My need to rescue my child self fuels my urge to rescue animals

By David McElroy · November 25, 2025

It was three years ago tonight when I first got close enough to photograph a small cat who I now call Alex.

For weeks, I had been trying to get close to a tiny feline — maybe 4 months old — who was living behind the garbage dumpster at a restaurant where I used to go. He had been scared enough to get away from everyone who had tried to catch him.

He seemed to spend much of his time in the relative safety of the drainage system at the end of the parking lot. Every time I got close to him, he would dart into an opening and disappear. On this night, I got close enough to take the picture you see above, but when I got any closer, he was gone like a shot.

A friend eventually insisted that I use a trap to capture him. I kept trying to do it my way, but he kept escaping. Finally, my friend bought a trap for me and insisted I try it. And she was right.

I caught the little guy. He was terrified, but he quickly learned to trust me. He had a huge personality, so I named him Alexander the Great. Alex for short. Today, he’s the senior of the three current cats in my home.

But just as importantly, he’s one more of a long line of cats and dogs who let me feel as though I’m rescuing creatures in the same way that I wish someone could have rescued me when I was a child.

I didn’t grow up with animals, so I had no idea they could ever be so important to me. But after the very first rescue cat came into my life, I felt as though I couldn’t live without them. I never went looking for the cats and dogs I ended up with. They always found me when they needed a home.

For years, I didn’t understand that the story was any deeper than that. I thought I just loved these felines and canines who came into my life. But it finally hit me that it was more than that. Every time I rescued a cat or a dog from a terrible life, something inside me felt as though I was doing something more important.

Somehow, it seemed as though I was looking back to the small and scared child who I was many years ago — and I was saying, “If I could go back in time and save you, too, I would.”

The reality is that there’s nothing I can do to change the family dysfunction that I went through. My narcissistic father pushed my mother to a mental breakdown that took her away from me at an early age. I’ve talked about this many times, so you might know the story if you’ve been here before.

It’s also a reality that I can’t save every animal that needs a home. I try, but I’m overwhelmed by how many there are. I feel the same way about children who are in terrible situations. I can’t really rescue kids from bad homes, but my feelings about them are the same as my emotions when I see a starving kitten running into a drain grate.

There is so much suffering in the world that it upsets me that I can’t fix it all. I want to stop the pain and suffering and emotional anguish, but I can’t.

And I think that’s why rescuing animals matters so much to me. It’s just a tiny thing I can do — something concrete and realistic — that allows me to say, “I can’t fix the world, but I can make this one life safer. I can make this tiny corner of the world a little less painful.”

Alex has no idea what he represents to me. He’s just a sweet little guy who loves having a home that’s warm and dry. It’s the same for my other two cats, Oliver and Sam. I was the same for Lucy before she died a few weeks ago. For all of them, it’s just a practical matter of having a safe and loving home with plenty of food.

But for me, it’s always about a little boy named David who didn’t have anybody to rescue him. I can’t change that past, but I can at least make myself believe that I’m doing something — in a small way — that I wish someone had done for me.

Note: The photos below are very recent pictures of Alex lording over his kingdom like the little conqueror he is.

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