On the flip side – watching the animals in our new country could break your heart. People here do not see pets in the same light as we do in western countries. I could understand that in places like Vietnam where people struggle for enough to eat and dogs are in the food chain. I could kind of understand it when we were in Singapore and people collected pets that were cute and then dumped them when they grew up. Here there is a coldness towards animals that I don’t quite get. The idea of kicking a dog just for fun seems outdated in most of the world but here it doesn’t seem to faze people that bored teenaged boys could actually do that and no one say a word to them much less try to stop them. I would like to think that this story is an urban legend but I know it could very well be true. .
Qatar is developing fast and the government seems focused on the important issues such as infrastructure, quality of life issues and education. Buildings and roads are built in the blink of an eye but projects are also started and then dropped just as quickly. Huge construction projects seem to have been affected by the Dubai World reorganization. There are issues with foreign workers who are not protected from overwork and abuse. The animal issue is understandably way down on this list and seems to have become an issue at all only because of all of the western expats that live here.
One night recently I walked my friend Patsy to the front gate of our compound and we met a white cat that was meowing loudly. He looked like he had been on the losing end of a catfight. One eye seemed seriously damaged although it wasn’t profusely bleeding but it was incredibly gross. When I stroked him – he started purring and rolled over on his back. Patsy laughed and said “Uh oh, you are going to have a cat if you don’t watch out!”
He followed me home and sat on my front porch meowing. I took water outside and he actually tried to come inside. He was filthy but friendly. My neighbor had asked me to go to the nearby shopping center and after my daughter offered to babysit her 18-month son – there was no way of not going! She enjoyed the break but was not happy about me possibly feeding the cat and joked about dropping the cat food I bought into a trashcan on the way to the car. When we pulled up to our townhouse – the cat was sitting in my window! Curled up six feet above the ground waiting. I fed him and tried to contain him in my tiny backyard. He had water and food and a box with a towel – he ate, crawled into the box and crashed. The next day was a national holiday so we ended up keeping him for another night – he spent most of the day in my other next door neighbors yard (also not happy about a cat) after somehow climbing over the wall without breaking his neck and hiding under a rug hanging outside while it rained. I fed him and left him alone most of the day as it seemed the driest spot available. That night I actually let him into the kitchen while we cooked dinner and he sprawled out on his back and fell asleep! He spent another night in the box with the towel while I spent time online looking for his owner. I was so sure he had to belong to someone.
Plans were set. I borrowed a carrier, Cicely came to help me catch and cage the cat and he was still trapped in my backyard. Then we saw a flash of white as he jumped up to one window and then over the wall into my neighbor’s backyard – remember these are ten-foot walls. I met Cicely in front of my house, handed her the carrier and tried to open the gate next door but it was locked. I had to knock on the front door and lie to the 6 and 4 year old girls who live next door as their parents didn’t want them to even know about the cat as they really want a pet not to mention the shock of the messy eye. Their maid was quick to help me duck out of the back door, shutting it before the girls could follow. I called the cat and he actually meowed. He was in the middle of the flowerbed using it as a litter box, having shoveled most of the dirt on the patio. I scooped him up and before he knew what happened he was in the kennel on the way to Qatar Veterinary Center!
I was surprised when the vet’s assistant looked at him and explained that there had been no injury. There is a rampant eye infection among kittens born in the wild here. Their eyes become infected before they are ever open and they lose the eye, as it is never treated. She said that even though he was friendly and purring that he was probably a ‘compound’ cat. These cats develop amazing social skills enabling them to live around humans who feed them but usually don’t really ever connect. I got the feeling she felt we should neuter and release him, not necessarily try to make him a pet. I was still sure there was a family out there missing their cat.
The veterinarian was very nice. He said Fred (I had to give them a name to even see the vet) was not quite a year old, basically healthy, had ear mites, needed to be neutered and vaccinated. He reaffirmed what the assistant said about the eye – said it had been gone for a long time and if he had had an owner – the odds were that they would have had the eyeball removed and the eye sewn shut. I agreed to pay for the neutering, etc and made arrangements to have him boarded until I COULD FIND THE OWNER! They didn’t laugh.
He was there for a week as I thought I had found a home for him on Christmas Eve but the young man did not back out until five thirty in the afternoon which was too late to pick him up. So he lived with them for a week and we picked him up and brought him home expecting a wild animal, especially after he howled in the back of the taxi all of the way home! He was anything but – he is more like a dog – he followed us around, he used the litter box, he has to have been around people before! He is just a cool relaxed cat – unless of course he is just recovering from the stress of surgery, kennel for a week, and being on the street for a while. I still think someone has to be looking for him so we have made a flyer and posted the information on every website I can find.
My husband got home in the wee hours of the morning and I let Fred out to meet him (he of course was out of town while all of this was going on but was clued in when his phone beeped in Singapore with a text message from the bank saying I had charged 1000QAR). Unfortunately he was hooked almost immediately. I hate to admit it but Fred will be with us probably until we can find him a home – I really do not want a cat. Hairballs totally freak me out.
One clue that he might actually be wild – he crept into the kitchen and the next thing we knew he was sitting in the sink drooling over the birds at the feeder outside. He didn’t even care if his feet were wet. He looked like a hungry shopper at the meat counter.
Three days and a lot of money later – my spouse has fallen in love with the one-eyed cat with the ‘Daniel Boone coonskin hat’ tail. He has bought a new litter box, (and changes it) a scratching post, lifetime supply of catnip, toys and has scheduled eye surgery for the middle of January. Expensive eye surgery. This I didn’t expect and I still really do not want a cat. Once we don’t have to guard the front door with a spray bottle of water so he doesn’t try to return to his home in the trashcans of the desert – Fred might turn out to be ok.
The Christmas card that I tucked into my traveling spouse’s suitcase had a cat on the front that looks great with an eye patch! I really didn’t expect him to become quite this attached to a stray cat.
Karma Cat fact - Cicely rescued a three-week-old black kitten stumbling around in the middle of a three-lane road. People slowed down but didn’t stop but at least they didn’t run over her while she was in the middle of a rescue that I would have loved to have seen!
We now are seeing cats everywhere and watching Fred find little places to creep into that he can watch us and we cannot see him makes me realize how many homeless animals there probably are. A short national program to catch, neuter and release would not be that difficult for the Qatari government and I can only cross my fingers that it happens soon.
Your Karma is bountiful!
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