THE GREATEST THING YOU'LL EVER LEARN, IS JUST TO LOVE AND BE LOVED IN RETURN...

Today I would like to share this heart warming rescue story from mommies DEVON group...just one of many that we know, but one that changed lives because of LOVE...

""This is a now 3 year old story that I have shared a few times. An Oriental Shorthair, white with blue eyes locked in an attic for almost adecade. A decade of bags of food torn open, a bucket of water and god knows what the litter box situation was. She had a horrible dental decay all over, pus at her gum lines, kidney issues and guess what, she was a neglect case. In Chicago. Somehow, not sure how, I was the closest for transport. Transport gave me three days to find her a foster - she had to get out. I could not find anyone who had experience with totally unsocialized cats who had no contact with kids, humans of any kind, other cats, dogs, etc. She had a four paw declaw that was so bad we don't know if the vet who did it was drunk or blind. Or both. She can barely walk. Transport as I was, with no foster in sight, she came here. I told OSA I was the worst profile for a foster home for her but I would personally take care of all her vetting before placement. She was on antibiotics, then a huge dental, then the kidney infection which took weeks to turn around. After a few months of no offers on a geriatric cat that could hiss spit at us across the room and did put a few teeth on us, not severe but..... aliability issue was underway about known biters which all non profits must heed. To euthanize or not..... We chose to really try to work with her - she stayed on a kitchen chair and yelled at us. After months of hissing at my mom's old dog and other cats, she finally fell in love with my oldest son who was 10 then. She then fell in love with all my kids, marching through cereal bowls to get to them. She fell in love with a few devons, but she never left her kitchen chair except for meals and potty time. She fell in love with Alex, my old Siamese and never left his side until he passed away. Slowly she ventured to other rooms, a year afterwards down to the basement with us, 2 years after that, upstairs slowly on crippled paws. This week, she lies with all the cats on every couch and chair on every level, she tries to beat me upstairs to sleep on my pillow, she wants to be carried like a baby all the time, she is massively spoiled and the other cats adore her and she adores them. This girl who we call The White Wench for her salty language is never more than 1 foot away from any of us, she has helped clean and socialize kittens that came out of the nursery over thefew years and she has claimed Reddy Freddy to be her true boyfriend, a curly red devon neuter. I think with great patience, sometimes these cats are actually precious treasures. Coming out of neglect or shelters, often it is not easy to see the real personality. Wenchie needed a place to know that she was accepted. We would tell her, Rejection Is Not An Option, darling. To this day, out of almost 2 decades of rescue, this is the only rescue we have kept - all others were very placable although we have not had to foster so many over those years. I think at the point she chose us, well, we have all lived better because of her. She kisses and purrs are worth every ounce of gold of her weight. She can do biscuits with all four feet! She is, infact, family.""

~~~~~~~~~~~~~Angela Gruenberg, Devon Rescue, Chair~~~~~~~~~~~~~~