Hi, I'm not sure which forum category this thread fits into, so I'm just posting this here.
You may have followed my journey with my beloved moggy Oxley last year. He was my everything, there was nothing I wouldn't do for him, we were best friends and he helped me through so many tough times in my life. He passed away in October last year. There isn't a day that goes by without me thinking of him.
He came into my life as a stray. We became fast friends and he had a collar on. There was a phone number on the collar and we called the number, which turned out to be a neighbour (who has since become a very good friend) who fed stray cats on a daily basis. She put a collar on him so he wouldn't be caught by the AVA and culled. She'd been feeding him for 2-3 years, so he'd been wandering the streets for at least that amount of time. She once saw him on an expat's lap, and she thought he was his owner or at least taking care of him, but a while later, you could see that the expat had moved out and he was on the
streets again. His ear was tattooed and when we took him to the vet, we found that he had been microchipped. I entered the microchip number into the local pet registration websites but came up with nothing (in Singapore, it's compulsory for dog owners to register their pet dogs but not pet cats). I also looked through local missing pets websites. My neighbour had never seen any missing cat posters around the area. By then both Oxley and I were so happy with each other, and I knew he'd decided that this was for his forever home.
However, after his passing, I can't but help feel guilty that I didn't put up flyers announcing that he had been found. What if he had an owner who had been searching for him? What if I had no right to give Oxley a forever home? I know I can't do anything about it now, but the question haunts me. He gave me so much joy and I'm beating myself up thinking maybe I had no right to him in the first place.
You may have followed my journey with my beloved moggy Oxley last year. He was my everything, there was nothing I wouldn't do for him, we were best friends and he helped me through so many tough times in my life. He passed away in October last year. There isn't a day that goes by without me thinking of him.
He came into my life as a stray. We became fast friends and he had a collar on. There was a phone number on the collar and we called the number, which turned out to be a neighbour (who has since become a very good friend) who fed stray cats on a daily basis. She put a collar on him so he wouldn't be caught by the AVA and culled. She'd been feeding him for 2-3 years, so he'd been wandering the streets for at least that amount of time. She once saw him on an expat's lap, and she thought he was his owner or at least taking care of him, but a while later, you could see that the expat had moved out and he was on the
streets again. His ear was tattooed and when we took him to the vet, we found that he had been microchipped. I entered the microchip number into the local pet registration websites but came up with nothing (in Singapore, it's compulsory for dog owners to register their pet dogs but not pet cats). I also looked through local missing pets websites. My neighbour had never seen any missing cat posters around the area. By then both Oxley and I were so happy with each other, and I knew he'd decided that this was for his forever home.
However, after his passing, I can't but help feel guilty that I didn't put up flyers announcing that he had been found. What if he had an owner who had been searching for him? What if I had no right to give Oxley a forever home? I know I can't do anything about it now, but the question haunts me. He gave me so much joy and I'm beating myself up thinking maybe I had no right to him in the first place.
