Give Clarke A Second Chance
Donation protected
About three months ago today, my girlfriend and I were walking to my house when we heard meowing nearby. We found this young orange cat shivering underneath a car. It was snowy and cold, so we decided to take him in and give him some food until we could release him back into our neighborhood. Unfortunately, he was in bad condition -- fresh cuts and old scabs, bony thin, riddled with fleas, and he seemed pretty sad. We decided we couldn't just let him fend for himself and maybe get maimed, run over, or starve to death, so we decided to let him stay in my bedroom for a few days. I named him Clarke.
Days turned into a couple weeks, and the more we fed him and loved him, the more he seemed to bounce back. We hoped that in the future he would get along with my roommate's cat (we didn't let them come into contact for fear of disease) so we took him to the vet to get fixed, immunized, and tested. We were heartbroken to learn that Clarke's kittenhood in the city had infected him with the Feline Leukemia virus. There's no cure and no real treatment for it.
After getting my roommate's cat tested and discovering that he was still healthy (luckily we had taken every precaution to keep him from getting infected), we decided that we had to find Clarke a new home. He has developed brief respiratory infections that come and go; some days he's sneezing and breathing funny, other days he runs and jumps around with no problem at all. FeLV can be a debilitating disease, and most infected cats don't survive it forever, but with the proper care, many cats can live for several years with the disease and get a lot more out of their lives than if they were simply put down.
I've tried to get Clarke into one of the local FeLV cat sanctuaries, but they are already over capacity and don't have the resources right now to care for more cats. We can't risk infecting my roommate's cat, and keeping Clarke locked in a bedroom wouldn't be much of a life.
We're hoping to raise a $1,000 donation to the local cat sanctuary in Grand Rapids so that maybe they'll be better equipped to admit Clarke. He's a wonderful, loving cat who is always so happy to see us, loves cuddling and falling asleep in our laps; he meows to get my attention whenever I come home and when he looks out the window and sees me leaving, he meows for me to come back. He's got a lot of love and a lot of life left in him and I can't see him put down or released back into the dangerous city (and possibly infect other cats.)
Please help us raise this money. We're poor college students who are lucky to have twenty dollars to our names and there's no way we can get this kind of money for him. Please give this wonderful cat a special chance. We, and especially little Clarke, will be so grateful.
Days turned into a couple weeks, and the more we fed him and loved him, the more he seemed to bounce back. We hoped that in the future he would get along with my roommate's cat (we didn't let them come into contact for fear of disease) so we took him to the vet to get fixed, immunized, and tested. We were heartbroken to learn that Clarke's kittenhood in the city had infected him with the Feline Leukemia virus. There's no cure and no real treatment for it.
After getting my roommate's cat tested and discovering that he was still healthy (luckily we had taken every precaution to keep him from getting infected), we decided that we had to find Clarke a new home. He has developed brief respiratory infections that come and go; some days he's sneezing and breathing funny, other days he runs and jumps around with no problem at all. FeLV can be a debilitating disease, and most infected cats don't survive it forever, but with the proper care, many cats can live for several years with the disease and get a lot more out of their lives than if they were simply put down.
I've tried to get Clarke into one of the local FeLV cat sanctuaries, but they are already over capacity and don't have the resources right now to care for more cats. We can't risk infecting my roommate's cat, and keeping Clarke locked in a bedroom wouldn't be much of a life.
We're hoping to raise a $1,000 donation to the local cat sanctuary in Grand Rapids so that maybe they'll be better equipped to admit Clarke. He's a wonderful, loving cat who is always so happy to see us, loves cuddling and falling asleep in our laps; he meows to get my attention whenever I come home and when he looks out the window and sees me leaving, he meows for me to come back. He's got a lot of love and a lot of life left in him and I can't see him put down or released back into the dangerous city (and possibly infect other cats.)
Please help us raise this money. We're poor college students who are lucky to have twenty dollars to our names and there's no way we can get this kind of money for him. Please give this wonderful cat a special chance. We, and especially little Clarke, will be so grateful.
Organizer
Michael Moore
Organizer
Grand Rapids, MI
