Heart lifting, heart breaking...

This week has been a monumentally emotional week.  I admit that I am weary as I write this, mostly because our own cat, Minuet, is missing and we are just heartbroken about it.  I've been making phone calls and posters today, so her sweet face is on my mind.  Here she is, being helpful as is her wont.  We have called her "The Assistant" since she was a kitten when she would pin her siblings down to wash them just like her Mama did.  Since then, she's helped the humans with every task--paperwork, laundry, house cleaning, plumbing, decorating.  Oh, and salad preparation.  She loves lettuce and will pilfer salad bowls and even bags of lettuce from the store.  She was just a baby when I joined Carolyn, so she is special for so many reasons.

There were 3 other pets who touched my heart in a big way this week; I'll only mention one here right now as she has already been dubbed a pirate.  Lily, the wonder dog, underwent surgery again as another tumor appeared on the incision site for her leg amputation.  I was so hoping that she would be done with big surgeries after the last one.  Heartbreaking to see her shaved and cut again, bandaged afterward just like she was after the amputation.  But heart lifting to see her two days later, on the job at the physical therapy office, joyfully greeting clients, wearing a pretty pink sweater instead of a bandage.  This may be the happiest, most fulfilled dog I have ever known.

Keep them all in your hearts and send out good thoughts for all of the pirates.

correction

okay, i stand (or sit) corrected.  there weren't any dogs or cats lost at PETCO.  there were guinea pigs, hamsters, birds, fish and reptiles.  and i have read that the 20 employees are "pretty devastated".  i have to admit that i will probably sleep better without pictures of drowned kittens and puppies in my head, but if i were an owner of rodents or the other victims, i would not feel any real relief.  i just feel so strongly our responsibility to all of these creatures.  it's like going to a really bad zoo.  how can you be unaffected by that?

so, my apologies for any undue distress i might have caused, and my condolences to all lovers of littler animals than my dog.  okay, some guinea pigs are bigger, so my condolences to you guys, too.

Boycotting Petco

Okay, pretty radical for this blog about loving animals, hey?  (That, by the way is Sheboyganese, although I should have said "once hey" at the end.  Don't ask why.)

For those of you who live too far away for local news let me explain.  In the recent flooding here, some towns really did get slammed.  Johnson City, near Binghamton, about 40 miles south of us was one of them.  People evacuated.  So did many businesses, Petco amongst the ones where employees left, and therefore no one was hurt.  Except for the 100 animals who were left locked in their cages to drown.  Now, I admit that I am a dog and cat bigot, and it is those that break my heart when I think of them, terrified and trapped, as the flood waters move slowly in.  But there were others, just as worthy of life, depending on the kindness of humans to keep them safe--hamsters and mice and reptiles and, I believe, birds.  And all of them died.  Is this the fault of the entire company? Yes.  The CEO made a statement that the local managers were not familiar with local flooding and so did not know that it would be so bad.  They didn't stay in the store, though, and they didn't make any plans to evacuate the animals should it become necessary.  If they would have asked any of the locals who were around for the floods of 1972, those locals could have told them just how deadly it could be.  And if they were not trained well enough to show compassion in a crisis, how much true compassion is a part of their everyday dealings with the creatures in their care?

And that's why I'm not buying from Petco anymore.  I know it was a tragic accident, but even accidents have consequences, just ask the pirates. 

jack and other things

i cannot believe how long it has been since i wrote last.  so, the most important thing, blogwise, is that my favorite pirate has found a home.  jack has a human dad and a feline sibling named "morgan".  i have not seen him since he was adopted, but i had one progress report and i choose to believe that he is riotously happy.  the odds are good that i am not just delusional.

the other important fact is that i had hand surgery last week and am stuck operating with one hand.  more time available, less dexterity.  hand surgery was because i have a lot of arthritis and no cartilege in some joints,especially in my left thumb joints.  so, no massage work for a couple of months and a limited number of upper case letters when i write.  i could get used to that.  sort of e e cummings-ish.

