On Sunday, our part of the world was treated to something that we've come to expect at least once a winter - a day of extreme windchill. Though the temperature was around -25C (somewhat balmy for this time of year, don't you think?) with a nasty wind from the north (and every other direction, it seemed at times), it was more around -42C. Environment Canada was saying that frostbite could occur in less than 10 minutes.
That day, as I bundled up just to drive across Humboldt to the rink, I thanked my lucky stars that I didn't have to stay outside in that. Nothing and no one deserved to be out in cold that biting.
And yet, some don't have a choice.
There are homeless people who need a warm place to be, out of the cold. I pray that they found themselves a hearth to warm themselves at.
And there are homeless animals, some tossed out of toasty homes by people who no longer wanted them, others born strays, who have spent their short lives scrounging for food and places to sleep. My heart goes out to these poor defenceless animals, and I pray they find a place where they can endure the cold.
There seems to be a wealth of strays around Humboldt this year. Luckily, many are being picked up and cared for by the animal lovers in the community. Some of the rescued animals have found their way to the animal shelter in Humboldt, to await adoption. And when the shelter is full, kindhearted people care for these strays in their own homes until there is room for them at the inn.
The number of people in the community who open their hearts to strays always amazes me. Just as the number of people who carelessly toss animals out into the cold constantly disgusts me.
It takes a person with a distinct lack of compassion to look at a freezing animal and condemn it to death by leaving it outside. It takes a person with a heart even smaller than that of the Grinch's to take an animal out to a deserted road and leave it there, to forge its own way, because they can't be bothered to care for it anymore.
I know plenty of people who claim not to like cats who build elaborate, heated shelters for them, and go out of their way to ensure they are healthy and fed. These are not the people who are abandoning boxes of kittens in the ditch.
Yet people do it. I know the stories.
Mugga, as she was dubbed, is a Terrier-Border Collie cross of some kind. She showed up at a farm one day, dirty, skinny and starving. The family fed her, loved her, and tried to find her owners. None turned up. She's been on that farm ever since. She still has tendencies left over from her time before, though. She's been known to dig up lily bulbs and eat them, and tends to duck if a hand is raised too quickly.
Moon, as he was later named, was found being tormented by dogs in a farmyard one fall. A visitor noticed the tiny white kitten with one blue eye and one green, and asked the farmer if he would be okay. Hearing that the farmer expected the animal not to survive, he was scooped up and taken to the visitor's home, where he remains today, not a lot bigger, but about eight years older.
Olive, as she was eventually called, was found on the side of the road, alone in the rain, abandoned, when she was just a kitten. The little black and white cat was rescued by two kind passersby and presented to a noted cat lover for his birthday. She is now fat and healthy, but still hates the cold.
Phyllis, a tortoiseshell cat, was found wandering around a neighborhood in Humboldt. Obviously someone's house cat at one time, she was taken to the vet's office (there was no animal shelter at the time) and posters were put up, in an effort to find her owner. No former owner turned up before her three days at the clinic were nearly up, but a new one did. She now spends every night in a warm house, watching the world go by out the window.
And now we come to Licorice. This fluffy black cat was found on someone's deck the day before the cold hit this weekend. Skinny, but friendly, he found a warm place to sleep in the nick of time.
It's sad, at this time of relative wealth in our country, that animals are being treated this way.
It needs to stop. They need to be brought in from the cold. We need to share the warmth.
