This handsome, nine-week-old, long-haired, ginger tabby-and-white kitten was at a local shelter (I don’t have the name of the shelter), in a cage and he was flea infested and scared to death. He hid at the back of his cage.
Sigh… You would have thought that almost any nine week-old kitten would be frightened in a cage in a shelter so I can’t understand why they labelled him too feral to be adopted and scheduled him for euthanasia. Perhaps we do not have the full story. I hope so. Sometimes the internet does not provide the nuances of a story which help to clarify why things happened. However, I’ll continue…
It does beg the question as to how often this sort of thing happens at shelters. And I am a bit surprised to read on the firstnewspaper.com website that he was covered in fleas at the shelter. Is this normal? It can’t have helped his mood.
With great good fortune a kindhearted man, Sam Peterson, was looking for a cat and he approached this tiny fella in his cage. The kitten sensed that Sam was friendly, started to purr and has been purring ever since. Clearly, in this case, in terms of character and personality, he was the exact opposite of feral.
Jacqueline DeAmor, co-founder of Friends for Life Rescue Network said:
“He couldn’t stop purring to the point where he got out of breath!”
Sam took his kitten home. He named him Rudy. They got rid of his fleas and fed him up. He was very skinny and fragile when they adopted him. Rudy has settled in nicely and follows his human companions around the home. Each morning he wakes them up by walking on their heads.
“Every morning, he comes rushing over, purring madly with this look on his face, whenever we make even the slightest movement like we might finally be getting up.”
I can’t help but make a brief comment about this story. I am sure that this story is (hopefully rarely) enacted across many shelters in many countries every day. I’m also sure that most shelter volunteers and workers are very careful to label their cats feral or unadoptable simply because they have the perception that the animal is agitated and aggressive. However, some people do mislabel cats at shelters which can lead to an unnecessary early death. Rudy escaped death and he is a very happy boy in a loving home.
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This is a belief all too true and dire in my opinion too.
So true. Too true.