they removed a bone in my hand, drilled holes in a couple of more bones in the back of my hand, threaded a "harvested" tendon thru the bones and attached the other end to the front of my hand.  both creepy and cool, simultaniously.  oh yeah, they harvested the tendon from me; no cadaverous parts involved.  just for the record-- always demand the really good drugs.  mine were sorely lacking the first couple of days and i was willing to gnaw my arm off.  much better now, i can even use my fingers a little.  they did not give me a purple cast, but my doctor did give me the purple marker they used to write on me.  they also injected cortisone into my right hand while i was out.  (its the only way to have your fingers injected-completely painless)

so here i am with a lot more time on my hand(s), and very little ambition.  i do, however, have lots of reading.  i want to suggest a book that my friend sharon gave me: unsaid, by neil abramson.  it is so well written and so very real in the world in which i find myself.  i have been doing a lot of mcreading, and this very serious book raised the bar for me, but also validated the time and care i give to all the furry people in my life.  i am so proud of the work that carolyn does at briar patch, and i am aware that one of the things that i think she does well is how she handles the death of her patients.  the euthanasias are never easy, but she makes the experience one that is gentle and sweet and, while i would never say that it was good, exactly, i would also not say it was bad.  painful, yes, but profound.  healing.  the book looks at this, as well as looking at the quality of life for all of us living and breathing on this earth, and offers a sort of benediction.

and on that note, i'm going to take my wounded self and go to bed.

Lily

Lily should be "Lily the Wonder Dog", or something that shows her indomitable spirit.  Lily is my best friend's dog.  (And that's a whole other blog, defining "best friend" in middle age".)  Just like Zuza goes to work with me, Lily goes to work with her Mom, with whom I share the office.  Lily has a job there, she is the doorbell, the official greeter, the keep clients happy in the waiting room person.  She absolutely, fluffy head over heels, there is no one as wonderful as you, loves her Mom. She's bouncy and egalitarian and came to her mom  at about age 6, as a previously loved little dog.  She's 10 now, looks--I don't know--young, the picture of health.

I started writing this at two months ago.  It is, unabashedly, a happy ending.  First, Lily was a a rescue dog.  She was a dog that belonged first to a woman who suffered, and then died, from cancer.  The husband was not so happy with a this left-over dog from his wife, and found someone who could take over--first a concerned citizen, and then, a dog person who needed a new dog.

So there she was, Lily, an incredibly happy dog who became the love-at-first-sight dog of a woman--and family--who needed a dog to take the place of a couple of other dogs who died from different cancers a few years earlier.   She looks like a Bichon Frise.  She isn't; she's an unlikely mix of a Schnauzer, a Cocker and a Llasa Apso.  And she's happy...especially all the time that Beth is near, but also when she can be at her job, greeting everyone at work.

Then she had a weird growth on her elbow that turned out to be malignant.  Agony for the humans who love her and an itchy annoyance to her. That resulted in an amputation of her right foreleg, including her shoulder blade.  It was hard to watch her go through it all.  We took her home with us the night after her surgery.  She was so miserable without Beth  and so vocal about it.  However, she made a lasting friend in Lukas who was terribly concerned about her.  He stayed by the side of her crate, poking his nose in through the bars to kiss her face, or wash her ears or otherwise comfort her.  When he was eating his dinner and she began whimpering again, he left it half-finished to sit by her, and we had to move a bed next to her crate so that he could stay there to nurse her. (Zuza and the cats finished off his food when we weren't watching.) 

During the night we got up to give her medication and take her out, and then in the morning, after another trip outside--yes, she was walking 3-legged--we took turns lying on the floor with her while the other one of us could shower and get ready for work.  I was stretched out next to her with my arm around her when Luke came running up, trying lick all of the places that were shaved.  When I convinced him that licking the pain patch was a bad idea, he snuggled down between us, pressed up against her side.  I'm not even sure she noticed, but I certainly felt comforted.

She went home that night, running eagerly to Beth at the hospital, and did have some rough moments in the following week.  But she wanted to run up and down the stairs in the house, and she wanted to be with her beloved friends.  One funny thing that happened as a result of all of this is that she isn't nearly so anxious when she comes to Briar Patch.  You'd think waking up without a leg would make you feel kinda iffy about a place, but it seems that she focuses on the bright side.  Hmmmm.  Life lesson alert.

We had one more scare about a month after her surgery when Beth discovered a suspicious lump at her incision site.  They aspirated it, and after looking at in-house Carolyn was pretty sure that it was just a lymph node that had sort of migrated.  We sent it to an outside lab, and the good news is that she was right. Lily got a clean bill of health.

So, things are unabashedly gleeful.  Lily has returned to her incredibly happy self.  She's even managed to hop up on people's laps again when they are in the waiting room at the office.  She thinks about it a little more than before, but she does it.

