Gigi Gets an Abortion

When I offered to give my cousin a ride this morning, I didn't know I was going to be party to an abortion. All I knew was that she needed to take her cat to the vet. For the most part, she manages pretty well without transportation, but hiking a mile with a sick cat in a carrier is tough.

Gigi wasn't sick, though. She was going in to be spayed. She'd already managed to get pregnant once while still practically a kitten, and her babies hadn't turned out too well. With a couple of unneutered males in the household, and an occasional foray outside, she was a reproductive bomb waiting to go off again.

We parked in the lot of the strip mall where the vet had his office. I wasn't even out of the car when I heard a thump and a scream. Apparently the door of the carrier hadn't been latched properly. Gigi was out and headed for the bushes before I had both feet on the asphalt.

For an hour, with the help of the nurse, a tempting bowl of cat food, a ladder, and a net, we chased Gigi in and out of the bushes till she trapped herself up a tree. My cousin had given up swearing for Lent...but it wasn't Lent anymore. In that hour, she more than made up for her last forty days of good behavior.

The nurse, who had outrun an escaped greyhound a couple of days previously, wasn't too fazed by Gigi. She managed to wedge her ladder into a dense stand of hemlocks and haul down the recalcitrant cat without losing her sense of humor. Into the carrier and into the vet's office went Gigi, followed by my cousin and me.

A few hours later, we were back to pick up the groggy patient. That's when I found out that she had not only been "fixed," but several unborn kittens had been destroyed in the process. An opening in the vet's schedule, enough money for the operation, and ride to the vet had all materialized at the same time, and my cousin was taking advantage of her opportunity. Only two litters too late.