Clean slate
Some clubs are totally cool to join. Gardening clubs. Stamp-collecting clubs. Star Wars fan clubs, complete with bimonthly movie nights. Some clubs, though, are anything but desirable. For Ms. Bubbles the cat, she’s more than happy to leave one club behind forever. Ms. Bubbles came from the Great Kitty Rescue in Pahrump, Nevada—an awful situation in which a rescue organization was shut down because hundreds of cats were not even getting basic care. Many of the cats rescued from there were so scared that they ran from people. They had suffered terrible abuse and neglect, and they didn’t trust humans.
There came a time after the rescue when Best Friends caregivers had to come up with a rather unusual list. They wanted to pinpoint the 20 wildest, most frightened, most-likely-to-zing-you cats. The reason behind the list was that they had plans to release those 20 cats into feral cat colonies.
Well, Ms. Bubbles made it onto that list. Number 4 on the list, in fact! And in truth, she was a shoe-in for the spot. At the time, Ms. Bubbles would go berserk if anybody approached her. She was quite the unpredictable little firecracker. Poor girl! She must’ve been terrified.
After a little while, Best Friends decided against releasing those 20 cats after all. Instead, they came to the sanctuary with everyone else for some much-needed TLC. Nobody knew if they’d ever accept human contact, but they were going to have every chance. Then something interesting started to happen. After enough time at Best Friends, where they always had food to eat, where medical help was always right around the corner, and where a loving scratch was one short meow away… even the cats on the big, bad scary list started to relax.
Ms. Bubbles has been no exception. She’s taken a little longer than some to calm down (after all, she was 4th from the top!), but over a year of good living has taught her something. People really are her friends. It’s almost crazy to see, for those who knew her way back when, but Ms. Bubbles will now come up seeking affection. Heck, she even lets her caregivers pick her up for a snuggle now and again.
Safe to say she’s left her old club behind for good! Now all she needs to do is find a new group to join. Say … maybe her own family?
Story by David Dickson
Photo by Sarah Ause