Pregnant mama cat abandoned at the temple

While we do get frustrated with every new addition that we get at the temples and do find it very selfish and heartless when people do it, there is an instance what we find particularly awful and that is when a pregnant animal is dropped off to fend for itself in an unfamiliar environment.

When a cat is pregnant, their DNA kicks in and they spend a bunch of time looking for a safe-ish place that they are familiar with so that they can give birth in a place that they know a lot about including how to get in and out of tight places without being disturbed.

Now imagine that just before this event takes place that some jerk picks up this pregnant cat and then drops it off at a place that it has never been before.

This is exactly what happened recently at the Tiger Cave Temple and thankfully one of our more active monks noticed it right away. The mother cat was reluctant to allow him to create a little hidey-hole for her and her kittens that were yet to come, but with some perseverance he was able to convince the mother than she was safe here and eventually the cat allowed him to help out. Thankfully the birth went well and the mother cat stuck around afterwards.

This wonderful person, whose name I do not know but I treat with the utmost respect, already looks after 5 dogs and 7 cats, was happy to take on the selfless task of looking after a few more. He runs a zoo of sorts and does it for no pay and no accolades, just for the love of animals and because it is his duty to cause no harm and to protect as many creatures as he can. He is the living definition of what a monk should be. We love him.

his own living situation is very spartan, and he has almost no possessions. I believe this is required of monks but I am not going to pretend to be an expert about Buddhism because I am not. He sometimes gives some of his own food so that his babies can have enough to eat and when we found out about this we decided to step in and provide him with more because while it is certainly admirable that he is foregoing eating so that the animals can have food, that is not what we want to see.

We stepped in and gave some large bags of cat food as well as a giant plastic container to keep it in so we can make sure it keeps the rats out and also gave him some clean linens to make beds for his babies.

one thing that was really need about his porch is that cats and dogs just hang out there in harmony with no worries about one another. This just shows was a little love can do because cats and dogs unless they are born around one another, do tend to have a built in fear of the other.

We really appreciate this man and are going to make sure that he has the resources to make a good life for all of his babies even though he wasn't really in a position to take on 3 more, he did so without hesitation.

There truly are some angels out there, and he is one of them.