Several years ago, the animal shelter asked for people to foster kittens. “That sounds like fun!” thought Sharlene.
Now, that would be dangerous if I had read it! For many of us, cats are like jelly beans! They come in multiple colors and, of course, you can’t have just
one!
But Sharlene jumped right in and “... found it rewarding raising and then sending little felines on to their FUR-ever homes.”
She admitted that, “It was also challenging because you get attached to the fur babies.”
Then reality set in, she, apparently, loves jelly beans, too! Oh! Oh!
“Our feline family grew,” admitted Sharlene, “I thought the weak ones could not live without me,
but it was the other way around. I would have been heartbroken to let them go. That's how we ended up with Mayhem!”
Mayhem was found abandoned in a field with her litter mates. “She was tiny and sickly,” said Sharlene, “and almost died. We kept her because she has chronic respiratory issues and runny eyes.”
Mayhem has a sweet purrs-onality and she loves everyone! She is exceptionally patient with children and she lives for
attention.
Several years later, in April of 2014, Mayhem mysteriously disappeared. You might say, ‘total mayhem’ ensued as Sharlene’s family searched the neighborhood.
“Our son, Cameron, owns KNND radio station,” she said, “so he continually asked people to look out for her. We ran newspaper ads, checked Craigslist and ... nothing. We were very, very sad.
Then in August 2015, I was out walking when my
cell phone rang.
The nice ‘voice’ on the phone asked me if we ‘...had a cat named Mayhem’ I said, ‘Yes, but she has been missing for quite sometime.’
The kind ‘voice’ said she was calling from Pet Finder and that Mayhem had been found and was at Eugene’s Greenhill Humane Society.
I could barely believe my ears! Yes, we have all our cats microchipped and that little-itty-bitty microchip was the reason
for the happy phone call!
Mayhem had somehow traveled 12 miles from home, and was spotted starving and fed by a kind woman at the upper end of Cottage Grove Lake.
It obviously had been a long hard 16-months and poor Mayhem was in bad shape. She was ‘extremely’ thin, her eyes were a goopy mess, she was skittish, hissy and growly. Not at all like before her disappearance. Either she was delirious from dehydration, from the hot summer, or she
was still terrorized from ‘trying’ to exist on her own. And obviously not doing a very good job at it.
As I now look down at her, resting on my lap, I think, ‘she is our miracle cat!’ She is chubby and healthy! It took her a few months to return to the cat we knew. At first she cowered behind my computer, in only five inches of space. She made it her safe-warm nest as she healed physically and mentally.
She ‘hid’ there until meal times, then she
would ‘wolf’ down her food in SECONDS! It took a month before she realized that she was going to be fed, on a regular basis, before she ate normally.
Starving is a terrible memory. We are grateful for the microchip technology which brought her back into our lives. Guaranteed she is, too!”
On another rescue note: Norine volunteered to watch her nephew’s new dog, Hudson, while its family vacationed in Hawaii for 10 days. The nephew lived a two-hour
drive away, so after she picked up the dog, as she was unloading groceries into her home, she tied Hudson to the front steps hand rail. She came back, minutes later, to an empty harness! Hudson had wriggled free and took off to parts unknown!
The search was on. She posted LOST DOG notices. Several sightings were reported, but to no avail. Norine lost weight worrying and walking, searching for Hudson! She was in a terrible state wondering what to
tell his family.
But! The day before they flew home, who walks up her driveway, but their lost dog!
How had Hudson found the house he had only been to for mere minutes? It was as though he knew that vacation time was over and he’d better get back to Norine’s so he could go home to his family. It was miracle!
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