Paws and Prayers Rescue Blog

I knew as soon as I saw him that he was the cat I wanted. "This one," I told Nathan. "This one is my favorite." He was skinny as sin but twice as fluffy, a grey furball with a white beard & big socks to match. A black nose, not a pink one, which I swore made him cuter. And most importantly, he was purring - hard. He responded to our petting, forcing his head up under our hands if we tried to stop. Yes, he was our cat right away. 

We knew we were taking a gamble adopting an old cat. He was 9, the ASPCA told us (though we'd later learn he was closer to 12), an indoor-outdoor who went by George but didn't know his name, which meant we could easily change it. We adopted him despite his age because cats sometimes live to be 18, & where would we be in 18 years?! An old man seemed like a safe bet for an unknown future.

The first few days with George were rough, though. He had an incessantly watery eye, plus a stuffy nose & a kitty cold. He wouldn't eat & hid under the bed whenever we approached him. We took him to the vet but couldn't afford to shell out hundreds of dollars for a cat we'd just gotten, so the ASPCA agreed to take him back, & I gave him a tearful goodbye as Nathan planned to return him while I was away on business. When the photo came via text message less than a day later, though, I was so happy I cried: our cat, eating Spaghetti-O's! He was cured! Nathan liked to take credit for saving his life. We renamed him Stringer Bell, after one of our favorite TV characters & he was only sort of appropriately tough. Mostly, he was just cuddly.

When Nathan was away on Coast Guard deployment, Stringer was my saving grace. With no friends in the area, he was my little buddy, my constant companion. Unlike other cats, he welcomed belly rubs; he was nearly always purring. He'd sleep curled up in my arm at night & would lick my face before I fell asleep, like a little dog. He destroyed our furniture & stuck his head in all our water glasses, but he was the happiest cat in the land, & I freely admitted to being kind of obsessed with him. How could you not love something so cute so much?

Yesterday, while I was in Ohio for a wedding, Stringer had a stroke. Of course, Nathan didn't know that was what had happened, only that the cat had lost control of some bodily functions & was doing what we call his "angry meow." Nathan took him to the emergency vet, where he was X-rayed & put in an oxygen cage to help him breathe, on the off chance it was just allergies. But at 4:30 this morning, Nathan got a call saying Stringer had gotten worse & was likely in a lot of pain. Like a good papa, Nate gave them the go-ahead to stop his suffering. I took a standby flight home at 8:30am, but our kitty was long gone by then. 

I don't even like animals. I certainly never thought I'd become this crazy cat lady who lets her pet lick her face at night. But I'll be damned if that little guy wasn't my absolute favorite thing in the world for a solid 14.5 months. He got me through life in Portsmouth when I wanted nothing more than to flee back to D.C. or Ohio. He gave me something to take care of while Nathan was away. He gave me infinite snuggles in exchange for food, water, & a few good belly rubs. When I petted that cat, I could almost feel the stress leaving my body; he was better & cuter than Xanax, but possibly even more addictive.

I've spent all day crying, & I'm not even back home yet. I know that when I enter our apartment & he's not there to greet me - when I see Nathan all out of sorts & sans-cat sad - I'm going to lose it all over again. I know, I know: Far be it from me to question nature's plan. Maybe Stringer Bell just didn't want to move to New Jersey? I don't blame you, little buddy. But I know that we gave him the best year of his short cat life, & he gave us so much love & happiness in return. Already, life feels a lot less fluffy without him. 

Nap well, my sweet little man. Mama & papa loved you hard.

Debby is our Fan of the Month for January. She decided to do something a little different than the Q&A from last month; she insisted on writing her own blog post! We could not be anymore happy with what she has written and know that you will love her story as well! :)

As I grew, my love for animals grew right along with me. I brought home every stray that I found and loved every dog I saw beyond reason. I think that is something you are born with and when I began having my children, they inherited that trait.

