Last year, on Valentine’s Day, a woman in Quebec, Canada, heard crying from her backyard. She went outside to check and found her orange tabby frozen in the snow. It looked extremely battered.
The stray feline meowed and pawed at her doors. The woman, a foster volunteer with kitten rescue, Un Chat à la Fois, took a photo of the poor cat and sent it to the organization’s founder, Marie Simard.
The woman knew they weren’t taking in adult cats but wanted to help him.
“As soon as I saw the picture it broke my heart, and I told her to take him to our partner clinic so he could be evaluated,” Simard said.
“His face said everything that needed to be said. He stayed in front of her door for a while, and as soon as I told her to get him, he didn’t try to get away,” she added.
Within 30 minutes, the woman had brought her tabby to their partner clinic. The cat was friendly and cooperative at the vet. He went in the carrier alone and let the doctor perform the check-up, Xrays and blood test.
The cat, who didn’t have a microchip and wasn’t neutered, indeed needed help. He had frostbite and had numerous bite wounds. The animal also had rotten and wormy teeth, diabetes, skin allergies, and many fleas and ticks.
Simard knew that if he hadn’t found help, the cat wouldn’t have made it through another harsh winter. The woman rushed Simard in to get treatment.
Despite being very sick, the cat showed his gratitude to those who cared for him.
“He was very nice to the employees at the clinic,” Simard recalled. “He would take his paw out of the cage at the vet so the people would pet him.”
Staff thought he was a missing cat as he was too friendly outside to be born outdoors. They thought he had been abandoned by his irresponsible owners. However, after searching everywhere for a missing cat notice they discovered nothing.
Simard decided to give him the name Aslan, after the lion in “The Chronicles of Narnia” series.
A few days after being hospitalized, Aslan’s health improved, and he went to live in a foster home. Aslan quickly made friends with other cats.
Aslan made sure to show his foster mom every day how happy and content he was to be living with them.
“He’s a very affectionate cat,” Simard said. “He likes to sleep close to his foster mom.”
When it came time to open adoption applications for Aslan, his foster mom couldn’t bring herself to let him go. Aslan had also formed a great bond with her rescue cat, Cleo, and she didn’t want to separate them.
“He would just sleep next to her, groom her and she would groom him,” Simard said. “It made sense to have them stay together — two rescue cats who had a tough life.”
Aslan has a special diet due to his diabetes. However, he loves food. In fact, his mom has to guard her own plate because the cat wouldn’t hesitate to steal her food. She will sometimes give him a treat, but she is not always strict.
Aslan doesn’t miss his outdoor life at all; he doesn’t even try to go outside. The cat loves to cuddle up with his mom and siblings while he sleeps on his pillow.
Aslan now lives the life that he deserves with the help of the kind lady who saved him.
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