Cats

As you know from my prior posts, I am a dog person.  Always have been and always will be.  While I am a dog person, I do love all of God's creatures and can't stand seeing pictures or hearing stories of animal abuse of any way, shape, or form.  That's another reason I love my best friend Sue.  She is to cats what I am to dogs.  She thinks they are the superior pet.  This is one of those "agree to disagree" things I wrote about a few days ago.  :)  But I must admit, there are few things as adorable as a newborn kitten.  If I wasn't allergic to cats I'm sure we would have had one at some point. 

This is where Sue takes up the slack.  She likes to rescue cats.  At one point she had twelve indoor cats and I'm sure would have added more if she could.  Strays, kittens, unwanted cats; they were all welcome in her home.  When she had twelve cats, one became gravely ill and after a visit to the vets office, she was diagnosed with Feline Leukemia which is highly contagious.  The virus is shared in saliva and nasal secretions.  When cats share the same litter box, food/water dishes and have a tendancy to groom each other, it is easily transferred.  There are even stories where an infected mother passes the disease to her kittens, either before they are born or while they are being groomed and fed as babies. 

Once one of the cats was diagnosed, Sue had to have all of them tested.  As it turns out, three of the twelve had the virus and had to be put down.  Sue felt horrible.  She thought she was doing a good thing by giving them all a home yet, in reality, she was doing more harm than good and her intentions, no matter how noble and good, backfired.

For one reason or another, she is now down to five cats and I believe it is much more managable.  Even though it didn't turn out the way she hoped, I know she still earned a jewel on her crown for trying to make a difference.