I just blogged about a dog that saved a toddler’s life after following him the little boy out into the woods and staying with him keeping him warm (and alive) through the night. Well…it’s not often that I come across stores if heroic cats so I wanted to see if there were any such occurrences this year. I came across the following article in the Timesfree.com press that spoke of a heroic cat that saved an entire family!
Angi Cornett was exhausted Wednesday night after she put her three children to bed.
She felt terrible. Recently, a doctor had told her that the pain in her stomach was being caused by four cysts the size of golf balls on her ovaries. On top of that, she and her husband, both recently unemployed, had to sell their furniture and electronics to help pay rent this month.
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She felt terrible. Recently, a doctor had told her that the pain in her stomach was being caused by four cysts the size of golf balls on her ovaries. On top of that, she and her husband, both recently unemployed, had to sell their furniture and electronics to help pay rent this month.
All she remembered was taking some pain reliever and a sleeping pill and passing out on the living room sofa.
At 4 a.m., Cornett was awakened by the loud and repeated meows of the family’s cat. Bustopher Jones, named after a character in the musical “Cats,” wouldn’t shut up — meow, meow, meow, meow.
“I was a little annoyed, and I raised up and thought, ‘What is that cat doing?’” she said.
What he was doing was saving the lives of the entire family.
Awake on the sofa, she smelled the smoke. The smoke alarm hadn’t even gone off, and Talullah, Lexiss and Seamus, the Cornetts’ three dogs, were asleep, not making a sound.
Seeing orange light and smoke coming from the laundry room, she leapt off the couch and ran to her children’s bedrooms.
“The house is on fire,” she told Kolbi, 17; Kaelin, 13; and Kyler, 10, before ushering them and her husband into the front yard of their home in Cleveland, Tenn., to watch the blaze.
After the kids were settled, she said she pulled her T-shirt up over her nose and went back in the house to save the animals. During the rescue, she said Jones, whom they had adopted last September from McKamey Animal Care and Adoption Center, was attacked by one of the anxious dogs and suffered severe head trauma.
Kolbi starting bawling when he saw the beaten-up kitten, barely hanging on. All her kids begged her to take Jones to the nearest animal hospital.
“We couldn’t afford that veterinarian bill, but what was I supposed to do?” she said. “The kids were hysterical and he had saved us.”
“If the cat had died … I just can’t imagine.”
Such noble behavior by a cat is relatively unheard of, said Karen Walsh, executive director of McKamey. Cats are typically independent, not protective.
“This is the first one I’ve heard of this. Usually, it’s a dog thing,” she said. “Usually the cat would try to save itself, but in this case the cat was the hero.”
Walsh said she and other workers at McKamey are so impressed with Jones, they’ve decided to award the cat the McKamey Purple Paw certificate of meritorious conduct.
Smoke damage in the Cornetts’ house — a rental — was extensive, but the family is going to stay, even though they lost most of their clothing, which was in the laundry room. The Cleveland Fire Department determined that the flames began with a faulty dryer.
Jones came home Friday from an animal hospital in Cleveland. The bill was $241 and left the family with about $30 in their checking account.
But Cornett said she doesn’t regret anything.
“He fought back from the brink of death,” she said. “I just want Jones to be recognized.”
Here is an “attaboy” for Jones!
Quincy
One way you can tell the difference is by how and where cats deposit the urine or spray. When cats urinate for elimination reasons, they normally do it on a flat surface like the ground or in a litterbox. When cats spray, they turn their backsides to the object, twitch their tails and spray urine on the vertical surface, usually at another cat’s nose level.
