Today pet bloggers are coming together on a quarterly effort called Blog the Change for Animals, hosted by Be the Change for Animals. For this special event, bloggers each write about a cause that’s special to them.
This week marks the fifth birthday (well, actually “Gotcha Day”) for our Inca. We adopted her from a shelter that’s now a no-kill shelter but, at that time, sadly was not.
When I first saw Inca, she was in a row of kennels pushed against a window. I’d circled the room MANY times, talking to each cat, but Inca had never turned to look at me, not even once. I was about to leave and come back another day when a volunteer asked me if she could help. I told her I was looking for a female kitten since we had two older males at home. She said, “how about this one? It’s her turn at the window today.”
Inca had been at the shelter for nearly a month the day we saw her, and, as a kill shelter, there probably wouldn’t be too many more turns at the window for this girl. But I wanted to make sure I got a sociable cat, one who would get along with everyone in the household.
Soon I had my answer. She was just what I’d been looking for and I told the volunteer that I’d like to adopt this six-month-old black cat and I started filling out the paperwork while Inca went off to be microchipped.
But a few minutes later, a shelter employee came back, holding Inca. “Wait, before you complete the paperwork, we wanted to make sure you saw this.”
She showed me Inca’s left ear, a spot I’d noticed before while I was petting her. Right behind her ear she had a nickel-sized, completely hairless, bloody spot. It wasn’t even scabby, just raw.
“We wanted to be sure you saw this before you made your decision.”
I looked at her ear again for a minute but by then there was nothing that was going to make me go home without Inca. I thought it was either ringworm or some kind of infection or even possibly a flea allergy that was making her scratch. Inca was headed home with me.
The next day, a vet’s visit confirmed what I had guessed: Inca had a bad case of ringworm. It wasn’t a problem, though; we soon had some special shampoo and medicine to apply to the spot. Within a few weeks, the ringworm was healed and the hair grew back in place.
Please don’t let minor issues with shelter cats and dogs cause you to change your mind once your heart has already said this is the one for you. After all, no one is perfect!
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