A year of amazing pet rescues

[Nagishkaw 510]

It's the season for miracles, and these are some of more than 200 holiday happy endings submitted to pets reporter Sharon L. Peters after she asked Pet Smart Charities to send an e-mail to the 3,000 shelters and rescues on its mailing list.

Abandoned pups become therapy pets

On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, the Humane Society of Perry, Iowa, received an awful call. A bunch of puppies had been crammed into a milk crate and dumped in a snowy ditch on the edge of town.

Volunteers raced to the scene and found five cocker spaniel mixes, maybe 8 weeks old, whining in the bone-grinding cold. They were scooped up and placed overnight in makeshift but warm accommodations, and the next morning, because the city shelter isn't puppy-appropriate, Humane Society president Abby Benifiel contacted one 35 miles away, which agreed to take the pups. Benifiel and her daughter loaded them up for the journey.

They stopped at the Spring Valley Retirement Community, where the daughter works, so she could tend to a quick errand. The young woman took a puppy inside to show to residents she knew to be dog lovers and soon returned to the car, where Benifiel awaited with the other four, to take them in, too. The residents were thrilled to have pups to fuss over and had plenty to say about the heartless person who had sentenced the wee ones to death by freezing.

As word of the visitors spread, the community room filled. One woman made her way to a chair near the puppies, and "I could tell she yearned to reach for one," Benifiel says. When one was placed on her lap, "her eyes just sparkled as she cradled the puppy, who sighed contentedly and dozed." The woman whispered to the puppy and murmured to people seated nearby.

Facility administrator Janet Woodruff motioned Benifiel aside and whispered that the woman holding the puppy was new to the facility, hadn't spoken much and had kept to herself.

Soon Woodruff was asking if the facility might be allowed to foster two puppies, and after discussing details about feeding, exercising and cleanup — with other staff members eagerly joining in — agreements were made.

The head nurse then piped up. She asked to adopt a puppy for her family. Benifiel explained that process and agreed to drop off paperwork soon — one for an adoption, two for foster care.

Suddenly Woodruff approached again. She shook her head and told Benifiel fostering just wasn't possible. "My heart stopped," Benifiel says. "I thought she must have decided it was too much responsibility."

"We can't foster them, but we WILL adopt them as permanent residents," Woodruff said. She had been wanting a therapy dog for the facility, and eying the residents with the pups, she'd decided to grow her own.

So only two of the ditch dogs remained homeless that day, and they were driven to the shelter. Now the other three, just weeks later, are loved and settled.

A kitten motivates a town to give

Last month in Tonawanda, N.Y., a tiny kitten was suffering alone in a vacant lot with horrific injuries. She could barely move. Something was so wrong with her face that she could barely mew for help. A caring passerby swept her up and dashed to the SPCA.

She had probably been hit by a car and then somehow dragged herself out of the road. Whatever happened, her right ear was a mess and the area under her jaw was "degloved," meaning the skin was peeled back from the tissue, the blood supply severed.

The community opened hearts and wallets when the shelter put out one of its official Yelp for Help pleas to cover medical care for strays, and veterinarians performed the first of what became more than $1,500 in surgeries. A severe respiratory infection spread, and the little kitty — with the help of antibiotics — vanquished that. Sooner than anyone would have expected, the extroverted kitten was being carried through the facility, protective head cone and all, so she could greet one and all.

This month, on the first day she was declared healthy enough for adoption, she was chosen by Heather and Richard Melton, who took her home to their cat, who adores tiny Aurora. "And," Heather says, "so do we."

A lost cat reunites with its family

In November, Pamela Ott, founder of Saved Whiskers Rescue Organization in Voorhees, N.J., was trapping feral cats near the New Jersey Turnpike so they could be taken to be sterilized. She noticed an orange one that seemed to be part of the group because his coloring was similar to others in the colony, but he was extremely thin, and the others shoved him away from the food she had brought.

Ott pushed food toward that cat, and while he scarfed it down, she snatched him up. It was instantly obvious he wasn't like the others there. He had been neutered, he had been loved, he was in no way wild. She began nursing him back to health.

Days later, back at the same place again, she came upon an older gentleman and struck up a conversation. He said that back in July, a woman had stopped at the nearby rest stop while driving from New York to her new home in Florida, and her leashed cat had gotten spooked and run off.

The woman enlisted the help of the fire department, state troopers and police, who tried to capture the terrified cat, to no avail.

She gave her contact information to several people, including this man's son, and asked to be called if the cat was caught, then continued her journey.

The man promised Ott he'd get the contact information from his son. Ott contacted Laura Roman Lopez, now living in Orlando, to report that her Sprinkles was ready to complete his journey to his Florida home.

"I was so thrilled," Lopez says. "I'd never given up hope."

She and her two children, who'll be in New York for Christmas, will pick up Sprinkles on Dec. 31 just before heading for the airport to fly back to Florida.

"I haven't told them we'll be getting Sprinkles back. It will be a wonderful New Year's surprise present and a wonderful new year."

http://www.usatoday.com/life/lifestyle/pet...pets23_ST_N.htm

[Kathryn41 3,205]

I love good news stories like these - thank you!

[Nagishkaw 510]

Actually Kathryn, I posted this with you in mind.