The love we give abandoned animals can actually rescue us

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.

Share on Social Networks

I’m seeing a lot of simplistic and dishonest explanations right now for the current rioting in France. Those on the populist far right claim it’s all about Muslim immigrants to France disrupting the culture. Their message is that this sort of thing is going to happen in the U.S. unless “we defend the border.” On the far left, socialists and their fellow travelers claim the riots are all about wealthy people in France not paying enough taxes, resulting in cuts to government services. The truth is far more complicated, but it’s rooted in the decline of population growth in Europe. There simply aren’t enough young workers paying into the tax system anymore, so cuts in social services were inevitable. There is genuine cultural tension as more and more people immigrate from other countries, but government cuts to education and other services are even more important to what’s happening. The situation is complicated, so don’t let dishonest people with U.S. political agendas tell you that it happens to support whatever they were already promoting for partisan reasons.

Here’s another reason to appreciate the cats in your life: New research involving 93 countries found that places with more cats per person also tended to have happier people. The researchers say the finding fits with previous evidence that living with pets can reduce loneliness and stress while providing companionship, emotional attachment and social support. The study doesn’t prove that cats cause greater happiness, but it certainly adds to the evidence that sharing your home — and your life — with a cat might be good for you.

The company that owns Facebook and Instagram is heavily promoting its new AI-based software assistant called Muse, but people who are using it as it was designed are incredibly foolish. An early adopter of the software discovered that a few days ago when he advertised an item for sale on Facebook Marketplace — and he inadvertently gave Muse full authority to act on his behalf. The software agreed to a lowball offer made by another Facebook user and then gave that man the home address of the man for whom he was an agent. The software told the buyer that the seller was home and waiting for him. When the buyer showed up and waited angrily, the would-be buyer left an angry review for the man. And this angry man had the seller’s home address. It was only well after that that the software reported what it had done and admitted it had made a mistake. I won’t be putting that much power into the hands of any software. I think anyone who agrees to such terms is a fool. And the software’s user agreement says you’re responsible for purchases the software makes in your name. Nope.

Meet my new girlfriend. Her name is Meg. And she’s my little sweetheart. A couple of months ago, a neighbor across the street told me about a new stray in the neighborhood that she and I were both soon feeding. The cat had been very skittish about contact and she had a lot of scabs and parasites in her fur, but a trip to the vet last week revealed that she was otherwise in good health. The vet estimates her to be 1 to 2 years old. I named her for Meg Murry, the 13-year-old protagonist of Madeleine L’Engle’s wonderful book, “A Wrinkle in Time.” (Please read the book. Don’t watch the horrible movie.) Since we lost Lucy almost a year ago, it seems appropriate that we finally have a new little girl to join the household. She’s already captured my heart, but Alex, Oliver and Sam aren’t there quite yet.

There’s nothing socially acceptable that’s as dangerous as drinking alcohol. Most people grow up being told to “drink responsibly” — and all of us see people abusing this drug in one way or another — but the truth is that drinking alcohol is always a terrible risk. The alcohol in these drinks is toxic and the human liver has to work hard to filter the toxins out. What most people don’t realize is that alcohol is classified as a known carcinogen by the World Health Organization — because of the well-established connection between imbibing and various cancers. Many people have taken refuge behind the idea that light or moderate drinking might be safe, but a new study shows that drinking even one drink a day increases the risks of 10 types of cancer. When I was a teen-ager, I looked around and saw the negative effects that this behavior had on a lot of people and decided not to start drinking, so I’ve never even tried this poison. The evidence keeps piling up that I was lucky to have come to that conclusion early.

Related Posts