And this time, I have visual aids!  Go to YouTube and search for Lilly.dv.  Beth's son Rowan made a wonderful video about her.  (One of my clients said, "Hey, isn't he too young to know that music?"  You'll see what I mean.  Apparently he is a master of the classics, as well as a youthful videographer.)

Rock on, Lily!

George, Parts 2 and 4

George was a hunter from the day he decided not to be afraid.  He was also LOUD.  "I want to go oooooouut!  Nooooowwwww!"  We began answering him very quietly, and soon we were having whispering conversations with him.  He would reply, matching volume to volume until he, too, was whispering.  To this day he has the strangest little meow that is more of a creaking sound than anything else.

His first "kill" was a mouse that Path brought into the bedroom in the middle of the night.  Little baby George was sleeping on my pillow with me and looked over the edge of the bed when I turned the light on.  Path, of course, dropped the very alive little mouse and Speedy Gonzales shot out the bedroom door and into the dining room.  Kindra, Path and little George followed, but the kitten zoomed past the two older cats and nailed that mouse before it reached the far wall.  And then we all chased him into the kitchen, where he stood growling with his mouth full warning us all that it was his mouse and no one could take it from him. 

I believe that he killed it completely accidentally while trying to keep a good grip on it.  How to keep him from eating it?  I grabbed a can of cat food and opened it in front of him.  He sniffed...and thought...and sniffed again.  (Hmmmmm.  Fur and crunchy things or nice ground meat inna can?)  PTTTUE! He spit the mouse on to the floor and leaned in for the cat food.  After that, anytime he caught something I could just show him a can and he'd spit out the prey in favor of a little civilization.

I will share some more of the details of George's life with you all.  And pictures.  I'll look for pictures.  He was, except for the rodents whose lives he cut short, a gentle soul who never once hurt anyone with intention.  Never.  Not one bite, not even a scratch.  In the years that I lived alone with him and his feline family, he always sat cuddled up to me on my left side.  At night, his assigned seat was at my left hip--I kid you not, in 18years, it never changed.  He was overjoyed that I let him go outside--he didn't know that it was because he always came when I called him; because he always was willing to hang out with me; because he seemed to understand what I was thinking and when something threatened us--like a malevolent dachshund, or a wild Tom cat or even your neighborhood toddler--he trusted me to make sure that he was safe. 

Tonight, I just miss him.  I lost my sweet boy last night when we realized that his body was really giving up.  He was developing infections and cancers and things that neither he nor we could combat. Oh my God, I miss him.  For 18 years he was my child, my gardening partner, my friend.  I love him.  Forever.

George, Parts 3 and 1

No kidding, I have a cat named George.  And I'm going to tell his story backwards, I guess.  He will be 18 in a couple of months, which means that he is the one family member who met my Mom when she was still...herself.  He has survived three of my most recent lives, two of his own major illnesses, and being stuck with sharing the name of the stupidest U.S. president in history.  (I tried later to change it to Jordi, after the guy in Star Trek, Next Generation, but I couldn't make it stick, not even in my own mind.)

He's quite ill now.  He has had inflammatory bowel disease for a few years and we have treated it successfully, but now he has pancreatitis, hurts, can't eat and feels pretty ugly.  We put in an esophageal feeding tube yesterday and took x-rays to check the placement, finding that he also has a completely disintegrated disk in his low back--taking after his other mother, Carolyn--which explains some of his strange gait.  And he only weighs 6 and 1/2 pounds.  And I love him, calling this little old man "my boy, my sweet boy", remembering him as the tiny, tiny kitten he was when he entered my life, not ready to eat from a bowl so we had to run out and get a bottle and some formula for him.

I always worry that I am holding on to them too tightly, not being willing to give them the freedom to leave this life when they need to leave, but both Carolyn and Leni--his doctor--assure me that he is so not ready.  George, himself, tells me, too, when I stop being all emotional about it.  He purrs whenever I come into the room, checks out anything that looks like potential food and wants to go out whenever the damn snow stops, so I realize that it's all about my fear, not his.

