Trainwreck sister

[gottawonder]

My trainwreck sister and I have been talking a lot lately. She lost her partner recently, and she has a lot of big challenges ahead of her. She's not working, and has no means of support. She is left with the trailer they lived in, and a gigantic mechanic's shop full of stuff, in the middle of a literal ghost town in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

My sister has addiction problems. She's a heavy drinker and heavy smoker, and she eats pain killers like candy. She has a terrible cough that won't go away. She's developing micro fractures in her vertebrae. She's always been a hoarder. She's sometimes an animal hoarder.

She can be a good person to talk to at times. She's funny. She's really helpful to my other sister who needs help cleaning her house, and to our Mom.

So, for a long time she decided not to have animals, because things went VERY wrong where she lived on an acreage. She got way too many animals, and was heart broken when she and her now deceased partner were evicted and most of those animals had to be put down or sent to auction because she had nowhere to take them, and I think her partner said he wasn't taking them with them. She was not outright abusive to those animals, but very irresponsible. She bred horses with no real plan for them, didn't work with the colts, and many of them ended up at auction, likely for meat. She "accidentally on purpose" let her dogs get pregnant. You know, how inside she loved new puppies and wanted to have them even though she knew she shouldn't. The same way she kept getting pregnant (three kids by all different fathers). She ended up with 11 dogs, all chained up outside with steel oil barrels for shelter. One had an old car hood. These were greyhound cross dogs, and lean and short haired. She left them outside in the cold in -30 C in unheated shelters. Imagine living on a chain with short hair and no body fat, with a cold metal barrel and some straw to sleep on.

Most of the animals didn't get vet care if they needed it. The horses didn't get their feet done, likely didn't even get dewormed. The dogs didn't get fixed, she just relied on chaining them up to keep them from breeding.

She gets cats, and then remembers how much she hates cats. She hates changing litter. She hates them being on the cupboards. She hates them making noise to get fed. She doesn't get them fixed and then hates them for having kittens or peeing on everything because they're tom cats. She gets angry at them for basically being cats. Then she kicks them outside and they get to be barn cats, but barn cats don't live long.

I doubt that I could get her charged for animal neglect or cruelty, because if they have food and water, that's all that is covered by law. I guess if they had untreated wounds or were emaciated, maybe. It's not yet illegal to have animals chained up, or to leave them without adequate shelter in the winter.

I've had to watch over and over and over her getting an animal, and mistreating it, and then hating it, or it dies because of whatever neglect.

So, after not having animals for nearly ten years, she gets kittens. They were ferals, born under her trailer. They shot the mother (of course!) because she was wild, and took the kittens. Now they are maturing, and the female is in heat, and lives in the house with her intact male brother. The only reason why she still has them is because her partner died, and he was the one telling her no more animals. She's so broke she doesn't even have money for cat food, and feeds them human food leftovers. She was telling me about feeding them a can of beans.

Today, she tells me she wants to get "a great big dog", because she's getting worried about raccoons in her yard (who are likely attracted to the garbage in her yard. You can't tell me she's not just piling up her garbage, because she has to take it to the dump herself. She likely piles it up in the yard, because it's a ghost town and no one cares, and there's no bylaw enforcement). She tells me she's going to get a great big dog and chain it up outside to keep away raccoons.

I told her that chaining up a dog was cruel, and she was all "What are you saying? That's insane! There's nothing wrong with chaining a dog! Don't you remember, I had all my dogs on chains at the farm, they loved it because they could be outside!" I told her that indeed, I did remember her chaining up all her dogs. She said "they all got off the chains for at least an hour every day, in pairs". Right, so all day long she took two dogs off the chain, then put them back, took two more off the chain, put them back... this is a woman who can't be bothered to put on real clothes. You think I believe that she was ever that organized? It would mean doing that for five or six hours every day. Bullshit. Yes, sometimes one or two of the dogs would be off the chain. I know there were one or two that never got off, because they didn't come to her to go back on (imagine that!). Likely they got off the chain for an hour once or twice a week. Maybe, if the weather was nice and she was home during the day.

I told her that people often had fenced yards for their dogs, as it was less likely to drive them insane. Well, you'd think I had suggested that the moon was made out of cheese, how absurd! Or, imagine a world where some people trained their dogs to come back when you called them! Or not leaving them outside unattended, but house training them and bringing them inside with you, and walking them on a leash if you think they'll run away! Crazy talk!

So, she can't afford to buy cat food for two little cats, or to get them neutered, but she wants a "great big dog". I'm sure it will also not be neutered, and god only knows what she'll feed it. Scavenged road kill? Potatoes? Freezer burned chicken? Bacon grease? Bread she gets out of a dumpster? Leftover spaghetti?

She's also talking about moving to town if she can. So what happens to this dog when she does? She won't be able to buy a house likely. She'll end up renting. Will she be able to bring a big dog and two cats that aren't neutered? I guess she'll just worry about that later! Surely someone would just give a giant, untrained, not-neutered, un-housebroken dog that's been on a chain for a while a good home!

I get to watch her abuse some more animals, and I can't do a damn thing to stop her.