I live with my grandmother, and we have two pets on our property:
A cat, Mewtwo (15? Male, neutered) who used to be a neighbor's until they moved away and them them behind several years ago
And a dog, Scout (black-mouth curr I think, female and spayed, maybe 4-6 years old? I'm not sure) that my dad bought before moving to another city and leaving her with us 4 years ago.
Mewtwo has been attacked by a stray cat consistently for several months (a third or so of his right ear is missing), and Scout has been on a chain in some way or form, since 2016/2017.
I've asked repeatedly, continually, to let me bring Mewtwo inside and take proper care of him, and give Scout to someone else who will take better care of her than we can, and I've been denied each and every time, for 4 years.
We're working to treat Mewtwo's ear injury, but so long as the stray cat keeps coming back (and I've only even seen it twice), the injury will just resurface. My grandmother has continually insisted that she can't have a cat in the house, because he will pee and scratch everywhere, and "he's been fine outside for years". So instead, we're talking about more-or-less shutting Mewtwo into a cluttered shed with food, water, a cardboard box with paper shavings as a litter box, and a box with straw as a bed.
On the other hand, my grandmother insists Scout is my aunt's responsibility, and thus we cannot give her away. My aunt has spoken about getting Scout an electric collar with some sort of invisible radius, "once she had the money", but those are likely very expensive and only sidestep the problem.
I've expressed my frustrations to my grandmother and attempted to voice them to my aunt, but she is fairly high-strung at the best of times, and this pandemic is not one of those. So basically, I've gotten nowhere in 4 years.
I suggested taking Mewtwo to the vet, and was met with a general "That could be more than $100" while he has a third of his ear missing. Not to mention - we just recently buried another pet cat after he deteriorated with age and no veterinary care.
I thought about bringing them to our local humane society/shelter, to at least give them a chance of adoption by people who are better able to take proper loving care of them, but without really knowing whether they'd hold them until adoption or euthanize them...I'd rather not risk that until I'm certain there's no other possibilities for improvement.
But shutting our elderly cat into a cluttered, parts-filled shed, and keeping our dog on a chain and in a "moral no-man's-land" regarding whose responsibility she is....This isn't right. And it makes me furious that I can't really do anything myself, and makes me think a bit less of the people around me continuing this "out of sight out of mind" mentality.
I live in Southwestern Georgia in the US, so I'd like to seek advice or assistance; If it comes to it, even direct intervention by someone looking to adopt one or the other. This feels like animal neglect, because all I can really do is feed and water them day after day.
Apologies for the long post - It's been a long-standing issue, so there's a lot going on. If I need to post this on a different subreddit, kindly let me know - there's a lot of different ones, and I wasn't sure where this issue fit.
Thank you so much.
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/ghe0qk/looking_for_advice_or_direct/
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