By Elisa Black-Taylor
Nafas was only a year old when he was found last October, curled up under a car on a busy street in Tehran. A good Samaritan rescued the filthy cat, who had an infected mass and was very emaciated. X-rays showed the cat had been living on pebbles and sticks to stay alive.
An Iranian veterinarian had to remove Nafas nose and upped lip to get the infection under control and save his life. Nafas was permanently scarred. Unfortunately, he couldn’t breathe or eat, due to the nature of the operation, which had left his nasal cavity open and exposed.
So Nafas was brought to the United States by Iranian-American animal rights activist Yasie Saadat. In the U.S., head surgeon of the MSPCA’s Angell Animal Medical Center Dr. Mike Pavletic, did reconstructive surgery on the cat.
In January, Nafas was evaluated by Dr. Plavetic on whether a procedure where he used adjacent facial tissue would work. He had previously done many surgeries of this type, even going so far as to reconstruct a cat’s face after it was torn off by a car fan blade.
Dr. Pavletic used a surgical technique he had developed years ago, and the three hour operation is considered successful. The vet said in an interview with Life With Cats
“I’m very pleased with the outcome and am confident Nafas will enjoy a long and healthy life. He certainly deserves that after all he’s undergone.”
Nafas is currently in foster care, but is looking for a forever home. Anyone interested in adopting him can email adopt.nafas@gmail.com or by filling out an online application here. You’ll have to download the form, complete it and scan it, it seems to me.
For those of you who want to follow his story, a Facebook page has been set up.
Elisa
Source: lifewithcats.tv
😀 None of the above.
Since many schools now outlaw the use of live cats for medical training procedures, any veterinarian leaps at the chance to practice some method they either read about or thought of on their own.
It’s just a free “for experiments” cat.
Think of how many people could use desperate reconstructive surgery and don’t get a free plane-ride across the ocean as well.
If it dies everyone just goes boo-hoo for a moment. There’s plenty more where that one came from — to exploit for learning purposes or to make money by parading it in the media. Just like sites like PoC use the news of injured or suffering cats to make itself more popular and rake in even more money for all involved.
There is growing concern in the USA that organizations like ASPCA and HSUS even send out some members to burn or maim cats so they can parade them in the media when their usual fund-raising methods aren’t working to their liking. Funny that the perpetrators can never be found, but someone JUST HAPPENED TO BE THERE to save that cat from dying. Maybe that’s because the one reporting it to the media and then crying for donations to help that cat is the one who set the cat on fire in the very first place. It’s a very lucrative business you know, to exploit the suffering of animals for your own gain. (See story above.)
How many injured, suffering, or dying cats are you going to exploit Micheal? Just so you can claim you’re doing it all for the sake of the cats. I call, BULLSHIT. And I be right.
I am interested in the truth. Making money is well down the list for me.
PoC is very generous in giving. What other cat website does that?. See also PoC Donations.
Although, you make a good point, which I appreciate about “free experiments”….Vincent, you are wrong. I am not exploiting cats. I find your last paragraph insulting to say the least.
I want the truth. Nearly all the articles on PoC are not news stories. They are articles that no one else writes and they are unpopular sometimes (i.e. The Real Turkish Angora and Cat Breed Mashup and Declawing)
I could pander to the USA market and please Americans but have been criticised for America bashing. Are those the actions of a person trying to make money out of cats?
American is where the money is. If I was exploiting cats I’d try harder to please Americans. But don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of good stuff in America. I sometimes discuss America because it is a big cat world there.
Look at my Grumpy cat article for instance where I am heavily criticised by Americans who don’t understand the ideas behind the article.
Please don’t insult me when I am trying to improve cat welfare.
Vincent, you need to be POOFED! too!
Vincent – seriously you make some pretty good points and go into things many people might well be aware of but if you read the story before and the story before that and so on – go back as far as you want on this site you will see you are mistaken. You will find a genuine search for truth and to get to the bottom of things.
Ironically we talk about exactly what you mentioned on here. Also this site donates for every comment made. I believe it’s fair to cover costs. Do you think so? or not? If there was huge profit going on here then it would be another story but I think trying to survive as a website in this day and age requires alot of work and it’s not unreasonable to want to cover costs or whatever. This is the last place that you will find exploitation. Infact alot of what gets said on here is unpopular amongst the mainstream ‘big’ websites and it gets said even if it means losing viewers. By the way, in essence, there is nothing wrong with wanting viewers if you build a website. Especially if you have a message or are trying to help cats for example. By help I mean encourage good caretaking and a respectful agenda when it comes to all animals.
Why don’t you think this site is genuine? Have you spent much time reading it? Have you compared it to other cat websites?
Were you expecting some kind of other reaction to your accusation.
I understand where you are coming from actually. On life with cats website I have seen a couple things which look like what you might be suggesting – I’m not sure. But to be honest I think you just made a bit of a mistake – it looks like you haven’t read much on this site.
Maybe if you did you might change your opinion and you might even appreciate it to be genuine in it’s concern for cat welfare. If you are going to be fair about this even to yourself, after an accusation like that, you would do the normal thing and read further. One has the right to defend oneself when accused. You would be fair to listen since you have been listened to.
….so read. Because you are mistaken in what you think about this website.
Far from exploiting cats, Michael’s PoC helps many cats. There are too many people needing education about caring for other living beings and this site has educated a lot of those people.
Of course there are people who don’t want to be educated, like you Vincent, you’d rather stay in ignorance and spout insults and rubbish. Well just think on that every time you do, because of Michael’s generosity you are contributing 5 cents towards the care of cats like Nafas. Why shouldn’t be be saved, he has as much right to his life as anyone else. Call him lucky? Well I think after all he’s been through he’s hardly been lucky up until he was helped!
You won’t care about Chester the little kitten yobs tried to drown in oil, but because he was saved and his story told, the work of Cats Protection has been brought to the notice of many who didn’t know what the charity does.
Helping one cat helps all cats in that it brings their plight to notice!
Yes cats are killed daily but letting one suffering cat die through lack of treatment won’t save all those cats, it just means one more cat dies as well as all those cats!
We can’t save them all but we can make a difference to the ones we can save!
How is bringing the facts to the fore exploitation Vincent? Micheals website is about cats and for cats. Michael has helped many, many cats by donating and spreading the truth. PoC is over flowing with factual information so please do your homework before you make such outlandish insulting accusations!
Thanks Leah. I think Vincent is a troll. A subtle one and it’s not obvious, but a troll nonetheless. He just likes to wind people up.