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.