Miss Pickles cont.

I couldn't believe the story that I was hearing from this woman. I have had many cats come to me from many different abuse or neglect situations, but this was the most horrendous thing I had ever heard. I immediately said that I would take this kitten to foster and the humane group agreed. PETsMART's veternarian clinic was very busy that day but they agreed to squeeze her in for testing for FIV/FeLUK and her rescuer agreed to pay for the test. We named her Miss Pickles and I spent the rest of our time at the Adopt-a-thon with her in my arms.

Volunteer's were taking pictures of our set up and animals to post on our web site and one of them snapped this pic of Miss Pickles with a digital camera. No one noticed until it was posted on the site that the image of the Aerosmith wings on Joey's t-shirt were directly behind her. But, how appropriate that they were! She is an angel and the angels were looking out for her by bringing her into my life. I don't think we adopted a single animal out that day, but it didn't matter, we had helped save a new one.

It was very apparent from the beginning that something was 'not quite right' about Miss Pickles. She would bump into walls and had trouble finding the food bowl. All my other babies readily accepted her into the fold, but she didn't interact with them the way a normal kitten does. The humane group ran an appeal for funds ad for Miss Pickles so we could have her evaluated by a specialist. The public responded marvelously! Donations poured in and we were able to get her the finest of care. Her diagnosis was brain damage, either from being strangled or from lack of oxygen while in the plastic bag. It was also thought she may have sustained a blow to the head. Her specialist said that she would never be 'normal' and may develop seizures at some point in her life. I was also told that she had 'learned' her present environment, much as a blind person does, by sort of counting steps from the food bowl to the doorway, etc. It was decided that she would very likely never be able to transition into a new home, so I formally adopted Miss Pickles.

A visit to Dr. Stevens, Miss Pickles ad sponsor.

Miss Pickles being...well, Miss Pickles!

She is almost 2 years old now and continues to do very well. She is affectionate with my other cats, but is not so much with humans. We don't mind, we love her anyway. She still occassionaly bumps into the odd wall, but we've seen no signs of seizures at this point. If and when they do appear we will deal with it together. As you can see, she's grown to be a lovely young lady. People who meet her for the first time, often say she has beautiful eyes, eyes that tell a story and I say, "Yes, yes they do."