Do we rescue abandoned animals? Maybe they’re rescuing us instead

By David McElroy · July 22, 2013

For the last five days or so, my life has revolved around the health of a small cat. I haven’t slept much and I haven’t gotten too much done during the day. My time has been devoted to helping a little girl named Amelia get well.

When she received fluids and had other treatment at a vet clinic Friday, she had to stay overnight. They warned me that she was so weak that she probably wouldn’t make it through the night. But when I called at 7 a.m., she was alive, although still very weak. They told me I could keep watching her and hoping for a miracle or I could put her to sleep. They didn’t necessarily encourage that, but it was clear that they didn’t believe she had a chance. I couldn’t give up on her.

The vet didn’t want me to move her home until the last possible second Saturday, so I picked her up right as the clinic closed at noon. In talking with the vet and the vet tech who was working with her, neither believed she could make it through the weekend.

After a weekend of ups and downs — progress and then collapse — all I can say is that she’s still with me. I’m still doing all I can to give this little girl a chance to recover.

Some people don’t understand the intense connection that some of us feel for cats and dogs. And some people love animals, but don’t understand why some of us are so intent on rescuing the ones who aren’t wanted instead of getting some “pure” animal that’s been bred to be “perfect.”

But I find that there are many people like me — who also have a need to rescue the unwanted and unloved animals. Some of them are a little crazy. (OK, some of them are a lot crazy.) But they all have hearts that are bigger than their homes. And I think most of us are rescuing ourselves by rescuing the unloved and unwanted.

Why do we rescue animals? We all have different reasons. Each animal has a different story about how it came to live with us. For Amelia, I had eaten dinner alone at a Golden Corral one night 13 years ago. I had recently divorced. I already had five cats and three dogs. But as I was leaving the restaurant, I heard a plaintive meow from underneath a car.

I went back into the restaurant and got scraps from a table that hadn’t been cleaned. I used those meat scraps to lure this dirty little kitten out from under a car. I thought she was gray with black markings, but she was really just filthy. She turned out to be white with black markings. She was so far away from any residential area where it seemed that a mother cat should have been that I decided she was an explorer. I named her for Amelia Earhart. (Here’s the longer version of the story, which I wrote two years ago.)

In a very real sense, the animals that I’ve rescued over the years have rescued me as well. They’ve taught me things that are hard to explain. They’ve been sweet and loyal and honest, in their own way — more so than the people I’ve known. Especially in the last four years or so, when I’ve desperately been searching for a purpose again, they’ve given me reasons to live and thrive.

They needed me. I needed them. It was a perfect symbiotic relationship. I’ve taken care of their physical needs and I’ve loved them. They’ve given me love in return.

I’m not the first one to talk about this idea, of course. I encountered it most powerfully about five years ago in Ken Foster’s book, “The Dogs Who Found Me: What I’ve Learned from Pets Who Were Left Behind.” It’s a powerful tale of how three dogs came to live with Foster at different times — and ended up helping to save him. If you love animals — or if you’d like to understand their effect on some of us — it’s a powerful book and I recommend you read it.

I’m going to keep working with Amelia right now and trying to nurse her back to health. She and her feline brothers and sisters are the only family I have right now. (I’ve had as many as five dogs before, but I’ve slowly lost them to old age and disease, so it’s just cats at my house for now.)

I don’t know whether Amelia can pull out of the crisis she’s in now. We had some fleas in the house two weeks ago and her problem started after I used an off-brand flea treatment that the vet says has caused similar problems in other cats. Her situation is grim now, but she’s already lived three days past when the vet thought she could.

I found Amelia 13 year ago and rescued her. I cleaned her up. I took care of her. I gave her a home and food and love. But in a way that can only be understood by those who love the animals they’ve rescued, she’s done far more for me than I’ve done for her.

People who don’t understand why we rescue cats and dogs sometimes look at people like me and feel sorry for us or think we’re making a mistake, because of the financial burden and time commitment that the animals require. There would have been a time in my life when I felt the same way — back before I had animals, back when they seemed like a burden — but today it’s those people I feel sorry for. They have no idea of the joy they’re missing.

Amelia and the others have rescued me and given me purpose when I needed it. I love her for that — and for many other reasons. I’m going to do all I can to save her now. She deserves that.

Note: Amelia died Monday afternoon after this article was published.

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I haven’t posted anything new in my YouTube series about narcissism in the last couple of weeks, so some people have been asking about it. There’s nothing wrong and I’ll be back soon. The issue is simply a technical problem because of a piece of equipment that died. Here’s a brief video I posted on YouTube to explain.

On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

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