Compassion. It’s a word I’ve heard repeatedly in the last few days, but what does that truly mean?
Now put this all together: A feral street cat - used to living on rooftops in town. Used to fighting his way through life as a rule. No humans allowed to touch or care. Loss of a back leg and no guarantee of survival. No foster carers to be able to even try the hard rehabilitation process.
Then, a while later I came back to one thing; Compassion. I had others reassure me that doing what’s right is sometimes painful. Exceedingly painful. We’re so wrapped up in keeping animals alive for our own comfort in our own minds that we don’t mind them suffering. People keep the suffering going with the excuse that it’s the right thing, rather than standing up and making the right decisions to actually be kind and show that compassion. We try our absolute upmost to preserve life, sometimes we do not have a choice. Or if we did, it would be from pure selfishness and not for the actual welfare of the animal.
We had a situation recently, which to be fair if we’d been in Europe there wouldn’t really have been any issue. However, we’re in Egypt, when basically every cut, break, scar, rescue is a complete uphill battle against the world when it comes to street animals.
A feral street cat had broken it’s leg. This wasn’t any “to be adopted” type street cat, and this wasn’t any normal break… he’d basically sheered the back leg off in a car accident. The young male was petrified of everyone and everything. Dragging his leg across the floor in agony. It was heart breaking to see. My friend Sandra took him to BlueMoon in Hurghada with the hope of rescue. Within this period it became very apparent that he was past the point of being able to place him with humans. Rehabilitation for loss of a front leg is difficult, when it’s a back leg it’s even harder as cats use this for everything from balance and jumping to full on survival tactics in fights. It’s hard but possible when the animal is humanised. I had experience with my brother’s cat Moomin three years ago - it’s doable but it takes a very long time to heal and learn how to deal with it.
We took a good day to decide which way we could take this forward. Our trusted Vet was quite frank in saying that survival chances were minimal. We spoke to the local shop keepers who normally feed and care for the cats in the area (they were also the ones to first call us). All of them agreed that the boy could never be placed back into the town for fear of a worser fate.. he had nowhere to hide or be safe and that there was no way to get close to him. We checked with all of our experienced foster carers to find there was absolutely zero space. By now the boy had been in pain for well over a day, let alone the time he'd suffered before Sandra had managed to catch him.
Now put this all together: A feral street cat - used to living on rooftops in town. Used to fighting his way through life as a rule. No humans allowed to touch or care. Loss of a back leg and no guarantee of survival. No foster carers to be able to even try the hard rehabilitation process.
We didn’t want to play God. We never ever want to make those decisions. But sometimes, on the rare occasion we have to. That day we had to. Both Sandra and I cried. There’s something horrific in knowing you’ve made a choice you cannot go back on, we could not see a way forward. I question myself most days on whether I’m doing the right thing. I see death with animals on a regular basis via nature and it hurts every time. However, when you know it’s on your shoulders it never quite sits right.
I decided to put this story online on our Facebook Page; sometimes it is a good idea to show the rough with the smooth just to make people realise that it’s not a happy holiday here. Volunteering is hard and stressful.. and as you can tell by now, incredibly upsetting.
What I didn’t expect was for a few armchair warriors to come back and tell us that we’re murderers and very bad people. I was shocked. It completely floored me. “You wouldn’t do that to a child, so why would you do it to an animal?” “A broken leg is not enough to justify killing.” “You’re murderers to justify your own selfish needs” “You should have just left him for nature” were amongst the quotes.
Now I understand the cultural differences here. I’m not saying I’m holier than thou, but I’ve met many an Egyptian who do not believe in helping a hurt animal and to let nature take its course. I disagree, but I accept that this is another person’s opinion. However, the one thing I did take of note was that all of these comments came from people outside of Egypt!! We were being told that we were shameful animal welfare volunteers by people who probably haven’t lifted a finger for animal welfare themselves - let alone seen the conditions we work in. It's very easy to sit and form an uneducated opinion whilst sitting a few thousand miles away.
My first response was how dare they judge unless they’ve been in the same situation?! We have it lucky in our westernised, fair and privileged world. We do not have a street animal problem, or a lack of neutering initiatives. Sadly Egypt isn’t quite there yet.. not that I quite want Egypt to be anything like Europe, but it would be nice to see a difference in attitude towards animal welfare.
I spent all night crying, I was just so upset. I had my husband and my friends try and console me but I just couldn’t shake this sad and unjust feeling. I’m trying to do good deeds in a not such a good world.. and even then there are people ready to smack you down.
Then, a while later I came back to one thing; Compassion. I had others reassure me that doing what’s right is sometimes painful. Exceedingly painful. We’re so wrapped up in keeping animals alive for our own comfort in our own minds that we don’t mind them suffering. People keep the suffering going with the excuse that it’s the right thing, rather than standing up and making the right decisions to actually be kind and show that compassion. We try our absolute upmost to preserve life, sometimes we do not have a choice. Or if we did, it would be from pure selfishness and not for the actual welfare of the animal.
My Aunt told me that there are far worse things that death - and those who think differently have never been in that situation where life is a living hell. She also said that euthanasia could be viewed as the last and greatest gift we can give an animal. This advice comes from a wonderful woman who sadly had to watch her husband fade away without her being able to do anything. Wise words that hit me to the core.
I do agree that if this had been a completely different situation; his life would have probably been saved. However, we have to deal with the facts first hand, and first hand we were pulled one way only. We don’t have the luxury others do. There’s no friendly rescue down the road to help you pick up the overflow. There’s no government grants or random millionaires willing to spend a few thousand to ensure a humane way of life here. We scrounge and scratch away what we can to keep all of this going - and with the few volunteers that we have, we’re bloody lucky to be able to say we keep El Gouna standards going to a point with what we've got and it's not bloody easy.
So there you go. Compassion. You’ll have your own opinion to this blog, I’m sure. Don’t ever think I don’t second guess my decisions. Morality is a very difficult thought that I could spend hours wasting anxious thoughts over. I will go to bed again tonight worrying if I’ve done the right thing. But the one thing I do know is that that one boy is not laying there in agony anymore, and with that I can feel a little peace in the midst of upset.
