Healer Cat Gets Team Support

The San Jose, California, Mercury News recently had an article about a cat who has taken it upon himself to help other cats.

Christopher was found on the side of a road unable to stand because his pelvis was fractured. He was taken to the Nine Lives Foundation's Feline Well-Care Clinic, where he was tended to and recuperated. He now lives at the clinic. Now, he will go to the cage of a sick cat and sit until someone lets him in, whereupon he comforts the cat inside.

Even more remarkably, he asked to be let in with a couple of feral kittens that were unapproachable and within a couple of weeks he had them completely socialized.

The newspaper article uses the word "tame", but what he did was socialize the kittens, so that they knew how to act with humans. This is the very definition of society, the passing of learned behavior from one generation to the next.

Going beyond even this, Christopher helped save the life of a tiny black kitten that needed an immediate blood transfusion. The doctor could not even get enough blood from the kitten to determine the blood type.

But then Christopher started rubbing on the doctor and nuzzling the kitten in a way that made the doctor think to use Christopher's blood for the transfusion. As it turns out, both the kitten and Christopher have the same rare blood type. Christopher was the perfect donor, and the kitten recovered.

Dr. Thompson said that if she hadn't paid attention to Christopher, the kitten would have died.

And that's another remarkable thing about Christopher's story. Not only does he want to help the cats at the clinic, the people there are alert and aware enough to pay that much attention to him.

Christopher and the people of the clinic make a wonderful team. You can read the whole article about Christopher at the newspaper's site.

The Nine Lives Foundation Shelter is at 3016 Rolison Road, Redwood City, California.

The Feline Well-Care Clinic is at 1683 Broadway, Redwood City, California