Kittens trashed

By Melissa Donchi
SEVEN kittens have been dumped on a Healesville kerbside hard waste rubbish heap and left to die.
The seven kittens were locked inside a tiny cat carry box without food or water and would have been collected as trash if it hadn’t been for an observant passer-by who collected them and delivered them to the nearby Animal Aid in Coldstream.
It is the fifth case of animal dumping in just one week and Animal Aid staff are at their wits’ end.
“It never ceases to amaze me how uncaring people can be,” Animal Aid Cattery manager Lynne Bell said.
“I don’t know how they can sleep at night, I know I don’t.”
In Croydon two mother cats and their five kittens were actually dumped inside a garbage bin.
Staff from the Maroondah Vet Clinic were amazed to find the cats alive after they were packed away in two neatly taped beer boxes and hidden deep inside the rubbish bin.
In Powelltown four kittens were placed in a box and abandoned in the bush with no food or water. A Jack Russell puppy was also left in a box at the Animal Aid front door.
Animal Aid receives more than 250 dogs and 100 cats and kittens each month and is struggling to find committed owners for them.
“Sadly, people want animals that are cute and small and as soon as they get too big they are discarded like yesterday’s newspaper,” Animal Aid’s Debra Boland said.
“It’s sad for us but it’s just completely unfair for them to be bought and then discarded on a whim.”
Animal Aid encourages people to think carefully before they purchase a pet, taking into account their home and lifestyle.
“It would solve a lot of problems if people thought about how big their pet will grow, how much space it will have in the house and how much time they’d be able to spend with it,” Ms Boland said.
“It would also help if they desexed their pets and microchipped them so if they do go missing we can return them.”
Ms Boland said it was important for people to realise there was more to owning a pet than simply possessing it.
“We would prefer that people had the courage to at least bring their pets to the shelter and not treat them like garbage,” she said.
Animal Aid is committed to raising awareness about the positive treatment of animals.
Call 9739 0300 or visit www.animalaid.com.au for more information.