The Informal Press

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We rented a Zipcar and there was excitement in the air. It was the first day of the Occupy Protests, so we planned a route around the inconvenience of political protesters. We wanted a kitten and we had to get to the other side of town.

Driving there, you could feel the energy of the city — a vast wasteland of consumptive wrappers tumbled like weeds through Yonge and Dundas square.

I dropped off the roommates at the Toronto Human Society. We decided that it was the best way to go, saving a kitten from a shelter and bringing her home into a new life, a better life, one where she could be and explore who she could become.

I remember getting our first family pet from the Toronto Humane Society. That was almost 23 years ago. At the time we lived in a cookie-cutter suburb in Brampton. We had spent a couple of trips looking at different dogs from the shelter, but one day was going to be the day. Before leaving, I decided to take a nap. I slept through the excursion but woke up with a new member of the family — a German Shepherd cross with Collie. We named him Buck.

Buck was a good dog, despite some bad habits. He liked to get into the garbage and we had to crate him for the first few months. He was fascinated with boys with backpacks and terrified of baseballs and loud noises. I wish I could have asked him what his life was like before he came into our lives. Instead, we took him for walks and sometimes hitched him to a sled in the winter to pull us kids through the park. Wherever we moved, he came with us. He was our little brother and we talked about him like that. I’m sure the regular people thought we were crazy and I never corrected them.

He was a sweet creature. I remember finding him in the backyard once, just licking his paws. I did not know what he was doing, so I walked up to him and saw that he had a dying baby bird resting on his feet. I don’t know where he found this tiny baby bird, but he was trying to take care of it, trying to make it better. I sat there with him until the baby bird no longer opened its mouth gasping for air. It passed away.

Buck lived until he was 16 years old. He had a good life of love and affection. He had a long life filled with excitement and chasing — never killing — the little animals around on a farm. For a long time, I advocated the Toronto Humane Society as a place to find the best pets. It was one of the reasons we chose the THS to get our kitten.

The kitten had character. She had a look on her face of apathetic wonder. I would get home from work and find her weaving in and out of my feet, following me up the stairs to my room and patiently wait while she terrorized my bags of paper under my desk. Sometimes, I would have to fuse out, tell her to go play with her mom or dad and close the door while I napped.

The kitten — Oryx — was only 2 months old when the THS decided to spay and vaccinate her. Having been new to kittenhood, we had no idea that the minimum age should have been 6 months. We also did not know that as a result of malpractice, Oryx’s system was sent into shock. Within a couple of months, the stress of the procedures had given her a congenital virus, her kidneys were enlarged and her entire system was riddled with tumors. All the vets kept giving her deadlines, but her mom and dad wanted to try everything to help save her. They took her to a holistic vet who told them that her condition probably could have been prevented if she was old enough to get spayed and if the vaccinations were administered properly. He also informed them that she was brain-damaged as a result of the vaccinations. For 30 years of holisitic practice, he saw brain damaged kittens far too many times to just dismiss the idea that the vaccinations are lobotomizing the animals.

For a couple of months, Oryx’s parents had to help her to the bathroom, help her to the bathroom, feed her on a schedule of droppers of a high-protein, low potassium diet. They had to watch her every move with caution and care. On her last night, they had to watch her twist in pain and they did it with grace and laughter. I watched all of this happen with a sadness in my gut and a frustration in m heart knowing it did not have to be this way.

I do not write this as a manifesto against mainstream medicine. I do not write this as a revolt against the THS. I do not write this out of anger against the feeling that my friends were robbed of a life that they hoped to make a part of theirs. I write this as a human being who saw and experienced a form of unjust malpractice. I write this because for some time, I thought I was going crazy to think that conventions were weakening and slightly backwards ways of thinking. I write this for the bigger picture, the larger challenge at hand.

Research has been done to question modern approached — conventions, prejudices, even — to the way we live. We used to talk about these things in bars and at home, but I have noticed that people have stopped talking about it. How we live our day to day exponentially impacts how we live tomorrow. Consciousness is more than just reading the materials, it’s gaining critical thought processes.

It is not the only conversation that we need, but it is still one that should grace our day at least once. When it comes down to a new thought or idea, something that has never been tried or discussed before, closing the door on it means you have achieved your comforts and wish nothing more. That is the point in one’s life when one wills the spirit to die.

This isn’t just about Oryx, the kitten. Yes, it is a Global Issue that has happened on a personal level. It was a wake-up call, ding-a-ling, to the bigger picture of social, political, economic, and professional irresponsibility. Life is not cruel, nasty, brutish and short unless it is imposed upon  us in some way. The people we are supposed to trust the most — be it a vet who acts consciously for the good of an animal or a government who is supposed to act for the good of the people — seem to be failing us. We have become overworked and under slept as a result of irresponsible decision-making.
There is something wrong with the system. “Down here”, we are struggling to keep those we love living while others enjoy the decadence of our labour. It is not a greedy thing, it is an injustice. Still, we are too afraid to demand our rights to the available information and options. We are written a prescription with proper dosage and told to find contentment in it all. We are being robbed and it feels violating.

To take the human out of humanity turns the concept into something so itty bitty, much lower than we give ourselves credit for.

All of this may sound crazy but the reality is that I don’t care what it sounds like anymore. The reality has Babe Ruth-ed our home and silence would be inhumane to personal morality. So I will write it loud and clear,

The machine fails to recognize that we are not mechanical parts to its perfect wheel: We have hearts that beat and break.

The phenomenon used in psychological Shock Therapy: to reintroduce a comfortable standard of living through backwards political implementations, or at least according to Naomi Klein.

It’s something to think about, as we close 2011, the year of perpetual awakening — being shocked, being appalled. Even as we usher in a new year, don’t give up questioning new paradigms of thought or political institutions.

This is not the 60′s anymore. We say we want an evolution.

To build something new.

See you soon.