Would you adopt a cat with a significant, obvious birth defect or physical handicap? What if the cat didn’t require any special care for its condition, would that make any difference?
I recently had to face this very question. I had to put my sweet baby girl kitty to sleep at the far too young age of 12 due to a horrific disease called FIP. She died on 11/26/2012, so it’s almost been four months since I said goodbye to her…
A few weeks after her death, I had to take my other cat (Morris, inherited from grandma) to the vet for his annual check-up. During that visit, my vet introduced to me a cat that has lived there in the clinic for the last year. He was brought in by and elderly man who found him on his porch, almost starved and very thin and the pads on all of his paws were injured and bleeding! The man brought him in to have him put to sleep, but my vet felt that he was worth saving and that’s exactly what she did!
His name is Captain Hook. He is a gorgeous charcoal gray with white belly and white paws and keeps himself perfectly groomed. He is no more than three years old and has a wonderful laid-back personality that is rarely seen in cats, but makes him all the more endearing! He looks at you with a half-asleep and half-stoned expression on his face and even ‘answers’ you when you say something to him with a very mellow chirp of a meow! When you pet him, he remains totally mellow but the rumble of his purring shows that he appreciates the attention! =)
But Captain Hook is different from other cats because one of his front paws is only partially formed. It looks like it stopped growing half-way thru his development inside his mother and it curves at the end, just like a HOOK! Hence the name.
He was born this way, so he doesn’t realize that anything is wrong or different about him. He can run, jump, play or do anything else other cats do without missing a beat!
My vet asked me to at least consider adopting Captain Hook when I decided that I was ready to move on after losing my sweet girl Anna. I told her that I certainly would even though I had conflicting feelings about his deformity at the time. I was very flattered when I recently spoke with my vet’s husband, also a vet in the same office. He told me that I was the first and ONLY person she had ever considered as a possible forever home for Captain Hook!
Ultimately, I have discovered that Morris simply won’t tolerate another male cat living under the same roof!!! He is a total sweetheart and gentle as a lamb with the female felines. He misses Anna’s companionship even though she was mean to him most of the time. So my next cat will be a female….
Prior to that realization, I struggled with the idea of adopting Captain Hook. I loved his personality and his gimp paw wouldn’t bother me in the least. But what about visitors to my home? If they made fun of fun of him or said anything even slightly inappropriate, I would throw them thru my glass storm door!!! I know I would have been hyper-sensitive to the actions and words of others and would have reacted to any that pissed me off with full force and no mercy! I wonder if parents of mentally handicapped children feel this way all the time, just watching and waiting to eviscerate the next mofo who looks at my kid wrong!?!?
How do you think you would feel about adopting Captain Hook if you were in my shoes?
