Did you know this is the first time I've lived alone? No, of course not, you never asked me. You wouldn't know that I've struggled from day one to provide for myself, or that I work 12 - 14 hour shifts at a low income job so I can give a good life to my cats. Maybe I can't afford fancy wet food each week like you suggested when you told me I was feeding them wrong; but I can provide them with healthy dry food and water and treats when I can, every morning and every night, so that they're healthy and well-fed. I can keep their litterbox clean and scooped, and I can give them cheap toys to play with, even if they'd rather play with the packaging they came in.
Did you know that I have severe depression and anxiety? No, you never thought a 27 year old could possibly be going through a rough time because her best friend in the world, her mother, died of cancer last year, and that she had to move to an entirely new place on her own, leaving her little brother in another state because that was what was best for him. Or that her older siblings moved across the country and her grandmother, one of the sole reasons for her happiness, is nearing her mid-eighties and that she's more fragile than ever. Or that her two cats might actually be unofficial therapy animals because they're not dogs. Maybe they aren't officially declared as such, but they keep me sane, and they keep me from drowning. Maybe my apartment isn't perfect; maybe there's too much clutter, maybe there's too many overflowing boxes that keep getting knocked over when the cats play, maybe it hasn't been vacuumed in a week because my vacuum is making a weird noise and I spent an hour trying to fix it to no avail and I can't afford a new one, so I have to wait and borrow one from a friend when she has the time to drop it off. Some weeks are harder than others; some weeks I slack in cleaning, and some weeks I excel in it. You just happened to be cat sitting for me in a stretch of time where I was constantly working and constantly depressed and cleaning was harder than normal.
Did you know that there is very little that I care for more in this world than my cats? These are the cats my mother adopted as kittens - Zorro, twelve years ago, and Weasley, four. These are the cats that I grew up with, that cherished my mother as much as I did, that grew up in a warm, loving, imperfect, messy family who struggled for years. These are the cats who lay beside my mother during her last days as she struggled to breathe and hold onto life when there was precious little life left inside of her. These are the cats that I held in my arms and cried onto when my mother died, the cats that knew I was devastated and heartbroken, who could sense my grief and who stayed with me during the hardest time of my entire life. These are the cats who I chose to come with me when I had to move, because I knew I couldn't live on my own without them, and they needed me as much as I needed them.
"I have four cats of my own," you said. "They are my world. Every client's animal is an animal in my heart when I take care of them."
If that were true, you wouldn't have jumped to conclusions. You would have listened to me when I told you at the start of you sitting for me that Weasley had had a bad reaction to a new collar, and that the vet had said it would be okay until I had a chance to take them in. You wouldn't have kept me in the dark about how my cats were doing; I didn't hear from you at all the entire time I was gone, and it took two tries at sending messages until you replied, and even then all you said was an implication that I was doing something wrong. You wouldn't have kept from me the fact that you talked to the inspectors at my apartment, or the fact that you told them things that were only half truths or not true at all.
If it were true that you keep all animals in your heart, then you wouldn't have reported me to the humane society. I wouldn't have had to open the door to a man who said "I'm here because of a report of animal cruelty and neglect." I wouldn't have had to stand there, terrified and humiliated and angry and upset while he checked my cats and my apartment, only to tell me that he could tell my cats were healthy and alert and that Weasley's neck condition was extremely mild and obviously from a bad reaction to a collar.
"Your sitter also said you were using a closet as a litterbox?" he asked me.
"No." Because what kind of half truth is that? "No," I told him, because it's the truth. "No, I have a closet I keep the litterbox in. It's lined with a tarp, and I set the litterbox in there because it's a good place. There's no room in my bathroom, so I keep it separate."
Except imagine that being said with a lot of stammering, crying, and mistakes because I'm standing here with a man who could take my cats away, because I'm standing here with a man who was told I was being cruel to my cats, by someone who thinks that I'm capable of that sort of cruelty.
"Oh," he said, nodding, "I get it. That's okay. There is a slight odor, but it's not overwhelming, you just got back from vacation, right? Just keep things tidy and we're all good, it's okay."
I wouldn't have had to wonder, petrified, if my cats were going to be taken away from me. I wouldn't have woken up with nightmares of them being gone, of being scared to leave my apartment because I'm terrified of coming back and finding out they've been taken away. You're a cat mom who loves her cats and does the best she can for them; how would you feel if someone who didn't know you or your life or anything about you told the humane society that you were abusing your cats? That your cats were obviously ill from neglect and therefore needed to be taken from you?
As I'm writing this, Weasley is lying next to me. He's afraid of thunderstorms, you know, and he doesn't want to sleep unless his head is on my hand and his paws are around my arm. Zorro is in his favorite spot, on the pillow above my head, because he likes to put his paw on my face to make sure I'm still there. Every time I come home, I'm greeted by happy, snuggling, meowing cats who like to sleep on my chest when I'm trying to draw, and who like to bat lollipops across the floor, because my grandmother always sends me the big round ones, and Weasley likes to pretend they're toys. He doesn't want to eat them, just chase them.
But you wouldn't know that. Because you just assumed you knew my life and that you knew better for my cats than me.
The next time you decide to report someone to the humane society for animal cruelty with no basis or basic understanding of their lives, maybe you should take a good, long look at whether or not you'd want someone doing that to you.
