GOTCHA

Gracie Grace

In July of 2005 we lost our sweet and sassy little teeny tiny tortie girl named Button.
To this day we do not know what happened, but I now surmise that she simply went into the wooded area adjacent to our home and quietly laid down and died. But at the time we did everything we knew to find her, including making a dreadful trip to the local Animal Care and Control shelter in Clay County Florida.
We were waiting to go back and look in the cages to see if by some chance Button had been picked up accidentally by the ACC. You see Button was a true tortie girl, she had a mind all her own, and in her mind, she wanted to be the workshop cat. No thank you she refused to be an indoor girl. So she was free to roam around in the day, but at night she was happy to go inside my husband's workshop where she was safe overnight.
As we waited to go back inside the ACC, there was this young sweet tabby kitty right outside the front door mewing and playing and interacting with every single person that came inside the shelter. We asked the receptionist about the kitty and she said she had been abandoned and that they didn't want to take her inside because things did not look good for her as they are a very high rate kill shelter (kitties and woofies have 72 hours) and they were hoping someone would just take her, did we want her for free? WE laughed and said we were there to see if our kitty Button was there and no we would pass.
Well...I was in for the shock of my life.
To this day I will never forget being taken to the back room, the last stop before euthanasia.
I saw pure bred cats, I saw everyday cats, I saw fear and the smell of death.
I started crying and I'm even crying now.
I was so heartbroken.
All of these beautiful cats....
But no Button.
She wasn't there.
As were leaving, my husband paused as we passed by the front door with this young kitten playing and he said to me, "do you want to take her". What was I thinking? I was thinking she too was going to die if I didn't take her, so we said to the ACC tech, we'll take this tabby with us, and they went and got us a cat container and we picked up the little tabby and off we went back home.
As we were driving home, I thought what have I done?
A 5th cat!
What am I going to do?
I had just added Abby in June, and now I was bring another cat into the mix! (AND Abby had yet to adjust ... but that's another story)
So we brought her in.
Separated her and then took her to the Vet. She was 100% fine and do you know within a few hours after being given the medical A-OK she fit right in and has ever since and now you know Gracie's full GOTCHA story!