So, I have to go to the beginning of the story.  This was a couple of relationships ago and we had bought a house in Danby.  We had three cats, one hers and two mine, and now had room for an "ours".  Off to the SPCA!  I had always wanted a gray cat, so that was the mission.  Now this wasn't the new, shiny, no-kill shelter we now have.  This was the old, bunch of cages in one room, "we'll kill ya if you're here too long" shelter of the past.  Eek.  Sad.  Really sad.  No gray cats.  Few kittens, and the ones that were there seemed a little too quiet for healthy kittens.  And all of those incarcerated older cats reaching through the bars of the cages at you.  I left crying and had nightmares for the next few nights.

And then I went back, on a whim, by myself.  Two litters of kittens had come in.  One litter was a robust clump of long-haired soccer players scampering around in their cage playing with a ball.  And in the cage below was a litter of tiny kittens all meowing at the top of their lungs and looking at the ceiling of the cage, obviously concerned that the elephants upstairs were going to come crashing down on them. I reached in and snagged the only one that was not currently yelling.  There were five black kittens who were all male and three tigers, all female.  I wondered if it was like "Lady and the Tramp".  Remember when Lady had puppies and all the girls looked exactly like her, little Cockers, and all the boys looked like their questionably pedigreed Dad?  Any way, I called my partner at work and said, "I found a kitten for us.  He's not exactly gray....he's sort of very dark gray."  Her response was along the lines of "If I say no does that mean you'll be crying and having nightmares again?  Well okay then".  And we had our new "ours".

They bathed him, blow dried him, treated him for ear mites--all of which he protested, loudly, and he was mine.  

When we got home, my partner declared that she got to name him and we were going to have one cat whose name needed no explanation--I tend to give my animals rather fanciful names with tons of meaning, some would say, baggage.  His name was George.  Well, okay then.

George did a lot of clinging to us and crying.  Everything scared him.  After a couple of days, we got the bottle and started feeding him KMR and it was much better.  I woke one morning to find him standing on me, playing with his first toy, fiercely battling a tiny scrap of back material that had fallen on the floor of our sewing room.  It was about two inches long and maybe three quarters of an inch thick.  It was the same color as he was and he knew he could conquer it.  From then on he was a new man.  He didn't win the other cats over for about a week.  My big boy, Path, didn't speak to me for about three days and was shockingly frightened of this little mite.  And Kindra, Path's mother, thought she was done bringing up babies, thank you, and mostly ignored him.  Then one day, Kindra was sleeping on the couch and George got up there and curled into a little ball about two inches away.  She looked at him.  She put her head back down.  He moved a little closer.  She looked at him.  Put her head back down.  He moved so that he was touching her.  She looked at him, looked at me, sighed a huge sigh and reached over to wash his head. "Well, all right, if I have to..." He snuggled just a little closer and they both fell asleep.  As soon as she accepted him, Path gave him grudging acceptance as well.  My partner's cat never did like him, but she lived her life praying for the abduction of my cats by someone who lived very, very far away, so it was okay.

So there you have the beginning of his tale.  Keep my sweet boy in your prayers or good thoughts or whatever, that the end of his story isn't going to happen in the foreseeable future, and I'll be back with his exciting, swashbuckling story soon.

Jack update

Today, Jack started hiding again.  I don't know why, but I haven't been able to spend a bunch of time with him in the last few days. so I sat for a couple of hours with him. He started out hiding in the recliner. but as soon as I sat on one of the couches and started reading aloud--bingo--he was right there! he is quite the literary appreciator--is that a word?

It's kind of humbling, really, when you are trusted by one of these little people that has no real history of trusting people.  Y'know...I really love him.  I really do.  He is funny and sweet and so willing to trust.  He cannot live with me, but he deserves to have someone in his life that can love him as much as I would.  Anybody out there?

Zuza, Today

So, I wrote a long, witty blog last night all about Zuza and how well she is doing.  And then cyberspace ate it. ((sigh))

To recap: she's doing pretty well.  The scary mass turned out to be an inguinal hernia and it was removed and all stitched up in 15 minutes flat.  (I tell, ya, these people are good.)  And as long as she was under anesthesia, they then cleaned her teeth, trimmed her nails and called us at the restaurant to which we had departed so we didn't hover around the doctors trying to work with her.  Carolyn was smart enough to know she couldn't be in the building.  I thought that I could; I do believe that they is an element of awareness that remains even when we are sedated, and I wanted to be near her throughout the surgery--but then they sedated Zuza and she sort of drifted into that not-so-very-alive look of limp puppy and suddenly I was not sure that she needed to bond with me just then, and breakfast somewhere else seemed good.

