A moment of joy [View all]
When I’m asked why I work in cat rescue, I often say that I do it to prevent suffering. But there’s another, perhaps more rewarding, reason and that reason is joy.
Fred was playing this morning. If Fred were just any cat, this would not be a big deal, but I never thought I’d see this day.
Fred is a fluffy gray senior cat—perhaps 12 years old—who came to me a year ago from a hoarding situation. He wasn’t neutered, he was badly matted, and he had a mouthful of broken, infected teeth and a torn tongue. He had probably been in severe pain from his mouth for years. For the first three months I had him, he hunkered down in a box in his cage while he got neutered and had his mouth worked on. After all his medical needs were met, I left the cage door open so he could join the other cats. He continued to hunker down in his box, gradually coming out a bit at a time, but always a fearful ghost of a cat, not feral exactly, but afraid of everything and everyone.
This morning he was playing with one of those circular scratchers that has a ball in a track around it, just casually lounging on it, whacking that ball back and forth. All the work and expense that’s gone into that cat was totally worth it for that moment of joy.
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