Animals Welcome

by Peg Kehret

  Unlike Edgar when he arrived, Charlie was already friendly and loving. He had clearly been around people. He had no identification tag, and a scan showed no microchip. My veterinarian estimated that Charlie was four months old.

  Late that afternoon, Mark Smithberg, who is like a second son to me, came out to visit and to help me with some heavy chores. Mark and I often stay up far too late working a jigsaw puzzle and, since it’s a long drive from his house to the cabin, we had planned for him to spend the night in my guest room.

  As soon as he got here, I took him out to the cat room to meet Charlie. Mark had met Edgar several times and did not intend to adopt a cat, but when he picked Charlie up, Charlie put his front paws around Mark’s neck in a hug, and began to purr. Mark instantly decided he needed a pet!

  We moved the litter box from the cat room to the guest bedroom so that Charlie could spend the night with Mark. The next morning, we took down the FOUND KITTEN signs. None of my phone calls had produced any leads. When Mark went home, he borrowed Molly’s carrier, and Charlie went with him.

  Mark told me later that Charlie is afraid of cardboard boxes, so I suspect Charlie was part of an unwanted litter and was put into a box, driven out in the country, and abandoned.

  Unwanted animals are often dumped in rural areas. Some people mistakenly believe that domestic animals will remember the survival skills of their ancestors and get along on their own, but that doesn’t happen. Most abandoned animals starve, get hit by cars, or are killed by predators. Charlie got lucky.

  Me in the doorway of the cat room,

  holding Charlie. Note the sign.

  Later that summer, Charlie gave me a scare. He had come to stay in the cat room for ten days while Mark was out of town. One morning when I went out to feed him his breakfast, I found the tail half of my snake skin in the middle of the floor! I had completely forgotten that it was displayed on a wall shelf in that room. Charlie had found it, played with it, and, I feared, eaten the half with the head on it. I hunted everywhere, but I couldn’t find the rest of the snake skin.

  I was afraid Charlie would get sick. I watched him carefully all day, but he showed no signs of a stomachache. I threw the remaining half of the snake skin away. It wasn’t nearly as interesting without the head.

  When Mark came to take Charlie home, I told him what had happened.

  “Yum, yum,” Mark said. “Snake crunchies.”

  “Blah,” I replied.

  By then it was obvious that Charlie’s little snack had not hurt him, so we were able to laugh about how Charlie must have had a fine old time batting that snake skin around, and then eating half of it.

  I still miss Carl and always will, but his workshop is no longer a sad, empty space. It’s now known as the cat room, complete with a HOME FOR WAYWARD CATS: STRAYS WELCOME sign that hangs on the outside of my house, with an arrow pointing to the cat room door.

  Fourteen months after Carl died, the date marking our fiftieth wedding anniversary approached. I wanted to honor that day, so I arranged with Susan to have a private tour of Pasado’s Safe Haven for my family.

  Carl and I had been involved with the sanctuary from its beginning. We had attended court hearings for cruelty cases that the staff was involved in, and we were financial backers of their spay/neuter program for low-income pet owners. I’d been to the sanctuary many times, including once when Carl donated two dozen of his hand-crafted birdhouses for the sanctuary gift shop to sell, but my kids and grandkids had never been there.

  It was the perfect way to spend my special day. We met many rescued animals, including Louise, the pig that I wrote about in Trapped. We saw the dog barn that Carl and I had given in Daisy’s memory, and the lovely bird feeding area that our friends Larry and Myra Karp had donated to honor Carl and me. I rested on a garden bench, donated by Judi and Greg Farrar in memory of Carl. Greg took the photographs for Shelter Dogs: Amazing Stories of Adopted Strays.

  We laughed when a goose tried to peck Pam, my daughter-in-law. The kids fed carrots to the donkey, played with the dogs, and petted a llama. Best of all, when we got to Kitty City, Mama came to greet us. I like to think she remembered me. She rubbed on my ankles and purred while I stroked her fur. She flopped on her side for a tummy rub.

