Alberta's Story

We called her Albert. Her story begins with a group of feral cats. One of the young females had gotten away before she could get trapped and spayed. She had two kittens. By the time we finally caught up with them, the little ones were about 8 weeks old. A local veterinarian offered to adopt them out for us. We told her that they were completely feral for several generations as far as we could find out. She said that was ok, because they were still young. After several weeks, the veterinarian called us to come and get the kittens, she could not adopt them out, they were just two wild. When we got the kittens back, they were sick with worms, had still not been vaccinated and not at all socialized. We almost lost Annie Albert’s sister to nerve damage from round worms. We were told, Albert, the wild boy, had to be released back into the wild. Well, first of all Albert was an Alberta, and we were certainly not going to let her go.  We never went back to that veterinarian. With a lot of patience and Terry’s (one of our permanent residents) loving help, the two kittens started to get friendlier. They are now 9 years old and love to be petted, as long as can they come to you. If you try to approach them, they get immediately suspicious and go hide somewhere.

Albert is currently very sick. We have not been able to find out what’s going on. She started limping with her left hind leg about 6 weeks ago. X-rays didn’t show any results, so we assumed it must be soft tissue damage and would heal with time. She also lost weight and about a week ago started holding her left front leg up and then quit eating altogether. She spent 4 days at the clinic, where our veterinarians tried to treat her with medication and force-feed her. But she was just too wild. She is sweet and loving until you make a deliberate move towards her mouth, then she turns into a fury. She is back here again in her cage, so she can rests a lot. Since yesterday (April 12^th, 04), she has started eating again, so there is hope. Please help with her bills; she is a good little girl just very easily frightened.

A lump has developed on her front leg and the biopsy was malignant cancer spread from her spine.  She is getting weaker and has quit eating again. 

May 6th, Albert has passed over the rainbow bridge.  Her little body couldn't cope with the cancer any more.  We all miss her most of all her sister Annie.