This is today's Petwarmer story. Really a sweet kitty rescue story. Thought you might enjoy it.
LIKE NO OTHER
I can enjoy a cat's company, but my husband really dislikes cats --
that was, until a few months ago.
I was leaving the local climbing gym early one night, and as I walked
to my car, I saw a little orange and white cat wandering in the parking
lot. I "meowed" to him, and he did not respond. I walked a little closer
and could see that he had a huge gapping wound on his side. I walked
closer and scooped him up, and he did not protest, squirm, or fight. He
was filthy, tired, and clearly very injured.
I carried him back into the climbing gym to my husband, where I
received a look of "OH NO, not another stray animal." (We already have two
stray dogs we adopted.) I knew we had to get the cat off the street and
told my husband that I would take him over to our neighbors, who work for
the local SPCA shelter.
That night, I drove past the neighbors, but they were not home.
Instead, I brought him home and sat down on the floor to allow our dogs to
start sniffing the strange new creature I had in my lap. The cat did not
do anything. He just sat there, purred, and let the dogs sniff him.
He was content despite what looked like a huge bite wound on his side.
Once I realized the dogs were not going to do the cat any harm, I let him
down to watch him move around the living room.
The manner in which he walked struck me as strange. He would take
very slow and calculated paces until he hit a solid object like a wall, or
piece of furniture. Then he would follow the solid object with his
whiskers until he hit another object or the object fell away. In this
manner, he "traced" the living room, then our kitchen.
I realized that the cat was blind. I held him, looked into his eyes,
and they reacted to light and dark by dilating the pupils, but he would not
follow a moving object or flinch at sudden movements.
The following day, I tried to convince fellow co-workers who liked
cats to adopt him, but all said they had too many, and tried to convince me
that I needed to adopt the cat. I tried to get a rescue shelter to take
him, but they refused. Finally, I called every veterinarian in our
community trying to find the cat's owner.
Deep down inside, I knew I could not give him up. Even my husband
took a liking to him. We named him Katu (Basque for cat). Subsequently,
we discovered that Katu is not only blind, but deaf as well.
Katu is quite at home with us. He will charge, attack, and pounce his
imaginary prey until he is ready to eat. He loves to find where my husband
is sitting, curl up on his chest, and purr contentedly.
He uses the doggie door to go in and out to the backyard where he
finds his favorite spot, under one of our Japanese maples, to hang out with
my husband and the dogs. And when Katu gets a little disoriented, he'll
cry loudly until one of the dogs comes and gives him a lick and leads him
to the edge where he can find his way back to the house again. He has
memorized the house, pushes open doors if he wants in and has firmly made
his place in our home.
We often joke that Katu is a dog stuck in a cat's body since he loves
to give "kisses" and begins a steady drool when he is happily being cuddled
and rubbed.
Two non-cat people have found their one and only Katu.
-- Micheline "Mish" Fairbank
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By the way, I "meow" to every cat I see outside. I wonder how many people who see me think I have a screw loose!
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