Casey’s House

Amber’s Mewsings: Birthday Girl

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Today is my birthday, so I told  Mom I wanted to write something on here.  So far, my birthday has been pretty great.  I got my favorite breakfast (salmon and turkey, in case you’re wondering), and I got this really fun toy (you can see me with it in the photo).  I humored Mom by playing with it when she gave it to me, but most likely, it will be used as a pillow to rest my head on while I nap.  I don’t want to over-exert myself, it’s just not ladylike.

Actually, technically today is not my birthday, it’s the anniversary of the day Mom brought me home.  She doesn’t know my real birthday, and I don’t really remember.  I know some of you would love to hear my story, so I thought today would be a good day to share it.  I’m not sure how I feel about the fact that my sister Buckley gets a whole book to share her story and I get a single blog post, but it’s only part of my story, so I guess that’s okay.

Me and my five kittens were brought to the animal hospital where Mom worked in the spring of 2000 by a client who had found the little family in her barn.  I was hungry, skinny, and scrawny-looking, but my eventual beauty was evident to everyone even then.  My kittens found new homes in fairly rapid succession.  One of my daughters, a beautiful Calico, went to live with Cindy Ingram, the founder of Casey’s House.  Cindy rescued my sister Buckley five years later.

It didn’t seem like anyone was interested in me.  I spent my days in the big adoption cage in the hospital’s waiting area.  People would come and ooh and aah over how beautiful I was, but with the constant inflow of homeless kittens that is typical for spring and summer, nobody wanted to adopt an adult cat, no matter how gorgeous I was.  Mom had recently lost her almost sixteen-year-old soul mate cat Feebee, and the grief over his loss was still very fresh for her – I knew she was still hurting, and she didn’t think she was ready for another cat yet.  But I also knew that it was getting harder and harder for her to go back to an empty house every evening, and more importantly, I knew we were meant to be together.  I tried my best to get her attention, and she’d pet me occasionally, but she just wasn’t getting it.

Finally, on July 29, a Saturday, she took me home.  She said it was “just for the weekend.”  I knew better, but I wasn’t about to share that with her – she needed to figure that out for herself.  Mom said she wanted to give me a break from the abandoned feral kitten they had put in the cage with me after my own kittens had all found homes.  The kitten was a rambunctious six-week old grey tabby, and I was getting really tired of his constant need for attention.  I had done my mommy duty, and I was so over the whole thing.

After living in a cage for all these months, it was a little overwhelming to have an entire house available to explore.  I wasn’t sure what to do, it felt kind of scary to me, even though Mom did her best to make it okay for me.  I spent most of that first weekend near or under Mom’s bed.  I was so stressed I didn’t even eat for a day or two – and if you know anything about me, you know that food is very important to me!  But by Sunday evening, I felt braver and started exploring.

Of course, all weekend long, I’d been working my magic on Mom.  I really didn’t want to go back to the animal hospital.  Thank goodness, Mom started to get it.  She liked having my gentle and peaceful energy around the house, and she decided that I could stay a little longer.  Big sigh of relief on my part when Mom left for work at the animal hospital that Monday morning without taking me back there!  Mom still wasn’t quite ready to acknowledge that I was home to stay.  Instead, she told everyone that she was “just fostering me.”  Yeah, right.

Somehow, the flyers Mom had made up advertising that I was available for adoption never got distributed, and the rest is history.

A Visit to a Very Special Cat Sanctuary

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In loving memory of Buckley

Yesterday was an emotional day for me.   I went to the open house for Casey’s House, a private rescue group in Bluemont, VA.  Cindy Ingram, the founder of Casey’s House, rescued my precious little Buckley from a farm in southwestern Virginia, where she and about twenty other cats were kept in marginal living conditions.  Buckley passed away last Thanksgiving weekend.   While I had been supporting Casey’s House for many years, I had never actually seen the facility.  When I met Buckley, she was already living at the animal hospital I managed at the time.  (You will get to know Buckley and her story in my upcoming book “Buckley’s Story – Lessons from a Feline Master Teacher”).

Casey’s House is named after Cindy’s beloved tabby cat, who came to live with her when she was fifteen years old.  At first Cindy refused her entrance to her house, as she already had two cats and two dogs at the time. Casey, however, was not a cat to take no for an answer. Casey’s “home” at the time was a colony of some fifty cats, and she was probably getting tired of either not getting to her food on time, or eating off of filthy dishes.  Every evening, Casey would be waiting on Cindy’s  porch, obviously hungry, so Cindy would feed her. Slowly, but surely, Casey became a part of Cindy’s family.  Eventually, four of her feline colony friends came to join Casey.  Says Cindy:  “Casey taught me to reach beyond my self-imposed limits, and her house is the dream that now has become a reality”.

In addition to providing a safe haven for older cats, Casey’s House also promotes Trap-Neuter-Return.  Through this program, feral cats are humanely trapped, brought to a veterinarian to be evaluated, spayed or neutered, vaccinated and ear-tipped.  Cats that are friendly to humans and kittens are adopted into loving homes.  Healthy feral cats are returned to their outdoor homes.  Casey’s House spayed and neutered more than 200 cats in 2008, making a significant contribution to controlling the overpopulation problem.

I was impressed with the wonderful environment Cindy created for the cats.  There are very few cages, most of the cats live in a large open room, filled with carpeted ramps, cat climbing towers, and lots of soft pillows and blankets for them to sleep on.  New rescues and those with potential health conditions are kept in separate areas until they’ve been checked out by a veterinarian.    What was really amazing to me was how peaceful the energy in that large room felt.  All the cats seemed to get along, there was no hissing, posturing, or fighting.  Cindy said in all the years she’s done this work, she’s only had one incident with two cats fighting.  Casey’s House truly is a safe haven for cats in need.

I left missing Buckley even more than I usually do.  The visit definitely brought on a renewed wave of grief for me.  But I also left feeling good about living in a world where there are people like Cindy, who care so much and do so much for cats in need. 

Like all non-profit organizations, especially those helping animals, Casey’s House is struggling in these tough economic times.   If you have a favorite shelter or rescue group that you support, please consider making a donation to them – they need your help now more than ever.  And if you don’t already support a shelter, perhaps you’ll consider making a donation to Casey’s House in Buckley’s memory.  Cindy and the cats at Casey’s House will thank you.