Animal Advocates of Moore County - North Carolina

February 2012 - Thaddeus has been adopted!!  He is currently getting to know his new family that includes an older dachsund dog!  Way to go Thaddeus - we hope you have a long and happy life!!

Update on Thadeus (February 2012):  Thadeus' one back leg was so badly injured that it had to be removed.  One of his front legs had been broken and healed crooked so he has 2 good legs and his crooked front leg balances him.  But don't feel sorry for Thadeus.   Open a can of wet cat food and he will come running!  He has had a long recovery, but is finally ready to find a home of his own. Thadeus (“strong of heart”) needs to be an indoor cat and has had many cat friends while recuperating. A warm lap, food and lots of love in a forever home are exactly the prescription! If you can find a place in your home and heart for this true survivor, please call Barb Shepherd @ 910-944-5098.  You can find Thadeus under the Animal Adoption section in this newsletter.

Posted by our Director of Operations:

"Ladies, at midnight tonight I went out back to take out the trash and to fill the ferals food bins and I stopped because I thought I heard this cat meowing in the distance which you don't hear down here unless one has been dumped. It sounded pitiful. I ran back inside and got my big flashlight because I could not see in the distance good enough w/ just the pole light and deck light, and I got a can of Fancy Feast. Ran back out and hit the treeline to the back of the parking lot w/ my light, and sure enough there was a cat laying there in the distance.

I started talking gently to it and calling and walking up easy and I was amazed and both overcome w/ heartbreak of emotion at what I saw slowly but surely trying to come to me. This cat when I got to it was nothing but bones and so very affectionate and started eating like there would not be a tomorrow. I sat there in the dirt parking lot and let it eat and tried very gently to triage things about it.

The cat is a dark grey tabby, male(Unneutered) and had at some point been hit by a car or was either caught way back in a car engine. This cat had been like this for some time because his very large wounds had healed for the most part and his legs had all grown back together wrong and he cannot stand all the way upright but managed all this time to keep himself alive!

I was totally overwhelmed by the sheer fortitude of this cat to have made it this long in this condition. I scruffed him up and held him to my chest and just cried over him. He looks to be about a year or so old.

I brought him back into the office and set him in a large kennel in my office and fed him a little more and gave him a capstar and he is finally resting on flannel that I put in for him because he is worn out. He is asleep as I am writting this. Stuff like this gets to the very core of my being and tears me up. To have been so violently injured, took care of himself the best he could and him all crippled up and to want to live that bad, and finally calling out and trusting someone to help him in his weakened condition.

Very emotional for me.

I can hear him breathing deep now as he is totally asleep. I am always brought to a state of awe and wonder over cats of this caliber of survival and trust that come across my path. It is a very humbling thing to me, very humbling.

I will take him to Doc Wofford tomorrow to see if she can fix him a little more and have him tested. I have never seen a cat w/ these circumstances before and yet totally functional such as it is. You have to see in person as pictures at this point in the kennel cannot capture it, I tried. And I don't want to loose him for pictures until I have him tested. YFF, Barb"

Barb did take the cat to the vet the next day. Three of his legs had damage. It was determined that the injury she initially thought was a large wound on a back leg made by continually dragging on the ground was in fact a compound fracture with visible protruding bones. This leg will have to be removed and the hope is that once it is gone his other injured legs will gain strength and better support his movements.

She named him Thaddeus which means courageous and strong of heart.

Animal Advocates will continue the care of Thaddeus, the amazine feline who has suffered so much yet had the determination and strength of sheer will to not only survive but to find his way to the very back door of someone who would help him!

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