Thursday, March 28, 2024
black catsessayrescue stories

Mikey’s Miracle

black cat with facial injury
Mikey waking up after surgery.

It’s about compassion and respect for animals. He may look a little frightening right now, but he looks astonishing compared to just 24 hours before this photo was taken when he was trapped next to a dumpster in an apartment complex…apparently missing his nose. A frightened kitten looking for food on a cold rainy day, with a serious open wound ready for an infection, could really only look forward to a time of painful suffering before he died of an infection or was picked up by animal control and euthanized. But a chain of compassionate people saw that he was rescued and given the care he needed regardless of the fact he was homeless.

Just a warning that this article includes a few photos of the kitten’s injuries that may be disturbing, but just remember that the kitten was rescued, had surgery, and is still purring and eating.

Jody Mader, the person who rescued him, related how he was found and how she came to trap him.

“A friend from grade school messaged me on Friday morning about the kitty. She had been seeing him roaming for a couple of weeks on and off (mostly by the dumpster at the end of her street), but that morning, he was in her driveway with a bloody face,” she said. “She was so distraught and heartbroken, but he wouldn’t come close and she had to go to work.”

She messaged Jody knowing she rescued cats. Jody was to be trapping cats for TNR surgery over the weekend so she had an adult trap but had to swap it for a smaller trap. She met a friend for the kitten trap and drove to the dumpster.

“No kitty to be found. I drove around for about a half hour, asked some folks, but no one had seen him that day,” she said. But she did talk to one man working in the apartment complex who said he saw the kitty daily around 4 or 5pm. “He barely spoke English, but spoke enough to communicate that to me, as well as take my number down in case he had seen it again. I put food down at the dumpster and it began to rain,” she said, figuring the kitten wouldn’t come out in the cold rain, and started home with plans to return the next morning.

“I hadn’t been driving home for more than five minutes before my phone rang with a number I didn’t know. It was my man Jesús (pronounced as Spanish ‘heh-soos’) to tell me the kitty was eating the food I left… in the rain,” she related.

“I flew back over there, and sure enough the poor guy was soaking wet trying to eat food amongst pebbles. He was meowing in-between bites,” she described.

The kitten didn’t run from her but minded his own business as she set up the trap, though he didn’t want her coming too close. The trap set, she stood back and waited. “It took less than 10 AGONIZING minutes for that cutie pie to crawl in there,” she said.

Jesús was there too and watching from the sidelines and he came right over once it happened. “He was so genuinely happy and asked if he could call me to check on him,” she said.

You can hear from the kitten’s voice that he’s not feral, but glad to be rescued. Jody is speaking to him, and the video was made by her.

Then she posted the photo below to Facebook and let the rest of us know. The response was immediate. Michelle Miller texted Dr. Becky Morrow to see if he could come into the clinic and if she thought she could do anything for his injury.

kitten with injured face
The photo Jody posted.

“I will give it a try. I did a nose reconstruction once before,” she said. Jody immediately took him to the clinic where Dr. Morrow assessed his condition. “[He] feels well enough to eat. I was able to touch him and he’s acting more scared than feral,” she said and added that he was first on the schedule for the Saturday clinic. She also named him Mikey.

He had apparently only lost the end of his nose but the structure wasn’t damaged and he still had nostrils. After surgery she reported that there had been no nose left and “I had to make one. Not too bad!”

woman holding injured kitten
Dr. Becky Morrow with Mikey after surgery was over.

“Back to boring spays and neuters,” she added. All in a day’s work for a rescue veterinarian.

No one knows how he lost the end of his nose, any more than they can guess how he came to be homeless. What’s important is he was rescued, received the care he needed and he’ll never live on the streets again. Through it all he was a quiet purring kitten and hopefully he can have a wonderful life after this.

All too frequently cats are rescued who need extreme medical care like little Mikey, who has no owner to pay for it. The cost of this surgery and follow-up care is being borne by donations and many people, already paying rescuing and fostering expenses out of their own pockets, donated toward the costs. The clinic provides affordable spay and neuter and veterinary services to rescue and foster homes as well as other cats brought in for clinics; the fees barely cover the costs, but working with homeless animals the charges have to be kept affordable. If you can spare anything toward Mikey’s care, please send it to Frankie’s Friends Cat Rescue. You can use the PayPal button or send money through PayPal using their email address, or use the mailing address and send a check.

. . . . . . .

Another act of kindness

One night last week a rescuer messaged in the group that a friend of hers had seen a cat staggering on a road in traffic at night and went back to get the cat and took it home. The cat had been injured and she put it in a cage where it ate and drank a bit; she had to work in the early morning so she’d let her friend know where the cat was.

The friend she’d messaged also had a long day the next day—she was taking her father for surgery—but she organized with the rescue group a plan and a person to meet her half way to a veterinary hospital after she went to her friend’s house to pick it up, unsure if it was too injured to move or possibly aggressive from pain or even feral. On seeing it she was sure it needed help immediately. She got it into a carrier and met with another rescuer who would take the cat to an emergency hospital.

We all discussed what to do in various cases depending on how badly it was injured and how we’d pay for it, especially since it was going to an emergency hospital—people immediately offered to donate.

At the hospital the prognosis was not good and became worse. The veterinarian assessed the cat and reported the cat had a serious head injury, its mental condition was failing, and it had also bitten a tech, who had to go to an emergency room herself for care. The bite meant it would have to be observed for rabies, difficult in light of the cat’s injuries and potential treatments. Euthanasia had seemed like the best option for the cat’s condition from the beginning even before the bite, and that was the final decision made for her. Upon the outcome the emergency hospital had waived all charges.

The rescuers remarked repeatedly that the cat had looked too clean and healthy to be a stray cat, that she had to be someone’s cat. She had no chip and so they’ve put up a few signs and are looking for the cat’s owner. But at least the cat didn’t suffer further injuries and was in loving hands when she died. Sometimes that’s all that can be done, but it’s something that should be done.

. . . . . . .

The Saudi kitten

One last one to mention, that a woman from Saudi Arabia found a single nearly newborn kitten but could not get any form of kitten milk replacement where she was and had no idea what to feed it otherwise, or really how to care for it. She found the Homeless Cat Management Team on Facebook and was then welcomed into the Pittsburgh Feral Cat Movement so that she could take advantage of the expertise of all the rescuers there. Several people came up with recipes for milk replacer and suggestions for keeping the kitten warm and interested in food. We’ll see how this turns out for a lucky kitten and a generous rescuer, but I think these rescues show that rescuing animals knows no political boundaries and often doesn’t find language a barrier either; compassion is part of the human condition.


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Bernadette

From health and welfare to rescue and adoption stories, advocacy and art, factual articles and fictional stories, "The Creative Cat" offers both visual and verbal education and entertainment about cats for people who love cats, pets and animals of all species.

4 thoughts on “Mikey’s Miracle

  • Poor little Mikey. I’m so thankful that these wonderful peeps are helpin’ him and that he’s on the mend. Bet he’s a real sweetheart.

    Purrs,
    Nissy

    Reply
    • Nissy, he is turning out to be a real love! Likes to be held and petted, he must have been someone’s kitty, but who knows?

      Reply
  • It is stories like these that make me thankful for all the rescuers out there.
    Saving these often discarded babies, they are like angels 🙂
    Purrs to Mikey on his recovery.

    Reply
    • Georgia and Julie, he’s turning out to be so friendly, he must have been so frightened!

      Reply

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