She spent the day tired and wanting to be held.  Which I was happy to do.  Her brother Lukas was terribly worried--did some serious howling when he was away from her--and then set himself up as bodyguard when we went home. Unsuspecting cats wandered too near to her bed in front of the fireplace and he would lunge growling at them.  (He's pretty fierce when he isn't busy being afraid of things.  Like Velcro.  Or dry grass under his foot.  Or having his underarms touched.  Or starlings.  He's a sensitive boy.)
Our girl's fine.  There is no cancer.  We feel unbelievably blessed.

So, 3 years after the fact, I found the original blog post in cyberspace hell and I am posting it here just so my  brilliant writing isn't lost.  Okay, not really all that brilliant, but anyway...

Zuza, brave little soldier that she is, is doing fine.  The unknown mass turned out to be an inguinal hernia which was easily repaired by our extremely talented surgeon.  Our other two doctors were there for consultation and dental cleaning--no kidding, they stitched her up so fast that they had time to clean her teeth.  Carolyn and I left the building while the surgery was happening.  On one hand, I do believe that there is some degree of consciousness that remains when they are sedated.  On the other hand, as she slipped under sedation and began looking not really very alive...I started to cry and figured if she could tune into me under sedation I better not be looking at her as a limp little creature. I am truly impressed with the quality of the team we now have.  She woke up quickly and, I am told, started looking for us right away.  And since it is Briar Patch and not some giant, impersonal place--and this is the bosses' kid--she went from one person's arms to mine instead of to a cage.  She kissed and kissed both of us and we held her wrapped in a blanket until I took her to work with me in the afternoon.

Poor Lukas was incredibly worried, kept trying to squeeze as close to her as possible, and tried to clean her incision at any moment he could get in close enough.  She, in her generous way with her brother, growled at him every time he tried, even when she was too tired to lift her head.  Head down, grrrrrrrrrrrrrr, like a little gargle.

When we got home she slept in their bed by the fire with Lukas on guard in their chair next to her.  When any of the cats walked near them, he would lunge out, fiercely warning them away.  Okay, he's 4 pounds and not a rottweiler, but he can sound very, very fierce.  Unless he is frightened by scary stuff.  Like Velcro.  Or unexpected dry grass under his foot.  Or just walking around outside for too long.  Sometimes pooping scares him.  BUT, when he appoints himself a protector, it brings out all of his best self.  When we adopted Tenzing and Eddie, Lukas kept them safe when any of the big cats approached them.  He will still stop any of the cats from hissing or fighting.  And when Tenzing was sick last summer, Luke slept next to his cage and warned even Zuza away from him.

So, right now both of my canines are curled into little packages next to me on the chair.  She has a couple of ugly bruises and a tidy incision, (and me); he has his stuffed fox and a blanket, (and me).  And we're all happy.

Zuza

What I didn't say about Zuza before is that she is just the brightest little light in my life.  Lukas is wonderful, sweet, funny, always eager to give you kisses and always wanting to spend the evening curled up next to you. 

Zuza loves me best.  Of all the people in the world, I am the one she chooses to love.  She warns me when my blood sugar dips too low, worries when I'm upset, makes me laugh, always wants to cuddle and paves the way for me in the world by being so cute that everyone smiles (or laughs out loud) when they see me coming down the street with a dog in my shirt.  (Once an entire Korean family with cameras stopped and took pictures of me sitting at an outside table off the Commons because Zuza had crawled into my shirt so that I looked like I had one really large boob that occasionally sprouted huge ears.  I know I'm on YouTube somewhere.  Search for "alien breast".)

And tomorrow she's having surgery for a mass removal...and I am quietly terrified.  She is so brave, such a force to be reckoned with and she holds a huge piece of my heart in her tiny, tiny paws.

Other Pirates

There is some concern that I will have to stop writing if, indeed, Jack finds a new home.  Never fear, my life is full of pirates, past, present and future.  Jack, by the way, is doing really well upstairs in his room.  I've taken a few people in to introduce them and he has warmed right up to them.  He's lonely, though, and I wish he didn't have to be alone so much.  I try to sit with him every day for awhile--much to the chagrin of my main pirate, Zuza. 

