Now that’s what I call rescue

My friend Betty was crawling around under a tree behind a fast-food restaurant the other day and saved a cat’s life.

Betty, I should mention, is in her 70’s, and she and I belong to the same feral cat maintenance group, Tomball SOS (Save Our Strays). One TSOS member goes out every night and feeds the more than 200 cats who live on the main streets of our locality. These volunteers operate primarily out of their own pockets, but with the support and donations from Rescue Bank, a pass-through pet rescue charity built on the Food Bank model.

So here’s Betty at 11 at night on a Saturday night, crawling on the little island of greenery in the middle of the parking lot, putting down a dish of cat food, when she realizes one of the cats is lying on its side, lethargic and breathing rapidly. She did what any rescuer would do – she picked it up.

Betty brought it to my husband and me, and the three of us worked over the little girl for over an hour, cleaning up her goopy eye and applying eye ointment, giving her sub-Q fluids, a B12 injection, an antibiotic, and assisting her to eat.   We put her on a warm pad and left her for the night in an isolation cage. By Sunday morning, she was alert and a little better. Same treatment Sunday, and today, Monday, she’s at the vet’s office, sitting up, but still not out of the woods.

Our organization is out beating the bushes for donations for this little darling’s care.

Now that’s what I call rescue.  People sometimes ask me, “What’s it like to do pet rescue?” That’s what it’s like. A little old lady crawling around in the bushes to save the life of a cat she doesn’t even know.