It's Tuesday, Welcome Back To The Cocktail Party!

Welcome to Willoughby's Blog Style Cocktail Party. I hope you will find some new blogs to follow and expand your circle of blog friends. I know you're all anxious to mingle, so I'll get right to it.

I'd like to introduce Amy from The House Of Seven Tails.  I know you'll enjoy her blog as much as I do.

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About Me

Amy

Once upon a time I was a prosecutor, then a CPS lawyer. Now I'm a very happily married 40+ year old who really enjoys reading, struggles to write and loves baking goodies hubbie gobbles up. I am also a mom to too many adorable cats who me and hubbie spend as much time with as our furry kids will allow! Our cats always seem to be followed home by this feline friend or that feline friend each of whom has a furry friend or two of their own. We rescue homeless, hungry cats if they will let us, find them a home or a safe, warm place to stay or sometimes we take them in and keep them! If they want to stay put outside, we feed and take care of them and keep an eye on them. I have many cute pictures and many more "tails" to tell!

My name is Amy and I used to be a criminal prosecutor and then an attorney for social services working on cases of neglected and abused children. I had to “retire” early for health reasons. But that worked out well because my husband and I began caring for and giving a home to stray and homeless cats. Several years ago we began rescuing cats living on the streets, getting them medical care, finding them homes and making sure they are loved and cared for. Here is one of my favorite stories.

One early Autumn day, Sam was outside dealing with necessary tasks as the landlord's handy man when he saw her. Not much to look at, her small body was listing like a drunken sailor about to keel over. Almost hairless in spots, the hair she had was matted, scraggly and dirty. When Sam approached her she stopped walking. Her eyes said she was suspicious and uncertain but resigned. Scott reached out tentatively and touched her head and when she didn't object, he picked her up. She weighed next to nothing.

I was inside our apartment with the windows wide open (for the cats' benefit, not mine!). The quiet was suddenly breached. Sam's voice bellowed staccato orders: "Amy! Kitten! Food! Door!" Sam is easy-going and if he's worried it's related to me or the cats. Since I was fine I knew the worry in his voice meant something was wrong with one of the cats. Just as I reached our front door, he burst through holding the small, almost hairless kitten with an adorable face. She looked like she'd been through the ringer. He put her down by the cats' food bowls. At first it looked like she didn't know what to do but she started eating quickly enough. She was too tired to do much else, so she disappeared under the bed to sleep. We'd call the vet first thing in the morning to make plans to bring her in.

We named her Sadie (from the Beatle's song). Soon she emerged and ate a little more food and drank some water. When she finished, Sam picked her up and put her on the bed where she curled up and went to sleep.

Ironically, she slept much better than either of us. We kept waking up to check on her throughout the night. In the morning she ate a little bit, then, still wobbly, she went into the kitchen (to explore? we couldn‘t tell) with Sam following close behind. I couldn't see him when suddenly I heard his voice falter and then....nothing. After calling to him a third time I finally heard him say "just a minute" in a weird, shaky and strangled voice. Then he was running into the room and laying Sadie on the bed. He told me she’d been walking when she suddenly stiffened and fell over lying completely still for several seconds and like that, she stood up and it was over. Then, as Sadie sat on the bed, it happened again. Immediately after, she was in a carrier and we rushed her !to Dr. Diaz.

She was brought right into an exam room and showed a good fighting spirit when the vet's assistant (VA) tried to take her temperature. She (Sadie, not the VA) weighed 3 lbs. A terrible case of fleas was responsible for her lack of fur. After Dr. Diaz examined her, he said she was a little dehydrated but aside from that and being a little tired, she was okay. He didn’t expect the blood work to show anything bad. She was given flea treatments and antibiotics which she’d have to take for 4 weeks (!) along with a lot of rest and a flea bath twice a week! Uggh!! Home again, she curled up on the bed, went to sleep and has been a part of our household since.

The litter box is in the basement and she was too small to manage it, so several times a day Sam carried her down and back up whenever she needed to use the litter box! Sadie's days were routine for months, sleeping most of the day curled in the crook of Sam's arm. If he wasn't available she slept leaning on my leg or sitting in my lap. Then it was time to eat, use the litter box and back to bed. And repeat. Happy to provide all the TLC she needed, her body started to fill out and her hair began growing in. Best of all, Sadie never had another seizure.

It took a while but finally one day she began batting a crumpled piece of paper around with her paws and running after it. But after several minutes of this, that was it. This was the only signs of “normal“ kitten hood she showed for quite a while. She went back to her routine of sleeping and eating, though she was big enough now to manage the stairs by herself.

Then one day after Sadie had been with us about 4 months, everything changed. It's as if she woke up a very different cat. There was a gleam in her eye and she started playing with everything and anything that moved. She began inspecting everything, exploring and sniffing. Soon she began to go outside and loved life among the grass, bugs, birds and flowers. It was wonderful to see her so alive. Sure, we missed the little kitty who slept on our bed hour after hour and wanted nothing more than to be with us and us with her. But to see her so completely healthy and happy more than made up for it.

Today Sadie is very independent but she likes to know we are nearby. She’s developed a temper which shows if something is done without her permission! In other words, Sadie has become a real cat in her own right! She’s remained tiny - barely bigger than a kitten, so when she turns that adorable little face in our direction and looks at us with her great big green eyes, we are mush in her paws!

Sadie's story is an example of why I feed, befriend and care for homesless and stray cats.

Everytime she turns her little face and looks at me with those big green eyes or nudges me with her head and makes her special mewing noise, I am rewarded ten times over for taking care of her.

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Thank you Amy for being a guest on my blog.

The cocktail party will continue on Thursday with a new guest blogger. It's not too late to RSVP if you haven't already. You can send your submission to me at thisstopwilloughby@yahoo.com. (If you're not already a follower, you must become one to be a guest blogger at the cocktail party.)   I would appreciate it if you could send me your post in html format. If you are submitting a new post, create it on Blogger as you would any post. Save, but don't publish it. From there you can click "edit html" and copy and paste your blog into the body of an email. If you are submitting a previously published post, go into "edit" and follow the same instructions. This makes it much easier for me to display your blog post the way you have written it and saves me a lot of editing. If you have any questions, feel free to email me.


Willoughby