  It was not the fiftieth anniversary that I had always anticipated, but it was a happy time, filled with family, good memories, and rescued animals. Fifty years after my wedding day, I was surrounded by love.

  I Bailed Him Out,

  and Then He Bit Me

  Gus showed up as a stray. I found him on my front porch, mooching Mr. Stray’s food. Gus was a big boy whose tabby-striped fur had a lovely golden hue. His most distinguishing feature was his tail, which was short with a knobby twist on the end. Gus’s tail looked as if someone had tied a knot in it when he was small, and the tail had stayed that way as it grew. I don’t know if he was born with an odd tail or if his tail had been injured.

  Right from the start, Gus rubbed against my ankles and purred when I petted him. Most strays are skinny, but Gus appeared to be well fed. He had no identification. I thought perhaps he was lost. Maybe his family had been moving and he jumped out of the car. Maybe he’d run away during a thunderstorm. I felt sure that someone would be looking for such a beautiful, friendly cat.

  However he came to be in my yard, Gus made it clear that he intended to stay. Why would he leave when there was ample free food on my porch?

  Anne claims the cats have a secret signal posted on my fence, like the runaway slaves had back before emancipation, announcing that mine is a safe house where they’ll be fed if they come to my door.

  I was reluctant to move Gus into the cat room. Foster cats who come to me from an established rescue group, as Edgar did, have the benefit of the group’s web site, adoption events, and networking efforts. Their pictures get posted online and their good attributes are touted to prospective adopters. When I rescue a cat by myself, I have no one to help me find it a home. My friends all have their quota of pets and I knew if I brought Gus into the foster cat room, he could easily be there for several months before I found him a good home. I’d been incredibly lucky with Charlie, and it was not likely to happen again.

  I couldn’t ask Susan to take Gus because Pasado’s accepts only rescued cats. Mama had qualified because of the pellet gun, and the kittens. Gus was considered a stray, and Kitty City simply did not have the space or funds to take in strays.

  I decided that this time I would take him to the Pierce County Humane Society. That’s where Willie had been reunited with his family, so I knew the system sometimes worked. Gus was so friendly that I thought he might really be lost, and if that were the case, his people would look for him at the shelter. That’s why we have such an agency, I told myself—to reunite lost pets with their owners, and to care for strays and find them good homes.

  I put Gus in the carrier, drove him to the Humane Society, and turned him over to them. People who relinquish animals are asked to make a donation. I gave them one hundred dollars.

  Then I drove home, and began to worry. This Humane Society is a good facility, one that was working toward being a no-kill shelter. As a donor, I received their reports. I knew they had met their goal of not euthanizing any healthy, adoptable dogs the year before—but they had not yet managed to achieve that with cats. They kept the cats as long as possible, but if they were not adopted, eventually they were euthanized to make room for the next batch of homeless cats.

  What if nobody was looking for Gus? Maybe he wasn’t lost. Perhaps he had been dumped.

  Being at the shelter was better than being on his own, but I wondered what Gus’s chances were of being adopted. There are many more people at the shelter looking for a cute little kitten than there are folks who want an adult cat of unknown age and background. I remembered what had happened with Mama.

  When I looked at the Humane Society’s web page, I panicked. They currently had seventy-six cats available for adoption. Seventy-six! It was highly u
nlikely that all seventy-six of those cats would find permanent loving homes. What if Gus didn’t get chosen? I thought about how friendly Gus was, how he purred when I petted him. He would make a wonderful house cat for someone, but who would advocate for him when he was one of seventy-six?

  The next afternoon I returned to the Humane Society. I reasoned that if Gus’s owners had been looking for him, they would have found him within a day of his arrival at the shelter.

  When I got there, I saw Gus lying in a cage, one in a long row of cages, waiting for someone to adopt him. The cage was clean, and he had food, but he lay there listlessly, as if he had no hope.

