CLARENCE THE THREE-LEGGED KITTEN, Part 6
Click on the link to read Part 5: Decisions
I was on the spot. I needed to decide if I could offer Clarence a forever home, but I’d had only a week with him. It wasn’t nearly enough time. I gave the OHS Customer Care folks a tentative maybe and took him back to my house. I put off the final commitment for as long as I could, but a few days later, OHS emailed me. They wanted to know one way or the other.
I love all cats. I’ve adopted my foster cats before—more than once. (Read my post, Foster Success, for just one of the stories.) But I’d always had more time to make sure the new cat was a good fit with the family. I would be winging it with Clarence.
Cats go into a foster home with the goal of healing and returning to the shelter to be offered to the general public for adoption. There was a further question I needed to answer before I could justify adopting Clarence myself: what could I offer him that another adopter couldn’t?
Then OHS called for a second and third time, asking for a decision. I could put it off no longer. I think I knew all along what my answer would be.
It was official. I brought Clarence back to OHS one last time to sign the adoption papers and have the doctors give him his final checkup. They removed his stitches and rejoiced over his progress. Though I’d driven that road between the shelter and my house more times than I could count, this trip back was different. Clarence was no longer coming to a foster house. When I brought him in from the car, he was home.
A few days later he began having spasms.
To be continued…
