Running a rescue is strange at times. We’ve had births and deaths, sickness and recovery along with just anger and pain. Mandarin’s Retreat is primarily a home for sick and hurt cats, but we try to branch out when we have the space. One of those branches is to be a temporary refuge for the pets of families that are in distress. By distress I mean families who either by family violence or economics have been displaced from their homes. Cats of these families most often can’t follow their humans to their temporary quarters. They need a place to stay rather than disappearing on the streets.
Linus is just one such cat. The woman who cared for him and several other cats succumbed to age and mental heath problems. Our Trap-Neuter-Release (TNR) community stepped in to help distribute the cats to fosters. Linus went to such a foster. But as sometimes is the case with pets, the current cats in the house wouldn’t accept Linus as a fellow occupant. A new foster was sought and found, but she couldn’t take in Linus for about 10 days. Mandarin’s Retreat got the call and we answered.
Linus arrived a bit matted, shy and a bit hungry. He went into a kennel in my office to acclimatize and decompress. Within a day or so, Linus informed us the kennel was too small for his needs and he was given access to the office. The office had been take over by Cookie and Toby, but they also had access to the rest of the house. They came and went when ever someone would open the door for them. They accepted Linus after a lot of sniffing and a few murmurs.
We quickly discovered that Linus is a snuggler. If anyone sat down, he was in your lap, purring up a storm. By observation we found that Linus was an old cat, older than we were told. We guess he’s older than the 10 years listed on his paperwork. He’s probably closer to 14 or 15 and with all the problems older age brings to cats (and humans, also). He appears to have some kidney problems based on his litter box trips. We’ve got a vet visit scheduled but we feel we already know the problem.
This brings me back to the “anger” part of the opening paragraph. We conveyed our thoughts on Linus’s health to the soon to be foster and the response was, “I thought I was getting a healthy cat, so just keep him!” For such a sweet cat to be rejected automatically because he’s “Not Healthy”; makes my blood boil and I wonder about the character of a person I haven’t met. This happening so soon after the lost of my Winston, impacted me even harder. In this disposable society, Linus is just another item to be thrown away because he’s not new, healthy, shiny or the latest version. He’s an old sick cat who only wants love and pets and not much else.
Though we don’t really have room, we’ll keep him. He’ll go to the vet and see what needs to be done. He’ll have a place to stay and will be cared for and petted until he tells us its time to go over the rainbow bridge. We’ll ease his journey as best we can, wish him sun puddles and pets forever and we will cry a lot.