Hank the three-legged cat
Hank
had a close encounter with a car and got banged up badly.
A rear leg was crushed, a front leg scraped down to raw flesh.
He was lucky to live.
Or so he thought.
When his family took the seriously injured cat to a vet clinic, they learned his rear leg would have to be amputated. Then they learned what the bill would be. They decided to have Hank euthanized instead.
At this point Hank must have wondered how many of his nine lives he had used up.
Hank lay in back of the vet clinic, covered in blood. Even with his wounds, he still managed to show the vet staff his sweet and loving nature. They realized that this was a truly remarkable cat. How could a cat with these kinds of injuries still be so affectionate? They decided not to euthanize him and to “adopt” him instead. The vet staff paid for Hank's surgery themselves and for weeks of follow-up care.
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Finally, when he was fully recovered, the clinic asked if we would take him.
Now Hank hangs out in the cat house on the ranch, where he quickly established himself as a star attraction. He loves to greet visitors by jumping on to a cat tree, blinking his bright yellow eyes and meowing at them. “I'm special, look at me!” he seems to be saying.
He also loves the cat house's outdoor enclosure, where he can sun himself, roll around in the dirt, and eat fresh grass. Like all of our cats, of course, he prefers to eat the grass outside and then throw it up inside the cat house.
We say to Hank and his new friends, “Boys and girls, if that grass is good enough to eat outside, it's good enough to throw up outside!” Of course, it doesn't matter what we say … these are cats, right?
