Little White Dove Bobcat Crossed Rainbow Bridge

 

Despite having her leg in a cast, Dr. Wynn took her lunch break to come ease Little White Dove to the other side.  A couple weeks ago, when Little White Dove stopped eating we did diagnostics that found her 20 year old kidneys to be failing, but she had some bad molars that could have stopped her from eating too.  We opted to remove those and see if that was enough to get her going again.

 

It wasn’t. Painstakingly, her keepers begged her to eat and offered every variety of food from chopped to pureed to encourage her to eat, but she peaked at 6 oz in a day and declined from there.  For a cat who can eat a couple of pounds a day, this was not enough.

 

Keepers kept reporting how “sad” Running Bear was and every time I went by he seemed to be as close to his long time mate as he could be.  He knew she was leaving and he seemed to want every last moment to count.  I know he’s going to miss her now, but letting her go peacefully today was the kindest thing we could do.

 

Little White Dove had been born to Little Feather and The Great Pretender on 5/19/97 back before we learned that none of these cats could ever go free or ever serve any sort of conservation purpose.  Running Bear was born June 2, 1997 to Shiloh and Precious and because they were kittens at the same time, Running Bear and Little White Dove grew up together and stayed together all these 20 long years.

 

This came up today because while Kathryn, Dr. Wynn and I were crying over Little White Dove’s lifeless form, Kathryn asked if she had been bottle raised or momma raised.  Little White Dove was probably the most fierce cat on the property…if you were to believe the little fluff ball, so that’s probably why Kathryn asked.

 

Little Feather had allowed us to co-raise her kittens.  Little Feather did all the hard work, and we handled them every day.  In our ignorance we thought it was the best of both worlds, but any exotic cat who is actually raised by their own mom, no matter how “tame” or “sweet” their mom is to people, the wild cat moms instills in the cubs that they should never trust people.

 

This is a big part of why it’s so sad to see wild cats who were used as pay to play or photo props, because we know that they were torn from their moms early and never allowed to go back to her for the love and care that only their own mother can give.

 

Hi, I’m Carole Baskin and I’ve been writing my story since I was able to write, but when the media goes to share it, they only choose the parts that fit their idea of what will generate views.  These are my views and opinions. If I'm going to share my story, it should be the whole story.  The titles are the dates things happened. If you have any interest in who I really am please start at the beginning of this playlist: http://savethecats.org/

 

I know there will be people who take things out of context and try to use them to validate their own misconception, but you have access to the whole story.  My hope is that others will recognize themselves in my words and have the strength to do what is right for themselves and our shared planet.  

 

You can help feed the cats at no cost to you using Amazon Smile!

Visit BigCatRescue.org/Amazon-smile

 

You can see photos, videos and more, updated daily at BigCatRescue.org

 

Check out our main channel at YouTube.com/BigCatRescue

 

Music (if any) from Epidemic Sound (http://www.epidemicsound.com) This video is for entertainment purposes only and is my opinion.  Closing graphic with permission from https://youtu.be/F_AtgWMfwrk