Happy July 4th!

I would like to take this time to talk about Pumpernickel, a cat my boyfriend and I rescued two weeks ago.

It's a bittersweet story--but I feel it best to commemorate this kitty here on my blog for being such a fighter!

This first photo is right after we "captured" him. He's in my dog's carrier here. My boyfriend found this very sweet cat wandering outside while he was walking my dog. The cat was starving--literally starving. Just skin and bones. But he seemed to trust us. We didn't have any cat food to give him, so we gave him dog food. That sleepy look in his eye is because he just finished scarfing down half a cup of dog food. He was so small, we thought he was a kitten! He weighed only 5lbs!

I fought to keep the cat overnight. I did not think the cat would make it another day if he was left one more hour in the sweltering Texas heat. My boyfriend reluctantly agreed. We decided to take the cat to a vet the next day. For all we knew, he could've had parasites or something! My boyfriend started calling him Pumpernickel so that became his name.

We were in for a surprise when we took him into the vet. The cat was not a kitten, he was about 10yrs old. In addition to his age, he also had an ulcer in his eye from some sort of head trauma and pneumonia. No parasites to speak of, the cat was just thin. My boyfriend and I were faced with a $320 vet bill and an abandoned cat. We decided to take both and bring Pumpernickel home with us.

I've had experiences rescuing animals before...but Pumpernickel was the worst case I've ever seen. He was obviously someone's cat and not a stray because he got along just fine with our dog and LOVED people. He jumped in our laps and purred. He was starving for human affection. So I put up some flyers around our apartment to give his owners a fighting chance at reclaiming him before he officially became "ours."

Literally the next day, we received a call from some man claiming to be the cat's owner. He said his cat had been missing for two days--but in Pumpernickel's condition, the cat had to have been on his own for at LEAST a month! Unless his previous owners were just neglecting to feed him, there was no other explanation for his emaciated body.

In the end, he was indeed Pumpernickel's owner--he had the pictures to prove it. He reimbursed us our $320 in cash and thanked us for rescuing his cat (whom he had named: "Needy"). Pumpernickel actually tried to hide under the couch when the man bent down to pick him up! :( But there was nothing we could do--the cat was his.

And just like that, Pumpernickel was gone from our lives.

We can only hope his owner truly intends to take care of the him. Despite it all, we are glad we did the right thing. We agreed to name our next cat "Pumpernickel" after him. :)