Paws 4 Life Animal Rescue, Inc.: Emergency Medical Grant Report
How did this grant help your organization and the pets in your care?
This grant money helped defray the total cost of Tom's surgery and vet stay.
How many pets did this grant help?
1
Please provide a story of one or more specific pets this grant helped.
Tom, a beautiful senior cat, was hit by a car around Oct. 1 or 2, 2021. He was brought to an emergency vet for care. Tom suffered significant back-end trauma that required surgery as well as a very serious eye injury that resulted in his eye having to be removed.
Tom was originally adopted out by us in 2018 to woman who had taken impeccable care of her animals. When we received a call from Bolton Vet indicating they had a cat who was microchipped to our rescue and who had suffered significant injuries from being hit by a car, we were shocked to hear who the owner was.
Bolton Vet could not get in touch with her. We also tried to get in touch with her and, after some research on social media, we learned that she had passed away in December of 2018. We posted a plea asking if any family members knew who may have taken Tom into their care. Tom had never had spent one day of his life outside, so we were very concerned as to what had happened to him since the end of 2018.
In the meantime, we told Bolton Vet that we would take on Tom’s medical needs and would take him back into our rescue (once a Paws 4 Life animal, always a Paws 4 Life animal).
He had to have the first of two surgeries ASAP. The trauma to his back end was not allowing him to use the bathroom (to pee or poop). Surgery was performed and then we had to wait to see if it corrected the issue. Thankfully, about 36 hours later, he was able to use the bathroom on his own.
The doctors were still very concerned about his eye that was protruding out. The eye was not getting better, and the doctors felt that in order to control Tom’s pain, he would need a second surgery to remove his eye (which he would never be able to see out of again). Surgery was a success and within 24 hours, you could see how much better Tom was feeling.
An “owner” did come forward about 14 days later (they never notified Animal Control or vets in the area that Tom was missing). A friend had seen our Facebook post and shared it. The new owner had taken Tom the day his original owner was taken away in an ambulance to go to the hospital.
The original owner would not let the paramedics take her away until the person came to take Tom. After speaking to the new owner, we decided that she would not get Tom back. She had kept him as an outdoor cat and never took him to the vet in the almost two years she had him, stating that she did not have the funds for routine vet care and he seemed happy and healthy, so why did he need to go to the vet?
We told her that the old owner would be devastated to learn that Tom was no longer an indoor-only cat and was not receiving adequate vet care. Obviously the owner was extremely angry at us, but we had to do what was right for Tom.
Tom had a follow-up vet exam on Oct. 20 and had an exam performed and his bloodwork redone, as some of his values had been off on Oct. 2. Tom received a clean bill of health.
The surgery and vet bills equaled about $3,000. The $500 grant was used towards that cost. After love and care from both volunteers and Tom’s foster, we were able to adopt Tom to his new home.
