The Rescue Gods

I was actually surprised to see that it had been quite a few days since my last post. My last big rescue had been such a comedy of errors that I was beginning to think it was a full moon. Oddly enough, it seemed that everyone I spoke with was having similar problems!

It's always been a fear of mine that I'd end up losing a cat in transport. Part of rescue means that I often have to do "back seat adoptions" and moving cats from crate to crate in parking lots. I've never lost a cat, thanks to my paranoia about doing so.

Until....

During that last big rescue, I had a very cute little 5 month old white girl named "Reanna" in a soft sided crate in the front seat with me. I made the 1 hour trek to the vet with no incidents other than the usual poop in the crate from one of the older kitties in the back.

When I arrived at the vets, I turned off the car and opened all the car windows (it was hot!)as I unloaded the cats and took them into the vets. I think I made about 5 trips, when a man in a commercial truck next to my car lightly said to me, "Are ya missing one?"

I looked under his vehicle, and much to my shock and horror there was Reanna under his truck in a VERY busy parking lot. If she bolted, I would never be able to catch her. The Rescue Gods were looking over both of us, because she willingly came to me. I held her and stood in the parking lot and cried.

The crate was a soft sided zipper style that she managed to push open with her head and leap out the car window. I still feel sick thinking about it.

We've had so many weird things like this happen over the past few days; a kitten getting away from a volunteer and then spending the night in the car, a pregnant cat getting wedged in the mechanism of a dryer...believe it or not, I could go on.

Every time I do a rescue, I write a "rescue list" for Kim at the shelter so that these cats aren't accidently euthanized before I get there. I had a very nice little list last night and had typed it for Kim in email as I usually do.

To my horror, I woke up this morning to find the email still in my Outbox. It was never sent to her. I've been terrified to find out which cats died this morning due to the technological faux pas.

No, I don't really believe in "Rescue Gods". But if I did, I'd ask them where the hell they were last night when that email sat in my Outbox. I'm going to the shelter tomorrow to do that rescue and pray that all the cats from that list are still there.

Amen.