The capturing and spaying of Susie's feral Meezer got me to thinking about the Meezer I once had in my life. She belonged to my best friend, and her name was SuLee. She was given to my friend by her daughter after both of my friend's long-time animal companions had died. SuLee came from the daughter's neighbor; the kitty was about 3 years old and was supposed to have papers, but the neighbor never provided them. My friend thought it was very strange that SuLee, being Siamese, never meowed or played. After we learned her story, we understood.
SuLee had been a breeder in a kitten mill. Somehow, the neighbor acquired her and, in the neighbor's words, "got a couple of litters out of her" also. SuLee and her babies were housed in an outdoor cage. She managed to escape the cage and move her last litter to a nearby wooded area, where a son of Friend's Daughter found them. I don't know all of what happened after that, but SuLee was given to my friend.
SuLee's first meows came when she went into heat. She went immediately to the spa. The vet didn't know her background, although his staff did. When the doctor opened her abdomen, he found SuLee's reproductive organs to be in a terrible condition. He said that it looked like she had become pregnant every time she went into heat, and the staff assisting him said that was probably exactly what happened.
SuLee became quite familiar with going to the vet. She had the worst case of ear mites the vet had ever seen. He had to put her under general anesthesia to clean and treat her ears because they were so uncomfortable she wouldn't let him touch them. I brought her home after one of her ear treatments; she was still half unconscious, but even in that state, she tried to raise a back leg to scratch her ear.
After the medical problems were solved, SuLee became a very social and vocal Meezer. She loved to play with people's hair, and she would lie on my friend's pillow wrapped around the top of my friend's head. She was very skilled at using her front paws and could untie ribbons.
Several months later, my friend had to enter a personal care home. It was run like a family home rather than an institution; the couple who ran it lived there themselves. Although they already had a pair of dachshunds, the husband fell in love with the Meezer and brought her home to see if the dogs would "let her stay." Not only did they let her stay, they learned quickly that she was going to be at the top of the home's pet hierarchy. She hissed and swatted at the dogs when they bothered her (somewhere along the line she had been declawed, so no one ever got scratched). Soon, the dogs became so deferrential that, if SuLee approached the water bowl when they were drinking, the dogs would back up, let her drink, then resume when she had finished.
Eight months after moving to the home, my friend died in her sleep. SuLee was in the room when it happened and spent a good part of the next morning sitting in the bathroom howling. The couple who owned the home kept her. The last time I saw her, she was meowing enthusiastically at the husband, on whose chest she slept every night.
We're all very glad that Susie's feral has been to the spa and that she will no longer have to undergo the constant reproductive ordeal that she shared with SuLee. The only thing that saddens me is that Meezer had become pregnant and the kittens had to die. From what the vet said, though, it seems that Meezer's body may have been wearing out like SuLee's did, so the kittens might not have survived anyway. There's a song by Sarah McLachlan, called "Angel", that the ASPCA uses as background music on one of their TV ads. I've rewritten the refrain for Meezer's lost kittens.
"In the arms of the angels, fly away from here,
from this cold clinic table and the worn life that brought you here.
You were pulled from the frailty of your mother's drained body.
You're in the arms of the angels; you will find much comfort there."
