The Help Quilt: A Patchwork of Animal Rescue Stories

By Deb Force

The stories in this book will involve you in the drama of shelter adoptions that are sometimes nearly miraculous. You will read about the joy adoptions have brought to families, the tragedies that brought these animals to the shelter as well as the humor and surprise of animal life in adoption shelters.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9781467062763

Deb Force

This book has many authors. The "collector" of these stories, Deb Force, was a former Director and Board member of the Animal Shelter in Richmond Indiana, HELP the Animals, Inc. This is the 'collector's' attempt to raise funds and draw attention to a small town animal shelter that depends totally on donations for funding.

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The HELP Quilt

A patchwork of animal rescue stories

Deb Force

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AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2011 by Deb Force. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 11/02/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4670-6278-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4670-6277-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4670-6276-3 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011919818

Printed in the United States of America

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

This book is dedicated to all those who have given me their stories in order to continue the good work at HELP the Animals, Inc.

In particular I would like to thank Pam Brandenburg for all of her hard work reading, editing, re-reading ad infinitum, but mostly for her encouragement and unrelenting faith in my endeavor.

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This is the story of Sophie, Slater,

and Sinclair.

Picture this: A woman pushes a shopping cart to the HELP shelter, on a Sunday morning, with three thin, sickly, mewling little kittens, barely old enough to be taken from their mother. She gets someone’s attention (HELP is closed to the public on Sunday, but is always staffed) and explains that she found these kittens and there is something wrong with their eyes. The kittens were taken in and set up in the sick room in a warm area and given the basic necessities. The next day they were taken to the veterinarian.

Wendy

This is where my story starts. I am a board member at the shelter and one of several fosters, who care for animals needing special attention. Fostering is a temporary home until the animals are well enough to come into the shelter for adoption. Until I had started volunteering at the shelter I did not know that I liked cats. I did not dislike them; I like all furry creatures, but I had just never been really exposed to cats. At the shelter, with over 100 cats, I was won over as I learned all the different feline personalities and their playfulness, lovingness, and sometimes aloof attitudes.

I picked the three pitiful kittens up from the veterinarian’s office on Monday and brought them into my home. The vet said that he did not think that there was much that could be done for them because their eye infection had been long term and a lot of that damage could not be reversed. I put the prescribed medication into their eyes for several weeks, but their conditions did not improve. At this point, because of their problems, they officially became special needs kittens, and we had to search for someone who was willing to give a home to a special needs animal. My husband, bless his heart, agreed to keep the kittens until we found that special home.

As we searched over the next two months, Slater had to have one of his eyes removed, to prevent further health complications. He adjusted quite well, as most animals do. By spring, his sister Sophie developed a bubble eye and had to have that eye removed. Sinclair was able to keep both eyes, but sees very poorly. It has been described as trying to drive a car with a very dirty windshield.

I continued to assure my husband that we would soon find a home for these growing kittens, but over the Christmas holidays I tearfully told him that I did not think that I could give them up. Who would be able to take care of them together, and how could we separate them? Who would understand their needs, and be able to make them comfortable in their surroundings when their vision was measured in feet? That is when they became numbers 5, 6, and 7 in my feline family.

My husband deserves a special award, an animal sainthood of sorts. Not only does he donate his time and manual labor to help with the upkeep of the shelter, he must use a prescription allergy medication daily, and an inhaler, because of his severe allergy to cats, yet he has never even once mentioned re-homing my cats. He takes his medications, the cats sleep downstairs, and we are one big happy family.

It seems to me that special needs animals are just a little more loving, a little more tolerant and pleasant. These kittens are very gentle and well-behaved. They sit on window-sills and talk to the birds, and, once they have learned the traffic patterns, run and play chase as if they are fully sighted. They never whine, or complain about what they cannot do, and if they bump into something, they just dust themselves off and carry on. They are my heroes, and I am very lucky to have them in my family.

See how they run…

Wendy Neale

A 1-year old Cat is Equivalent to a 15 year

Old Human

a 2 year old cat is equivalent to a 25 year old human

a 3 year old cat is equivalent to a 32 year old human

a 4 year old cat is equivalent to a 40 year old human

a 5 year old cat is equivalent to a 45 year old human

a 10 year old cat is equivalent to a 60 year old human

a 15 year old cat is equivalent to a 72 year old human

a 20 year old cat is equivalent to a 90 year old human

a 25 year old cat is equivalent to a 105 year old human

a 30 year old cat is equivalent to a 120 year old human

*All are estimated, not exact*

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We did not intend to become cat people; we liked