia after the pitbull attack.