Frankie the cat is pregnant, and I blame Fauci.
Frankie turned up on our doorstep nearly a year ago. There are a lot of stray cats here in Jerusalem, most of which are pretty well fed and sleek looking thanks to the city authorities and cat lovers putting out cat food all ‘round town, so I had made it a policy not to feed the strays, or the garden would soon be overrun. But then this ragged white creature ran by the door.
As you can see from the picture, she was in a pretty sorry state. Her fur was dirty and coarse, her eyes were sunken due to malnutrition and dehydration. That dot above her right eye is a tick that had latched on. So we started putting a bit of food and water out for her. Judging by her size, I think she was about three months old at the time.
Within a few weeks she’d grown much sleeker and fuller. She gained a bit of energy and started chasing lizards around the garden for the fun of it. And she’d let us scratch her chin every now and then. She also had a thing for Josh’s boots.
By the time we moved into our current apartment in October she’d turned into quite the domesticated cat. At that point she was still very much an outdoor cat, but we didn’t want to leave her behind so we borrowed a cat carrier, brought her with us and let her finally move indoors.
So, without meaning to, we’d adopted ourselves a pet cat. By now she was coming up on her first birthday, and I knew we’d have to get around to getting her spayed if we didn’t want dozens of kittens. As I mentioned earlier, there are a lot of strays around town, and although the authorities do their best to capture and spay or neuter as many as they can, they don’t get them all.
But there was a problem. I started to ask myself: is it really so good for her to be spayed?
Frankie is not my first cat. My first was a Siamese named Pandora whom we adopted from a friend who was allergic to her when I was ten years old. Pandy was more like a dog than a cat - she’d drape herself around our shoulders and be carried around like a very luxurious wrap; when I got home from school, she’d be at the front door waiting to greet me.
Pandy died when she was seven years old from breast cancer, but the house was never the same without a cat. After her came Kitty, Ahzrei, Io & Calisto, Koshka & Matroshka, Suki… some of them adopted, some bought as kittens, all girls, all spayed either by their previous owners or myself as adolescents without a second thought. All de-flea’d with chemicals that soak through the skin. All fed on standard cat food, which is mostly wheat, rice and potatoes with some chicken or beef flavoring thrown in.
But the last two years have reshaped my thinking. Two years of hearing “Trust the science, trust the science, trust the science” while seeing ‘The Science’ be manipulated, corrupted, and eventually fail set me asking myself: Do I trust the science? Should I?
As I looked at Frankie, now a happy, content adult cat coming up on her first birthday it occurred to me that perhaps tying up her ovaries wasn’t the best thing for her, scientifically speaking. Who knows what hormonal imbalance that creates? Who knows whether it’s really good for them. It’s certainly not what nature intended. Vets will tell you that spaying prevents certain cancers, but doctors will tell you that vaccinating kids with an untested substance will save humanity, so how can we really be sure?
So there I was, pondering these questions, and before I knew it Frankie was in heat and had dashed straight out the window to party with the boys, who were more than happy to court her.
Here she is today. She’s getting quite round in the middle, not that you can tell from the picture, so yeah, kittens: incoming, thanks to Fauci and his ilk.
There is an addendum to this sorry tale.
When I realised she was pregnant I stopped putting flea drops on Frankie. Those chemicals do soak into the bloodstream, and that same mistrust of The Science that got her pregnant in the first place has also made me leery of chemical compounds that might harm her kittens, either in utero or through her milk.
Instead I bought some diatomaceous earth, a natural substance that can be used as a flea powder and wormer, and used that. But about a week ago she came home with chunks of fur missing. At first I thought she might have been in a fight with another cat, but having inspected the gaps closer, I think she’s been overgrooming. I suspect the diatomaceous earth has made her itchy. Also the fleas are back.
Not quite sure what to do about this, today I googled ‘flea drops on pregnant cats’ to discover that my concerns were justified - most standard practice vets advise not giving flea or worming treatments while pregnant as it may effect the pregnancy. But having patches of fur missing, and fleas on the kittens isn’t an option either.
I turned to a local Jerusalem Facebook group for help. It’s one of those community groups where you can find out where the best humous in town is, or what’s on at the local nightspots on any given day.
I posted just nine words: “Does anyone know of a holistic vet in Jerusalem?” That was it. No information about Frankie or why I wanted a vet in the first place.
My goodness, was the word ‘holistic’ triggering.
“Just use medicine.”
“Is your pet de-sexed? It should be.” (‘De-sexed’? What a creepy term.)
“Please spay and vaccinate your pets.”
In other words: “Trust the science” “What are you, some sort of science denier?” “Why wont’ you vaccinate?”
“Vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate!” “Wear a mask! Protect yourself and others! Spay your pets, you irresponsible degenerate!”
“Distrust nature! Natural immunity is a myth!” “Do as we say!”
“Personal choice? What’s that?”
“You answer to us now.”