  When I tapped on the glass, Gus looked at me, then stood up and butted his head against the glass. I was sure he recognized me and wanted me to pet him, but we were separated by the glass wall on his cage. I couldn’t stand it. I told the cat room attendant my name and said I had brought Gus in the day before. “I’ve changed my mind,” I said. “I want to take him back.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “We can’t return him. Once an animal has been turned over to the agency, the only way to get it back is to officially adopt it.”

  Gus, waiting to be adopted

  She brought me the papers to fill out, including the one where I agreed to pay the sixty-five-dollar adoption fee. I mentioned that I had made a one-hundred-dollar contribution the day before when I brought Gus in.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again. “Contributions are nonreturnable.”

  I filled out all the paperwork, paid the sixty-five-dollar adoption fee, and made Gus officially my cat. Gus had not been neutered and, since the adoption fee included neutering, I left him overnight to have the surgery done. I figured I might as well save the cost of having my own vet neuter him, and Gus would be spared an extra car ride and being left at the veterinary clinic.

  The next day I drove to the Humane Society again, and that time I put Gus back in the carrier and took him home with me. As soon as I let him out of the carrier in the cat room, he began to explore. One workbench is under a window that has a view of a bird feeder. Edgar used to like to sit there and watch the birds, so when I noticed two blue jays at the feeder, I lifted Gus up on the workbench, thinking he would like to watch the birds, too. Instead, he immediately turned and started to jump down.

  Since he had just been neutered, I was afraid the long jump onto the hard concrete floor might hurt him. I grabbed for him, to lift him down, and when Gus saw my hands moving suddenly toward him, he bit me.

  Blood trickled down the side of my hand. His teeth had made several deep punctures. I knew that cat bites can easily get infected, so I thoroughly washed my hand right away and put some disinfectant on it. When I returned to the cat room with a bandage on my hand, Gus hurried to greet me, purring and pushing his head against my ankles. I knew he had bitten me only because he was nervous after his shelter ordeal and a car ride. He had gone through a lot of trauma in a short time, found himself in yet another strange place, and my sudden movement had startled him. He was not a vicious animal, and I was not afraid to pet him or even to pick him up.

  “It’s all right,” I told him as he snuggled on my lap. “I know you didn’t mean to hurt me.” He sniffed at my bandage, and kneaded his claws in and out on my jeans.

  Before I went to bed I put more disinfectant on the place where Gus had bit me. I awoke in the night with my hand throbbing. The pain extended all the way up my arm past my elbow, and I was sure that the bite was infected. Pain pills helped me make it to daylight, but I couldn’t sleep.

  The next day was Sunday; my doctor’s office was closed. I knew I couldn’t wait until Monday for medical treatment, so I went to the emergency room of the hospital. The doctor there confirmed my diagnosis of infection and started me on antibiotics. I also had to get a tetanus shot, since it had been many years since I’d had one. He warned me that a cat bite can be serious and told me to have my own doctor check the bite again in two days.

  It took three doctor visits and two rounds of strong antibiotics to finally get rid of the infection. I added my medical costs to what I’d paid the Humane Society, and wondered if the Guinness World Records folks had a category for Most Expensive Stray Cat.

  While my hand healed, I became more and more fond of Gus. His laid-back personality made him an easy cat to love. He was a happy boy who purred at everything and everyone. He never tried to sneak outside or even to come in the house with me. He was always glad to see me, but he seemed perfectly content to stay in the cat room. He liked it when I dangled the feather toy for him, or tossed a catnip mouse, but he was also happy to sit on his blanket and meditate. Mostly, he wanted to be petted.

  As I watched Gus’s acceptance of whatever came his way, and the quiet pleasure he found in his simple life, I decided the world would be a better place if a few more people behaved like Gus.

  I wanted to keep Gus but I reminded myself that I had wanted to keep Edgar, too, and no doubt would have wanted to keep Charlie if he’d been here longer. My goal was to give the rescued cats the love and care that they needed until they went into their permanent homes.

  As I had done with Edgar, I printed some flyers. I put a picture of Gus on them, over the words GUS NEEDS A HOME. Under that was a brief description of all his good qualities, along with my name and e-mail address.

