hsifeng | "Christmas" Miracle (Reply)

For those of you who already have met Chicken Wing - skip to the end for pictures of him in his new home...

I haven’t had a chance to share this story with my LJ friends yet, but it is a pretty darn cool case of the universe giving folks just what they need, just when they need it.

As many of you know, our house is the land of stray cats; we’re in an old neighborhood, no one seems to spay or neuter and there are always feral kitties about. Since our house has a non-cat aggressive dog in the back yard (*he chases, but he doesn’t eat them*), we tend to end up with a lot of ma-ma cats droppin’ their kitten loads around and under our home.

About four months ago, we started hearing the tell-tale signs of a new set of kittens under our floorboards. Our dog loves this, as it is an excuse for him to run from floor vent to floor vent, barking and whining like made. Joy. *grin*

Then one day, we heard a very different sort of meowing; this was a kitten in distress and it went on and on. We crawled under the house, knocked on walls, tried to figure out how to get into our heating unit, etc. No luck, no kitten.

Just meowing.

After three days the sounds stopped. I think both C and I were convinced that the kitten had fallen into some low point in the houses foundations that we couldn’t locate and was most likely dead there. Not a happy holiday vision. However, just a month or so later we spotted a group of kittens emerging from under the house and sunning themselves in the side yard…

…and one of them had only three legs!

“Chicken Wing” (as I dubbed him) got around just fine, enjoyed games with his siblings and his ma-ma in the side yard and seemed in all respects to be a health baby cat. Of course, he tended to tip over in the most amusing way when trying to scratch his left ear with his missing hind leg. *grin*

Attempts were made to catch the critter, and the one time we got hands on him we checked his ‘chicken wing’ for damage only to find that he seemed well healed and was mostly just annoyed at us for examining his stump. With no home to place him, no room at the local shelters in and no money to cover the cost of his care we let him go again and kept an eye on him.

Always with the hope that we would find a friend looking for that ‘very special, three legged cat’. Although, after two months of looking for this perfect placement with no luck we’d pretty much given up.

Thanksgiving weekend saw us spending time with some friends up North. The particular friend we were visiting is a big-time dog lover (ie. T owns more than one mastiff) and I knew she wasn’t looking for a cat. However, after a glass (or two, or three) of port I ended dup telling her the story of Chicken Wing.

And the strangest thing happened…

T’s eyes lit up and she said, “Did you know you just described J’s favorite cat ever, Byron? She had him for 13 years and has never gotten over his death. She hasn’t had a cat in the three since, and she’s a cat person. J needs this kitten!”

When J showed up later for Thanksgiving dinner, I popped the question, “So, would you be interested in a little black and white tuxedo kitten I have in my side-yard? He’s only about three months old and he’s missing one of his back legs…?” It turns out, this would be J’s *third* three legged cat…in a row… Seems that she is destined to own them. *grin*

After a misty moment of universe-present-giving recognition, arrangements were made for us to catch the kitty and get him checked for FIV/leukemia as well as his shots and a bath.

When we got home a few days later, Chicken Wing was sunning himself in the driveway. After an hour of wrangling and some creative cat management we managed to get hands on him; for a three legged kitty he is both fast and dexterous! And then the amazing feral-to-house-cat transformation happened; within 12 hours he had figured out that the big pink thumbed monkeys gave him delicious food (and lots of it) and liked to scratch his chin for him.

He was sold!

Two weeks later he was delivered to J’s house, and after a brief period of adjustment he is settled in well and loving every minute of his new life.

Remind me to come back as a three legged cat in my next life…

Mittens on the three feet he has: