NYC Eartips: Spring 2010

Hope for a Brooklyn Kitten

by Raquel Battle

An eight-week-old kitten huddles underneath the boardwalk at Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. She is beautifully striped, perfectly small, and looks fat and healthy. She turns around to face her admirers and reveals two swollen, red eyes. Tears stream down her face and she looks uncomfortable and lost. Those who see her shake their heads in pity, but no one helps. It is November 2009.

Fast forward to March 2010…a plump, six-month-old brown tabby stands triumphantly atop a seven-foot cat tree in Auburndale, Queens. She quickly, yet carefully, navigates her way back down and then runs out of her bedroom to a staircase, which she masterfully descends and ascends at will. She turns to reveal her face — she has no eyes, but she seems to wear a permanent grin. Her name is Hope LaRue.

Hope's journey to happiness was a short one, thanks to the Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals. After being rescued from her managed colony, she needed immediate surgery to have her infected eyes removed, and the Mayor's Alliance covered the costs for her medical care. She was relieved from the constant pain she was in, and acclimated quickly to indoor living. Hope was adopted in January and became completely adjusted and comfortable within days. Her new family can't imagine life without her, and she's right where she belongs — happy, healthy, and loved.

Editor's Note: Raquel Battle came across Hope LaRue during a TNR project. When a feral cat* colony is TNR'd for the first time, there is usually at least one litter of kittens young enough to be socialized and adopted into indoor homes. In addition, we advise not to return ill or disabled animals back outside, but instead to treat them and return them when cured, or if they are permanently disabled, to find an appropriate indoor home such as in this case of Hope LaRue.

*Feral cats are cats born outside who have never had human contact and retain their wild tendencies. They therefore cannot be placed at an animal shelter to be adopted into indoor homes. Instead, they are spayed or neutered, rabies vaccinated, and left eartipped by trained caretakers before being returned to their managed outdoor colonies.