  He’d had his first vaccinations at the Humane Society but when he needed a booster shot a month later, I took him to my own vet, where he charmed everyone at the clinic. I asked if I could post one of my flyers, and they not only agreed to take it, but said they would keep it on the front counter where all of their clients would see it.

  The person who cuts my hair is an animal lover, and she agreed to post Gus’s flyer in her hair salon. The small independent bookstore that I frequented put Gus’s flyer up. I even took one to the assisted-living facility where Chester lived, and made a pitch for how calm Gus was and how he’d be a great cat for an elderly person.

  Nobody contacted me about adopting Gus. Nothing happened for four months. Then one day I had an e-mail from someone named Jackie who was interested in learning more about Gus. She gave me her phone number. I called her immediately and discovered that she had seen my flyer at my vets’ office and recognized my name.

  “You are my granddaughter’s favorite author,” she told me. “Emma is ten, and she loves your books. She’s told me that you rescue animals, but I never thought I’d be able to help you with one of them.”

  We talked awhile and I felt certain that Jackie would give Gus a good home, if she decided to take him. We set a time for her to come out the next day to meet Gus.

  I called the vet’s office to tell them what had happened. They were not surprised.

  “She got so excited when she saw that flyer,” the girl at the desk told me. “She took out her cell phone right then and called her daughter and said, ‘We can’t let a cat of Peg Kehret’s go without a home.’”

  I couldn’t believe it. Author recognition was going to help me find a home for Gus! The vet also told me that Jackie had been a client for many years, took wonderful care of her animals, but had no pets at that time. The day she saw the flyer, she’d been there to pick up her daughter’s dog.

  Jackie arrived with a cat carrier and fell in love with Gus immediately. Who wouldn’t? By then he was a big old purr factory. He went straight to Jackie and rubbed against her ankles. Atta boy, Gus, I thought. Turn on the charm, big guy.

  Jackie and I hit it off right away, and even discovered that we had mutual friends.

  I told Jackie about the bite but it didn’t worry her.

  “Given those circumstances, I don’t blame him,” she said.

  There was never one second of doubt that Gus was going home that day with Jackie.

  I was thrilled that Gus had found such a perfect family, but I still wept when Jackie’s car left my driveway with Gus inside.

  “Have a good life, Gus,” I whispered. “I’m going to miss you.”

&nbs
p; I invited Jackie to bring Emma, her granddaughter, out to my house, which she did a week or so later. They also came when I gave a talk at one of the local libraries, and Jackie has been wonderful about e-mailing me periodic reports with the subject line: Gus the Magnificent.

  When Gus had lived with her for a year, Jackie told me she’d taken him to the vet for a checkup and that he’d been put on a diet.

  “The good life caught up with him,” she said. “He weighs more than sixteen pounds.”

  Since he had weighed twelve and a half pounds when he left here, and I thought he was big then, a diet sounded like a reasonable suggestion.

  Gus taught me that even a mild-mannered and loving animal will sometimes bite if it feels threatened. I also learned that I need to do the best I can to help every animal, even when I’m tired and it isn’t convenient, even when I know I’m making a commitment that could possibly last for several months.

  I wish I had never taken Gus to the Humane Society. It felt wrong for me to leave him there when I had an alternative—my own cat room—and it felt right when I went back and bailed him out. I should have listened to my inner voice and kept Gus here from the start, trusting that eventually I would find the perfect home for him, which is exactly what happened.

  Short Stays

  After Gus left, there was a stretch of time where I had several rescues but the animals stayed with me for only a short time. It began when I drove down my driveway one afternoon and found a pony standing on the other side of the gate. I opened the gate and looked both ways to see if someone was with him. I didn’t see a person, but I did see another pony!

  Neither animal had on a halter or a saddle or any other equipment. The street that goes by my house is a private road and doesn’t get much traffic, but it’s only about a mile to the curvy two-lane highway that leads to Mt. Rainier National Park. Cars often drive too fast there, especially those going downhill. I certainly wouldn’t want a loose pony on that stretch of road.