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| Name: |
Tripawd
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Age: |
Two years old
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| Gender: |
Female
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Kind: |
Orange Tiger
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| Home: |
Maine, USA
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"We met at Starbucks." That would be one way to describe how I found
Tripawd, a very special feline who has survived an enormous amount of
trauma and is now residing at her Forever Home with Mr. Mackee and me.
One morning after I dropped off my mother at the airport, I went to
Starbucks to get a cup of coffee. As I was standing at the sidebar
putting cream and sweetener in my coffee, I noticed a bulletin board
plastered with posters, brochures, and business cards. One of the
posters had a picture of a beautiful orange tiger cat, with a headline
of "Tripawd needs a home!"
I thought to myself, "That's a cute cat," and went back to stirring my
coffee. I looked back at the poster. "I hope she finds a good home," I
thought. I kept stirring. I looked at the poster again, unable to ignore
it. I put the lid on my coffee, ripped the poster off the bulletin
board, practically sprinted out of the coffee shop, and called the
number printed at the bottom of the poster.
I spoke with one of the staffers of the veterinary clinic where Tripawd
was being taken care of. She gave me a brief history of Tripawd's life,
or at least what they knew of it thus far: Tripawd was found in Old
Orchard Beach by the town's animal control officer. One of her hind feet
was missing, sliced off in an unusually clean manner. The railroad
tracks run through the most densely-populated part of Old Orchard Beach,
where Tripawd was found. There are a lot of stray and feral cats in that
area. The ACO thought that Tripawd might have been walking on the tracks
looking for food, and perhaps was clipped by one of the fourteen trains that
pass through every day. She weighed only four pounds, had a severe
infection (her footless leg was rotting away), and she probably wouldn't
have lived for more than a few hours if the ACO hadn't found her when he did.
The ACO brought her to the clinic, where Tripawd was immediately taken
into surgery to have her injured leg amputated at the hip. Four months
later, Tripawd was fully healed and was ready to find her Forever Home.
One of the technicians at the clinic also works part time at Starbucks.
That's how the poster got there. I went to the clinic that afternoon to
fill out an adoption application.
The next day, they called and asked me if I'd like to come back and meet
Tripawd in person. I did, and it was love at first sight. She was timid
and shy at first, but quickly warmed up to me. She sat next to me on the
couch in the lobby of the clinic, and her wide-eyed skepticism quickly
changed to sleepy-eyed contentment. The office manager told me that the
head veterinarian would review my application and make a decision in a
day or two.
I got a phone call from the clinic a few days later, letting me know
that my adoption application had been approved and that I could pick up Tripawd.
Despite her disability, Tripawd gets around very quickly and
efficiently. She has no trouble hopping up onto my bed in one bounce.
Her single hind leg is like a Pogo Stick. She spends hours every day
playing with her toys and zooming all over the house at breakneck speed.
She is very healthy, has an insatiable appetite, and is one of the most
athletic cats I've ever seen.
It's been a year since the passing of my other cat, Feema, and it has
taken me that long to even consider the idea of adding a new cat to my
home. I'm not sure if it was fate or destiny or something else, but I
believe I was meant to walk into Starbucks that day and see that poster.
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