No Disability in Cat-Ville

When a client posted on her Facebook that she found a litter of kittens in a wishing well on her sister’s property, along with a photo, I melted. The photo of the little orange kitten grabbed at me and I jokingly told her that I wanted the orange one, of which she replied that kitten only had three legs. And my heart melted even more.  As I attempted to help her find homes or a rescue for the kittens, I kept going back to orangey. When an acquaintance, who works at a local human society, told me that they would more than likely just put that kitten down, I bounced the idea of saving the kitten to my husband Chuck and my kids.

“We will just take the kitten until I can find a suitable home for him or her,” I leveraged. After all, we already have a menagerie of animals at our home. Some can call it a sanctuary, others might call it animal hoarding. I call it insanity.

And they all agreed that we had to save the kitten.

“We aren’t naming it,” I warned.

Chuck just smirked back at me and the kids gave one another knowing looks.

“What? I mean it,” I said only to hear them all laugh at me.

He had me at the first purr.

We picked him up about a week after the Facebook posting and I fell in love the moment I picked him up. His blue/green eyes looked at us lovingly and oh so trusting on the ride home and he enjoyed his chin rubs all the time purring.

“What’s his name?” my daughter Micaela asked me, grinning.

“Captain Archibald,” I smiled back, “He fought a tough battle for that tuna on the 7 seas,” I teased.

As we introduced Archie to the other animals, they looked at him as just another addition to the family and not as disabled.  He may walk and run a bit different, but Izzy (our Ragdoll) sits on him and wrestles with him all the same.  Today I found Izzy helping Archie wash his right side since without a back hind leg he can’t quite figure it out.  As I watched Izzy gingerly pin the squiggly Archie down for his bath and afterwards leap on top for him to chase her –  I thought how there isn’t such a thing as handicap in the animal world. And Archie isn’t sitting around moping because his mother attempted to eat him after birth because he was the runt and only got as far as half his leg (the explanation the vet  gave as what she believes as what happened). Nope, he is running, jumping, eating, and playing.
There is no disability in cat-ville.