THE SPECIAL BOND BETWEEN PEOPLE AND ANIMALS

There is a very special bond between people and animals.  Although most people think that animals rely heavily on people's care and compassion, very few realize how this relationship is interdependent and that often people rely on the same animals they help to receive love, unquestioned devotion and companionship from them.  Love begets love indeed.

We would like to share below some touching stories in which Animal Umbrella was directly involved and able to provide help:

A deaf ninety year living in Lynn cares for many strays who wander in his yard.  One day, he saw a miserable looking buff colored cat with a terrible eye injury.  He managed to get the cat in a carrier and waited for one of our volunteers who visits him regularly to surrender the cat whom we called Clarence.  He was rushed to our veterinarian where the eye had to be removed because of the terrible infection.  After a lot of TLC, Clarence recovered and found a wonderful home.

 There are many abandoned cats at Logan airport.  A colony of ferals was living in spaces between large granite blocks in a parking area right over the ocean.  I visited the place one time being alerted by an animal lover.  It was very cold because of the wind and very dangerous because if the cats slipped over the ice on the rocks in the Winter, they would fall 30 feet into the ocean.  A group of concerned people started feeding the animals and two people in particular Kathy and Dave, after endless hours of trapping were able to rescue all the cats one by one and bring them to the shelter.  Several of them were socialized and adopted.  A few are still remaining at the shelter free to roam and well cared for.

A woman who had lost her daughter in a car accident was severely depressed.  I had rescued a feral cat from an abandoned garage in Boston.  After the cat was visited by a vet and was sterilized, vaccinated and tested, I brought it to the woman for foster care.  A special relationship developed between the two as the woman found her will and reason to live back.  The cat which I had called Handsome Louie was still feral and fearful, but at night, he would go on the bed and touch her feet.  She would stroke his back with her feet

from under the blankets.  As time went on, 
the two became more and more emotionally
dependent on each other.  As of this writing they are still together and still giving each other company.

Grace Whitehead was an elderly Lynn woman feeding strays out of the window of her apartment.  She fought for years with her neighbors because they wanted her to stop feeding the cats but she continued.  She would call Animal Umbrella at times if an animal was sick and we would pay for their care.  Several of her strays over the years were brought to our shelter and we found homes for them.  Grace was found dead one day because of a heart attack.  For days her strays waited during the cold days under her window for food.  We learned of this situation and rescued and found homes for her few strays.  

June Jacoby an elderly woman living in Stoneham has been Carina for and feeding strays for years.  We have helped her by sterilizing her cats or taking some of them in our shelter.  June has for a long time faced the great hostility of one of her neighbors.  Spencer a cat she was feeding whose story we reported in our last newsletter was rescued as he was near death and after a long rehabilitation was recently adopted by a wonderful family. 

Only because of space limitations we cannot continue sharing more of these stories with you.  The special relationship between people and animals continues and it will go on forever because all creatures big or small need each other no matter the odds.

Annamarie Taylor