Amazingly stoic and friendly female cat badly burned in fire will become vet clinic cat

She has been amazing throughout all of her treatments, I mean she has got to hurt…She just seemed like she didn’t deserve this, so I was in a position to help. – Dr Wixsom

Imaginatively, Dr M.J. Wixsom and the veterinary staff who have treated her, have named her ‘Ember’. She is to become the clinic’s resident domestic cat for the future once she is healed. That’s their wish and hope.

Ember was badly burned in a house fire in Huntington, West Virginia, USA last week. She suffered injuries to her ear flaps which have been burned back, lungs and paws. Her claws were ‘melted off’. He fur is singed. She is on oxygen. It sounds horrendous.

The opinion is that she is in considerable pain and discomfort but despite this her sweet personality is shining through.

Her personality is amazing considering how much pain she must be in – said veterinary assistant Lindsay Minnehan.

Dr Wixsom who had had a tough night as the ER veterinarian (vet working in the emergency clinic) at Christmas thought that she could make Ember the resident cat. She said to WSAZ3 News Channel:

It was Christmas time, somebody had recently been kind to me cause it’d been a rough time and I guess I was in the giving mood.

Ember was rescued from the porch of the burned home by One by One Animal Advocates. Their coordinator is Teresa Atkins.

Comment: Well done. Cats are naturally amazingly stoical. It is why they hide pain. It is an act of survival and domestic and feral cats are masters at survival through endurance. Hence the ‘9 lives’ label. I hope she comes through the treatments and heals sufficiently to have a decent life among her admirers, guardians and friends.

There are many stories about cats being burned, often in house fires and sometimes in forest fires e.g the California forest fires. Often in house fires the humans get out but the cats perish. It made me think. Without wishing to be unkind I sense a slight lack of altruism under tough circumstances. Some house fires will be very rapid but others less so with a chance to save the cat companions.