To the person who dumped a litter of kittens at the top of our dirt road, just off a four lane highway

Dear Asshat:

Not sure when you did it, but when I went for my daily run on Friday the 13th we (me & the friend I was running with) found five (5) kittens.  Actually, they kind of found us; two of them ran into the street yowling & they all looked emaciated.  It took a while but we managed to catch 2 of them,  Actually at one point we had 4 of them but a car went by & spooked them; we all have scratches to prove just how spooked they were.

Those 2 kittens came home with me & spent most of the weekend hiding in the dense underbrush around my house.  They were frantic to rejoin the others but being over a mile away they could not hear them yowling back & also there was food at my house.  I saw 2 of the 3 kittens when I went back later that Friday & again when I ran on Saturday, but by Sunday they seemed to have disappeared.

On Sunday evening the kittens at my house moved into a tree at the front door & kept poor A awake for a good part of the night.  Monday morning A***** came by to run again; the kittens hanging in the tree crying for their siblings were hard to miss.  We went for our run & on the return trip, we heard them.  Just like before 2 of them came out to us but the last kitten hung back.  I didn't talk about this with A**** at the time but I knew we could not take the other 2 & leave just 1; it wouldn't survive the night.

I ran for the truck & the pet carrier & cat food while A***** managed to get all 3 of them to follow her almost 1/4 mile back towards my house & away from the highway.  By the time we caught all of them I was bleeding COPIOUSLY from several wounds on my right hand & I'm sure A***** had scratches too (I can also tell you she didn't smell all that good in the closed cab of the truck for the ride home; a 2 1/2 mile run + cat food being smeared all over her took a toll).  At the house, the 3 were reunited with the 2 & there has hardly been any noise since.  What they have been doing for the past 4 days is making up for lost time in the eating & sleeping department.  They also made a visit to a vet (very likely the step that made you decide they had to go because it costs money).  They were nice & calm & purred through most of the exam.

At this point, I realize you might be thinking this played out just fine for everyone: you didn't have to deal with them & still they are headed for good homes.  Think again.  Generally cats that draw blood & have no medical record are euthanized.  Immediately.  & the person who gets bit gets to go through the whole rabies vaccination thing.  It hurts.  Also it isn't free & even if it is covered by insurance there is a $120 co-pay (guess how I know this).  For $45, you could have had their mother spayed.

The euthanizing is merciful compared to the usual end for dumped animals; our vet calls them coyote snack packs.  Because ours is a neighborhood of family farms, it is a magnet for heartless slacker pet owners like you.  & because so many unwanted animals get dumped here, we have a higher than average coyote population harassing our livestock, killing chickens, turkeys, ducks, etc.

Believe it or not the story I related is the short version.  I did not tell you about the family that pulled over with their full horse trailer & tried to help to catch the kittens the first time, or the farmer that saw me when I went back Friday evening & left his work to make sure someone hadn't broken down, or the woman at the house we finally caught the kittens who is caring for her daughter-in-law's 3 dogs each of which was also dumped in their turn at the same intersection. 

As revolting as we all find you to be, it is nothing compared to our disgust at how stoopid you are.  We all presume you were just too cheap to deal with the kittens ethically.  As it happens, you unloaded them in a county with MULTIPLE agencies that would have inoculated them & placed them in foster homes at no charge to you. 

So you put a neighborhood to inconvenience & expense for quite literally no reason at all.  It is my fondest wish that some day, maybe when you are old & cannot care for yourself, that the people you always thought would help you instead heave you out of the back of a pick-up to die in a ditch by the side of the road.  I am only sorry it can only happen once.