- Age: P1Y
- Date of death: 18.09.2023
- Sex: ♀
Speckles died because of the irresponsibility, cruelty, and selfishness of her owners. Her death became a huge and terrible lesson for us.
I, Anya, a Kotoprovod volunteer, bear personal responsibility for trusting those people with her. I should not have done it. I thought I was doing what was best for the cat, giving her a home instead of leaving her on the street. That was not true, and later I understood it. But by then it was already too late.
In the fall of 2022, the cold weather came, and kittens without a mother appeared in the yard. Soon they began dying one by one, despite the food and care I could give them outside. One evening, when I found only one kitten left, it felt like a miracle when news came that there was a foster home for her, with assurances that it would also become her permanent home.
But there were two red flags: the people were against sterilization, while I could not have her sterilized myself because she was too young, and not all family members agreed to take in a cat. I was promised that this was not a problem, and that the cat would never leave the apartment. Believing this was the best option for her, I handed her over to the new family.
They regularly sent me photos and stories about her, and it seemed that she was loved. In spring, terrible news reached me: Speckles had been thrown out onto the street. Other volunteers and I rushed to search for her across all the surrounding blocks. We combed through courtyards for days, until at one of the places where cats were fed, we were told that a cat who looked like our Speckles had been run over by a car a few days earlier.
Later, the “owners” explained that she had started calling for a male cat and that it had become “difficult”; but because they considered sterilization inhumane, they simply threw a cat who no longer remembered street life into unfamiliar courtyards.
Years later, the small, scruffy face of kitten Speckles is still before my eyes. I know this guilt will stay with me forever. This guilt, and this lesson. That is why we never again place animals in homes unless every family member agrees to their arrival. And we never place animals with people who oppose sterilization.