Faith loving life years after her rescue Beautiful Faith was a pivotal rescue of ca-r-ma.org Cat Rescue Maritimes. Her story is told in a guest blog post by Madi Legere, author of Diary of a Mad Trapper. October 16, 2007, was a cold evening for trapping in Moncton, New Brunswick. Rachel, a new volunteer, was wearing a wooly hat and scarf. Andrea had a jacket although her head was bare, and I wore a heavy sweatshirt and gloves. We arrived at the colony just after sunset, and quickly unloaded three traps. These were snap traps, metal cages about three feet long and roughly a foot wide and a foot deep, with a trip plate near one end and a hooking mechanism to keep the door open at the other end, attached to the trip plate by a long arm. Our new rescue group had recently purchased six of them. One trap would go under a large tree where the cats in the colony congregate, and two inside the drafty abandoned garage where the caregivers feed the two dozen or so animals that make up the colony. I put the first trap under the tree and went into the garage to see how things were going. The straw-lined boxes and waiting food dishes were ample evidence of caregivers who really work at giving the ferals the best quality of life possible. There were two bare light bulbs illuminating the garage, but the corners were dim. The concrete floor was strewn with a variety of long-unused items and holes in the back wall allowed the cats to enter and leave. From inside the garage, we heard the first trap snap almost before Andrea and Rachel could set up the two they carried. Hurrying outside, I saw a small black and white cat in the trap, struggling furiously. I picked the trap up quickly and carried it to the van. I know better than to touch a feral cat, but I talked to him/her, in what I hoped was a soothing voice, as I set the trap on top of the heavy plastic on the floor of the van and covered it with a sleeping bag. The sounds of struggle died almost immediately as the animal felt a certain security in the darkness created by the covering. I had just gotten the cat settled when Andrea emerged from the garage carrying another trap with a large orange cat in it. We lifted the sleeping bag and slid the trap under it beside the first trap, then tucked the bag down around both. While we waited for the last trap to spring, Andrea lit a cigarette and struck up a conversation with the older gentleman who is one of the caretakers of the colony. Rachel and I, shivering seriously, went in search of coffee at a diner down the road. We returned just in time to see Andrea coming out of the garage carrying the third trap. As I went to help her put the final cat into the van, Rachel said, “Did you see the kitten?” “What kitten?” I asked. “Inside the garage,” Rachel said. “There’s a little grey kitten lying on the floor. It looks sick.” I hadn’t seen it, but Andrea had. “That kitten is very sick,” she agreed. “It’s probably dying.” “Do you want to try to get it?” Rachel asked. “Yes,” said Andrea. “If we can catch it, we should probably have it put down. It’s the kindest thing we can do; it’s too sick to save.” Andrea knows these things; she has fostered many kittens for the local shelter. We went back into the garage. There were two kittens, a small grey one lying on the dirty floor and a slightly larger black one sitting nearby as if on guard. Both had fluffy matted fur, and both appeared to be gravely ill. As Rachel approached cautiously, the black kitten fled. The grey one got to its feet and staggered a few steps but could go no further. Rachel reached down and picked it up. Cradling the kitten, Rachel hurried back to the van with Andrea and I following. We climbed in and I turned the heater on as we headed toward home. Sitting in the back seat, Rachel wrapped her scarf around the little animal. Although it was a feral kitten and had never been touched by a human before, it did not seem afraid. As I drove, I heard a rusty little humming sound start behind me. “Is that kitten purring?” I asked. “Yes, she is,” Rachel replied, and we knew right then we had to try to save her. On the way home we talked about a name for the desperate little waif. Once we got her under the light in my kitchen, we could see that she was a grey tortoiseshell and therefore female. None of us thought she had much of a chance, but we named her Faith and took her down to my foster room in the basement. Poor little Faith had an advanced upper respiratory infection (URI) and her face and paws were covered in mucus. Her tiny frame was skeletal except for a large protruding tummy that could only mean worms. On her neck was an infected sore that looked like a cat bite. We bathed her in warm water and gave her kitten milk with a bit of canned food in it. She ate hungrily. I treated her for fleas but did not dare administer worm treatment because she was so weak. I wrapped her in a towel, and after Rachel and Andrea left, I held her, petting and rubbing gently until she was dry. In the foster room, I put a towel inside a cat carrier and placed Faith there to rest. I set my alarm clock and went to bed. When I got up at three a.m. to check on the kitten, I fully expected to find her dead, but she staggered out of the carrier to greet me and eagerly took more food. The next morning, we took the three feral cats to our supporting vet to be spayed or neutered, and also took Faith to see what might be done for her. The kitten was in bad condition and the treatment that might, or might not, save her would cost more than our fledgling organization had in its coffers. We had to think about putting her down, but we didn’t think long before some of us went into our pockets to contribute to her care. When Faith was well enough to go home, she went to Abby, one of our newer volunteers. For days her life hung in the balance as Abby fed and tended her. Then she had a seizure. Back she went to the vet, where she seized a second time. It started to look as if Faith would not make it and perhaps euthanasia would be the kindest thing to do. If she continued to seize, there would likely be brain damage and her quality of life would deteriorate quickly. The vet called my husband at work seeking permission to end the little girl’s suffering. He refused, and asked her to wait until we could get there. David and I went to see Faith at the vet’s office. Sitting in a cage with an IV in her front leg, she looked at us hopefully. “She comes to the front of the cage whenever somebody goes near,” one of the vet techs told us. “She just wants attention.” We asked if we could hold her and were permitted to. Each of us cuddled her carefully, watching out for the IV line. We left the hospital that day praying that the precious little baby would not seize again. If she did, we knew there would be no alternative but to euthanize her. She didn’t, and in the weeks and months that followed she grew stronger. Abby treated her for URI, which kept recurring, and the wound on her neck healed. She was successfully treated for worms and her food began to really nourish her. Once she began to run and play with other cats in the home, she somehow managed to break a front paw, but it healed too and she gained weight by leaps and bounds. As I write today, Faith is almost ten years old. She was never offered to the public and was adopted by Abby, her foster mom. Very beautiful with medium length fur and a huge fluffy tail, she still loves attention. She is not very big and Abby says she goes around the house like a little flying squirrel. For several years she served as our poster cat, appearing in our marketing and newsletters and making numerous public appearances. Faith was our first major rescue. Her condition when found demonstrated all too well what happens to many kittens that are born to homeless mothers. Her recovery assured us that something can be done, animals can be saved and given long happy lives. All it takes is hard work and a little faith. - Madi Legere from Madi Legere, Diary of a Mad Trapper (2018, self-published, 142 pages), a collection of touching stories about cat rescue based on the author’s experiences with the Moncton, New Brunswick chapter of ca-r-ma.org Cat Rescue Maritimes. The book is described as fiction based on fact, with some details changed. A couple of stories are written from the cat’s point of view (Big Daddy and Fluffy), with some of the cat’s background imagined. However, black and white photographs of several of the rescued cats support that the book is more memoir than fiction. All profits from sales go to the work of the cat rescue. Below: Faith on her first day of rescue; two weeks later; and two months later.
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