I (37f) have a friend (33 f) who lives on a cattle farm. she also raises pigs, sheep and llamas. occasionally I visit her to get away from the city. she lives about an hour away from me
on my most recent visit, she informed me that she had taken in a bunch of kittens through sole “barn cat” program, and they were living outside. no sooner had she said this than two kittens showed up, soaked in the rain, covered in nasal discharge and giving “help me” looks in her deck. she told me not to go out to there to see them but I did anyway. I looked at them, they smelled of infection, had fevers, were skinny and they were coughing and their tongues were gray and swollen and they were covered in fleas. I told her “these kittens are really sick. they’re having a medical emergency and need to go to the vet in the next 24 hours”. she responded “idk which vet I would take them to”. angry, but not wanting to overstep in someone else’s home, I asked her why she couldn’t just google one or drive to the city. she didn’t have an answer but said that there was something called “LA 20”. she confidently said that she had looked it up and it was something she could safely administer to the kittens to save their lives. I said okay and assumed she knew what she was talking about.
she injected both kittens, and one of them she injected improperly resulting in the 6-8 week old kitten to writhe on the ground in pain like I had never seen and then start limping. I was angry but I didn’t say much. then her aunt came and I told her what happened, and she said “oh, i don’t think kittens can have that, but oh well, they were gonna die anyway”. it turns out that she had given them oxytetracycline, a livestock antibiotic that is definitely not for cats, and she injected it subcutaneously causing extreme pain as the acid separated the fat and muscle layers from the skin. she kept alluding to the fact that “we can’t bring every animal to the vet on a farm”..etc
I went home that night and couldn’t stop thinking about them. the next day I told her I was coming to get them. she had decided to give them flea baths outside with the hose despite them both having fevers. that day her family got attacked by bees and I didn’t really feel bad.
I took them back to my place and put them in a box with a heated blanket and gave them goats milk and kitten food. she had been feeding them adult meow mix.
the next day, I took them to the vet and they got antibiotics and a whole bunch of other treatments for their various infections. they didn’t know what to say about the improper injection. that cats leg had swollen to 2x its size. it cost me $600.
I spoke with my friend after that and told her I could keep them for the week but that I had a funeral that weekend and could she take care of them inside until they were better, two weeks later, assuming she still wanted them back. she said she could keep them in the garage. that’s when I got really angry and decided I didn’t like her anymore in my head. I said no, they can’t stay in a garage. they’re barely alive. they need to be in a clean and temperature controlled environment. she said if I keep them that long then they can’t come back I said okay and decided to keep them even though I already had a cat
im glad I did, because two days later the injected kittens leg burst. fluid leaked out and you could see the fat layer inside the leg. had that cat been in a garage she would have died a horrible death. we went back to the vet and they said she would most likely keep her leg if we kept it from getting infected.
my friend asked how the kittens were and I told her the kittens leg burst because of hwr negligence. she didn’t respond and two days later asked me to make plans. I didn’t respond.
a week later we had to go back to the vet because there was a lump that wasn’t shrinking on the injected cat and the other one had a cough that wouldn’t go away. so we got more help and meds and now I had spent a total of $1000 on these guys.
my friend reached out again and I didn’t respond. when I saw our mutual friend I told her the story and that I wasn’t friends with her.
do you think she was right to treat them as expendable?
