My heart breaks for you -- and honestly, altho this is VERY difficult and absolutely shattering for you - if you try and continue to work your own way through it, I think you will find not only that you get 'past' this but also that you will arrive at a better relationship with animals generally.
I say this from the deepest personal experience -- I tend to bond extremely closely with my dogs, and unfortunately FOR ME (and again, I'm emphasizing this is my own *personal* experience -- absolutely no criticism of you intended in any way) - that bonding tends to elevate the dogs to a position of near humanity for me.
But you know what? That's NOT good -- because a dog IS ... absolutely, positively IS IS IS IS IS ***IS*** a dog.
Do I say that to then say "so a dog isn't worth as much as a human" No.
Do I say that to then say "So I'm not going to spend extra money on them but rather spend it on the humans because they are JUST dogs" NO.
I say that for one reason, and one reason only .... It is actually unfair to them to forget that they ARE dogs.
They have sometimes very different health issues. Can I treat a dog like a dog? No. Billy has to have Atopica (a dog brand of cyclosporine) because the human version DOES NOT WORK WELL for ***dogs***. It's every bit as expensive ... in fact, the dog stuff is a bit more. But it is ... somehow (and they don't really even know HOW other than how it absorbs into the body) different.
Different. Not bad, worse, better or any other adjective. **Different**.
They DO think different. They are a different species. Even different breeds think differerent.
But when I consider them 'human' or 'almost human' I realized although I may be trying to bond more closely with them, or take better care of them ... there's a line there I have to be careful of. Because there comes a point where I absolutely, positively, MUST accept (and lordy, this IS tough) that they are d-o-g-s. Not human.
I'll sleep with my dog. Give my dog my spoon. Give my dog my last dollar. Just this morning I wrote checks to the tune of over $900 for kennelling and blood tests and Atopica -- kennelling for two for a week was almost $300, kennelling for Billy (in my vet's HOME because of his special needs) was $140 plus tests I had them run. So don't think I'm being cheap.
My personal experience came about 2 years ago -- my old guy, who ADORED me, was simply being hard to get along with. I was in the bathroom and I picked him up because he was getting freakish about settling down. I was simply moving him out of a situation and getting his attention.
But this was a dog who occasionally could feel 'trapped' and he would literally turn wild. It had been YEARS since he'd exhibited this. I picked him up and moved him and in a blink of an eye he felt cornered and turned on me. He nailed me right in the face, tore my nostril open and went thru my lip and tore that -- all in blink.
Mad? You better know I was. He was being a putz to begin with, but he got mad and I was mad and I got the worst of it. He lashed out literally in response to an old emotional 'wound' and it was over in a blink of an eye.
But honestly I was mad. He knew better -- he knew better than to be balky at what I had asked him to do. I hadn't seen this kind of 'temper' from him in years.
And flatly? HE HURT ME. He left two really sizeable scars on my face and he left me emotionally battered at a time when I was already having a hard time.
Part of that is the key -- I wasn't thinking and neither was he. By all rights he shouldn't have nailed me ... BUT ... I forgot for a split second that he's a dog ... and not only that he was a dog with a 'history'. I punched all HIS dog buttons and I got bit, and bit hard. Yes, it drew blood -- it was a nasty bite. But it was 100000000% MY FAULT.
I knew all that in my head. I KNEW I was a fault. I KNEW he didn't 'mean' to bite me. But you know what?
I could NOT forgive him. I didn't want to touch him, I didn't want to feed him, I didn't want to be around him. Not just for a day -- but for a LOT of days. It took me months to get my love back for him.
It was actually completely MY fault. But I felt so shattered and so betrayed -- my emotions were all out a whack and I KNEW it.
But now as I look back on it it reinforces to me -- a dog thinks different. And we do them a complete disservice if we forget that. When we think "Oh my dog wouldn't do that -- he's a nice dog and wouldn't hurt anything" -- we're being dumb. We're doing them an enormous disservice because we are taking their own species=specific personality away from them. We're saying 'No, I love you so you can't be 'you' any more -- you have to be a person in fur'.
That's just plain wrong. We have to love them for what they truly ARE. We have to back up to that point where we say "*I* did something stupid. I cornered Foxy when he was emotionally fragile and *I* was emotionally fragile and I pushed HIM too far -- and then, to compound stupidity -- *I* felt betrayed simply because he WAS a dog. I'm the one who punched HIS buttons and then I held it against him when he reacted exactly like a dog should have.
I *think* you will find if you go back and truly examine what you could have done to have 'prevented' the situation -- you will find it will change things minorly. Enough so that you can forgive yourself and THEN forgive them.
When we leave them loose -- maybe they do have more fun. BUT we also set them up to act in a manner according to their nature ... and just *maybe* WE can't handle the repercussions of that. Because either they will get into something, dig/destroy something, or hurt a creature (or get hurt themselves) simply because a dog is gonna do a doggie thing. Put him in a situation where the odds are stacked against him -- and he's gonna do that inate thing.
Maybe they killed the kitten -- and maybe they didn't. If a CAT kills an animal it will bring it home proudly as a trophy. A dog usually won't. The dog may actually have found the kitten injured -- and was trying to find you. I have a feeling another predator killed the kitten and may actually have come back and gotten it.
IF it is dead at all. A feral cat will revert to being feral in a heartbeat -- and yeah, maybe there was some chasing going on -- and maybe the cat ran away. But usually? A feral cat will fight a dog and since YOU found no scratches ... on either dog ... I'd tend to think there wasn't a fight.
If a dog killed an animal, it would likely fight another predator who tried to 'take' it. So I have a feeling you'd have found the kitten.
Unfortunately, in your grief you've found an easy target, and I'm not convinced it's what it may look like. Another thought that occurs to me is that your neighbor probably doesn't like cats -- "bagged" isn't a word *I* would use to tell a neighbor something like that. I'm not sure I'd believe that story as it came out.
I honestly think there's lots of room for doubt here, along with a healthy dose of "I'll never put my dogs in THAT position again".
I had to learn the hard way -- and yeah, maybe I'm over-cautious when I leave my dogs because I don't leave them room TO get in trouble. Maybe they don't have as much 'fun' -- but by golly, I want to come home and find them in one piece and I want to be 'glad' to see them, I don't want any reunion tainted by "what'd you do THAT for!!!" screams.
Yes, it's possible they did an awful thing -- but it's awful to US. To them it would be instinctive and inate.
YOU simply need a lot of time. time to heal and time to deal ... time to think your own way through it and come to some conclusions. Time to examine other areas of your life and figure out if you need to change some small things. Time to even examine how you react to others who turn in animals.
Compassion is sometimes easier to have for animals than for other humans or for ourselves. It's SO easy to say "no, I'd never do that". But bottom line -- I don't care whether it's a human or an animal -- if you put ANY being in a no-win situation, or if you push any person or any animal hard enough -- they'll react wrongly and badly. And it's not really that animal or person's fault. We simply have to walk away wiser -- maybe sadder ... but wiser.
I hope this helped. Like I said, this one was personal -- Foxy and I did re-bond but it took a LONG time. And it was ME who had to change. And frankly -- that was incredibly difficult. But I can say honestly ... 2+ years later ... I'm better for it. Maybe not as innocent or naive -- but better.