The first dog that we had when my kids were old enough to participate was a stray that someone dumped. My kids encouraged her to “stay” by feeding her when I was at work. She was a mixed breed “mutt” (the best kind really). We ran ads in 3 different newspapers for weeks to see if someone would claim her, and when no one responded, we had a family meeting and decided to adopt her. Her name, fittingly enough, was “Finder”, because we did…. :o) And a few weeks after she was licensed and vetted, we found out she was pregnant and probably the reason she was abandoned. She was with us for 15 wonderful years and we loved her beyond measure.

During the time we had Finder, my 2nd oldest daughter brought home a puppy she found running loose on a very busy highway. The pup was dirty, scraggly, and very hungry…. my first impression was “eeww…” stinky and we already have a dog. We need to find her a home. But the minute I held her in my arms, I knew she was my dog. Another “mutt” but just as beautiful as Finder for sure. Her name was Maggie and we loved her to pieces.

Throughout all these years with all these dogs, my kids were growing up and moving out, I had a wonderful new husband, who by the way was a dog lover, too, and our family adored the dogs we had. Then 2008 rolled around…. Maggie was 14 and Emme was 9 and they were healthy as can be, or so we thought. One day when my granddaughter was visiting and we were playing on the floor, Maggie came upstairs to see what was going on and her back legs gave way. She started flopping around on the floor trying to get her legs to do what they were supposed to do and her attempts to gain control of her legs were futile. I rushed her to our vet and Dr. Robyn found a huge tumor in the crease of her leg. I can’t tell you how many belly rubs I’d given this dog and I didn’t see it. The tumor had gotten so big that it now had taken the use of her back legs away and had spread to other organs in the meantime. All the while, we were unaware and I felt SO guilty and awful. Dr. Robyn gave her a shot and said if it was going to work we might be able to give her a little more time. So we took her home and we laid her on her favorite pillow and watched her like a hawk. She couldn’t walk, she wouldn't eat and we were devastated when a week later, our vet told us the most humane thing we could do was to put her out of her misery. That was another terribly hard trip to the vet. We brought her home and buried her under my favorite bush. That was a couple days before Thanksgiving of 2008

Now we were back to one dog, Emme…. I was looking forward to being able to spend more time with her, concentrating on her and making her feel as special as she was. She was a little lethargic and we thought she was grieving, which I’m sure she was. She and Maggie had bonded from the first moment they sniffed each other. After a couple weeks of this, I decided to take her to the vet, just to get checked out and make sure she was okay. Dr. Robyn did a routine blood panel and physically she seemed fine. She told me to phone her back in a day for the results of the blood tests. My husband and mother and daughters kept telling me they were sure things were fine, that I was worrying for nothing. I kept telling myself they were right… I was praying they were right. The results of her blood work were shocking to all of us, to say the least. Emme was dying of kidney failure and we were absolutely devastated. On Christmas day, she crawled under the Christmas tree, turned around and laid down and looked at us as if to say “don’t forget what a gift I’ve been”. That was the last picture of her we ever got. She died at home with us 3 days after Christmas and was buried with Maggie under my favorite bush. Within 6 weeks we had lost both of our beloved dogs and I was inconsolable.