She's really the captain of the ship.  I'm sitting at Starbucks right now, so I can go online, and she is sleeping on my chest, tucked in my sweatshirt.  For those of you who are far away, Zuza is a Prague Ratter and is the pup peeking over my shoulder in my profile picture.  She and her brother, Lukas, just turned 5 in February.  Luke stays at Briar Patch when I'm at the PT business because he has waaayyy too much to say and is indefatigable.  ("Hey!  There's someone in the parking lot!  Hey!  Someone is going to the bathroom!  Hey!  The door bell rang!  Hey!  Do you want to play with something?  Look!  I gotta squeaky duck here. Squeak Squeak Squeak Squeak...")  She, on the other hand, sleeps happily in a bed with a heated snugly unless she feels it necessary to join the client on the table, where she will curl up on their thighs, oozing sweetness and cuteness and warmth.  She weighs 3lbs10oz and I hold her 3/4 of the day.  When she was just 11 weeks old she broke her left elbow, and even though she had a very successful surgery, the screw broke 2 months later and she now has a permanently broken left foreleg.  So other than the fact that I carried her in a pouch for 2 months, she is unaffected by her disability.  She runs, she kills rodents stupid enough to come into a house with 2 ratter dogs and EIGHT cats (you have to know that we are thinning the herd of all the really dumb rodents).

And why is she a pirate?  Why are all of them pirates?  They board our ships and take possession of all we have and then they direct all we're going to do.  And then, like Captain Jack Sparrow or the guy that Orlando Bloom played--(I don't care, he played Legolas the elf in the Lord of the Rings and I will love him forever)--they steal our hearts as well and we feel that we can't possibly live without them.

I forgot, I was going to try to link to Briar Patch.  Here goes....briarpatchvet.com

Oooh, that was easy.  You can read all about Jack and see some pictures there in the Newletter.

One-Eyed Jack, Part Two

Today Jack is smacking lady bugs that have started to wake up and crawl up the wall behind the couch.  I have to get him a scratching post and bring him some toys from home.  Now that he isn't hiding all of the time, he wants some interesting stuff to do.

Oh, I have to correct one fact about Jack--they removed his left eye, not his right.  Just a little dyslexic/laterality problem I have.  Be glad that I'm not a surgeon.

Part 2 of his story is that he was the first Katrina kitty adopted, mostly because of the story that ran in the the Ithaca Journal.  A really wonderful couple adopted him because they already had a one-eyed cat and were worried that he would not get a home.  He lived with them until recently, when they moved to a smaller place and were worried that this would be too stressful for him.  They have other pets, (at least one dog and a couple of cats, if I remember correctly) and he was already having some trouble living with them. 

So, he came back to us and now I have to learn the lessons he has come here to teach.  We are looking for a forever home for him, one where he will be an only child.  He actually hasn't had any reaction to the animals that he has come in contact with at Briar Patch, so maybe that isn't written in stone.  I was in here yesterday with Zuza (my teeny dog) tucked in my jacket and I'm not sure if Jack even knew what she was.  They touched noses and he just looked confused, but unconcerned, and continued to rub up against me and purr.  I have learned to love him.

So, that's Jack's story for now. 

One-Eyed Jack, Part One

So, here I am with my first post.  I wanted to start this a couple of weeks ago when I started posting Jack's progress everyday on Facebook.  I meet the most amazing animals at Briar Patch, especially, but really everywhere I go.  And they all have lessons to teach.  I am humbled by their courage and willingness to love even when life has given them very little reason to trust anyone.

Jack is a survivor of the Katrina chaos.  Found with his feral mother in the backyard of a shelter worker's home in New Orleans, he was taken to a house where all of the sick were deposited.  Like every one of the Katrina kitties we fostered, he had a raging eye infection (and parasites, and upper respiratory problems.)  In fact, his infection was so bad that they removed his right eye.  So he lived for weeks with people dosing him with eye ointment and who knows what else, with twenty or more other kittens who had been scooped out of the waters after the hurricane.  He learned friendship and trust from another kitten, Katie, who is a miracle in herself.  And then he got transported here in a cage, in the back of a moving truck with 11 other cats and kittens and a large number of dogs.  And then he comes to Briar Patch where he is housed for a couple of months with Katie and a bunch of cats he's never seen before. 

Okay, that's part one of Jack's story.  I'll give you a preview of the ongoing tale by telling you that he is sleeping on the little couch next to me in his private room at Briar Patch.  I can't help loving him as he rattles with purrs--and trusts me--even while he deals with his fears.

Amazing, simply amazing.