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Pastimes : Ask God -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Charliss who wrote (13441)	4/6/1998 6:55:00 PM
From: Grainne	Respond to of 39621

Charliss, I am so happy that you brought up the subject of animals. Yesterday I went with my family to the local animal shelter for a session on how to take care of tiny kittens who have been abandoned by their mother for some reason, or the mother has died. Our shelter has a program where foster parents agree to take these kittens home with them, and care for them and socialize them until they are two months old. Then they are returned to the animal shelter so that others can adopt them. Well, it is quite an intensive process to take care of a newborn kitten on its own. The foster parent has to feed them from a tiny bottle every two hours for three weeks around the clock, including waking up every two hours during the night. Gradually the feedings are reduced to every three or four hours. There is not a sight any more adorable than that of a little kitten sucking on a bottle--they like to hold the bottles with their front paws while they eat (and each kitten in the litter has only one way it likes to be held, and the angle of the bottle must be exactly right. Kittens are such individuals!) Many of these kittens die--it is called fading kitten syndrome. Obviously, the foster parents become very attached, and feel real sadness when this happens, even though they did nothing wrong, often rushing the kittens to the emergency animal hospital in the middle of the night. Kittens are not able to urinate or defecate on their own, either. The mother usually licks their genital area to stimulate them. So the foster parents use gauze soaked in warm water to do this, after every feeding. The kittens often get upper respiratory infections, requiring regular oral medication, and eye ointment. All in all, taking care of one of these kittens is a full-time job for anyone who volunteers. Interestingly enough, of all the people who came to the meeting, there were two heterosexual families, two lesbian couples, and four single women, who may have been heterosexual or homosexual. Since I live in San Francisco, many of the volunteers at the animal shelter--foster parents and those who come in on a regular basis to play with and comfort the pets who are up for adoption--are homosexual women and men. We are blessed in San Francisco because there are many animal lovers and animal rights activists here. The policy of the shelter is to make sure that every animal in San Francisco is well cared for, and that no animal that is lost or abandoned is ever put to sleep. Homes are found for all of them, and we have an outreach program very similar to the one you describe, where AIDS patients and other ill people have their own animals cared for, or are provided with companion animals by the shelter if they would like that. What is particularly amazing about all of this is that San Francisco has a huge population of homosexual men and women. It seems to me that if these people were horrible sinners, or of Satan, they would be far too busy being evil to commit the amount of time that is required to nurture sick and lost animals. But instead, they lead the way!! Another example of how sexual identity is not a reflection of character, and how much homosexuals revere life in all its forms.