People kept telling me to get another dog and I just felt like I couldn't… I just couldn’t get over my grief of Maggie and Emme dying so close together. It just wasn't fair… Emme was so young and still had so much life in her. But little by little I started to get curious about what dogs were out there. I wasn't even sure how to go about looking for a dog, as all of ours were “sent” to us as gifts…(I believed). So I scoured the internet for ads and rescue groups and I found Paws and Prayers. I read all about them and looked at their dogs and loved many of what I saw, but was still reluctant to try to adopt. Then I saw “Gracie”…. she looked so sweet and I have always wanted to have a golden named Gracie and although she wasn't a golden, she was golden in color and I knew needed a loving home to call her own. So I filled out an application and they accepted us to be doggie “parents”. Jen told me that another family had already expressed an interest in Gracie, but that we could come and meet her at the Chapel Hill Petsmart. We did meet her and I fell in love with her, but the other couple drove 6 hours to meet her and they also fell in love with her, so Gracie went home with another family. I was very disappointed and felt like maybe I shouldn't be adopting yet. But believing that everything happens for a reason, I kept looking. We found a breeder, in a round about way, and they bred boxers. Well, when their female boxer was ready to be bred, a sneaky lab got into their kennel and low and behold, the cutest boxer/lab mix puppies you've ever seen were born. I talked with the breeder and they were giving these puppies away. I told her I wanted a female (all my dogs had been females up to this point) and she said she only had one female left, but there were people coming to look at them over the weekend. I kept putting off seeing them, so my daughters talked me into it and I decided to go and look at them on Monday morning. The one female was still there and when we got there it was love at first “lick”. I picked her up and she licked my face and I knew…. “Marnie” had found her forever home. 

Life with Marnie was so much fun! She was wild and had SO much energy! There is never a day that goes by that Marnie doesn’t make us laugh! We lovingly nicknamed her “Marnie the Maniac” and for good reason. She had an endless amount of energy and it was so good to have a dog again. My granddaughter, Zoey, loved her and Marnie just adored Zoey, too, and we were so happy about that! Marnie saved me from my grief and we just loved her so much.

But I couldn’t stop looking at Paws and Prayers dog pictures. Jen would send me dogs to look at, but I kept coming back to the picture of “Alvin”. A male border collie/lab mix whose face I just couldn’t seem to take my eyes off of. But I kept thinking “he’s a male” and we don’t want any males”. Hmmm…. then why couldn’t I stop thinking about him. Every day I would go to Paws and Prayers website and look for him, thinking he probably was already adopted. And when he wasn’t, I felt relief…. I looked at his picture every day for a long time and finally decided maybe we should go look at him. So my husband and I took the trip and met “Alvin”. He was so shy, but so beautiful and he had this look on his face… the same look that haunted me in his picture. The look that to me said, “we belong together, please make me yours”. And that is exactly what we did. The next day, my daughter and I went to pick him up and the foster lady kept telling me about this “weird thing” that Alvin did with his mouth; that it looked like he was being vicious, but that wasn't what it was. She didn’t want me to see it and be fearful of him and in turn not want him anymore. We went to Petsmart to get his bed and some other things we’d need. He was quiet and shy, but at one point while we were sitting on the bench waiting on my daughter, he gave that wonderful “doggie sigh” and leaned against my leg and I knew we were going to be alright. And about the “weird thing” thing that he did with his mouth….. well, every time we go away and come back, I see that “weird thing” smiling in the door way at us and I’ve never mistaken it for anything other than what it was…. Finnegan SMILES at us! It’s amazing and it makes me laugh every time I see him do it.

Alvin became Finnegan and he settled into his new home just fine. He’s been here over a year now and he’s still shy about some things… someone was abusive to him when he was young, so he’s very fearful of a lot of things. But we are working with him and he’s getting better every day. It’s so great to watch him experience things for the first time, like treats he’s never had before and toys… sometimes now he picks up toys to play. That is more heartwarming than you know… well, I’m sure anyone who is reading this does know how that feels.

We are so grateful to Paws and Prayers for working with us, for being patient with my grief and for waiting for us to find the right dog. Finnegan has been another wonderful gift and he and Marnie are the best of friends. They are the same age, within a month, and just have the most fun playing and romping around. We have been so blessed in the past with all the wonderful pets we’ve had. But I feel especially blessed by Paws and Prayers for their immense love for dogs and doing what they do. Uniting a family with the right dog is a special gift for so many people AND dogs. Sometimes when I look at Finnegan and he walks over to me with that ”grin” on his face, I know he feels as grateful to be here as we are grateful to have him. Thank you Paws and Prayers for every single thing you do to rescue and unite the dogs and cats that you do every single day! You are special, wonderful people and I applaud you for all the hard work you do!"