litter

I got home from Peru yesterday afternoon after 18 hours of travel and can finally sit down and sort through the photos and notes I took while there. While I’m doing that I thought I’d have a cat stand in for the Daily Chuck, one who had just given birth to a litter of six, maybe seven. She lives in the home of one of the women enrolled in the mentoring program provided by Krochet Kids intl. In fact, she’s one of two cats with brand-new litters living in her home along with three grown dogs. I’ve visited a handful of developing countries where stray dogs wandering the streets are commonplace. But never have I seen such a huge combination of stray dogs and those kept as pets, all wandering around together, in and out of buildings and homes. Some malnourished and obviously suffering severe cases of mange strolling past ones who were well-fed and outwardly perfectly healthy.

Spaying and neutering animals is not a typical practice in Peru, and I heard a story about one vet reluctantly neutering a cat because he thought he was taking away its manhood. I had to take this photo several feet away from the cat because I could tell she was on the alert for her babies, ones I can only hope will survive to be as old as she is with so many animals competing for too few resources.