New Year Brings New Home for Stuffie

Picasso Veterinary Fund in Action! (January 2008)

Just a few weeks before Christmas, a man anonymously dropped off an adorable, two-month-old, short-haired kitten at the Manhattan Animal Care & Control (AC&C) shelter. He didn't even bother to take the time to fill out the required paperwork for relinquishment.

AC&C staff immediately recognized that the kitten's leg was broken, and he was in a lot of pain. They contacted the Mayor's Alliance for NYC's Animals to see if the kitten, who they named Stuffie, could get emergency medical care paid for by the Picasso Veterinary Fund. The Mayor's Alliance agreed, and arranged for Stuffie to be transported to NYC Veterinary Specialists for treatment. Dr. Karyn Briggs performed the surgery to set the leg. Stuffie then was transported to Murray Hill Pet Hospital, another partner veterinary practice, where he recovered from the surgery. It wasn't long before Stuffie was jumping around in his cage, eager to get out and explore. Stuffie was ready to be placed into a permanent home.

So the Mayor's Alliance posted Stuffie's photo on its new Picasso Veterinary Fund adoption page on Petfinder.com, where potential adopters can go to see our Picasso animals available for adoption. Within hours of posting Stuffie's profile, a wonderful woman named Daphne inquired about little Stuffie. The Mayor's Alliance's Siobhan Healy arranged for Daphne to meet Stuffie, who promptly stole her heart! It was as if he knew just when to be cute and cuddly and when to be playful.

Daphne and her husband had wisely delayed adopting an animal until they were financially stable. Now they were ready, and Stuffie appeared to be the perfect companion. They gave Stuffie a new name — Toots Sweet (after the French tuit de suite, or "right now") with a nickname of "Toots." Apparently, according to Daphne, when Toots wants something, he wants it now!

Toots often sleeps cuddled with stuffed animals, and he likes to wrestle with the stuffed cat Daphne's husband gave her at Christmastime — a cat adoption IOU on which Toots made good. This was clearly a match made in heaven.

But were it not for the Picasso Veterinary Fund, little Stuffie's future might have been quite different. The fund, which is administered by the Mayor's Alliance, pays for extraordinary medical care for sick and injured animals, like Stuffie, who end up at New York City's AC&C. In the past, these animals might have been euthanized as soon as they arrived at the shelter because there were no funds to pay for the level of medical care they needed. But today, the Picasso Veterinary Fund is saving hundreds of precious lives every year, and people like you are helping to make that happen!

We need your help to keep saving lives with the Picasso Veterinary Fund. The fund is supported solely by private individuals and businesses; it receives no government funding. Your gift of $5, $10, $25…$100 — whatever you care to give — will help us give hundreds more Little New Yorkers like Stuffie a second chance at the good life they so richly deserve.

We invite you to meet some of the other recipients of the Picasso Veterinary Fund, and to make a donation to help us continue this important program.