A Tail of One Kitty and Two Cities

Sometimes, transports don’t even make their way to our Imagine Home page.  This is a tale of one of those occasions.  Last Friday, a few of your Imagine Home Admins were on a seemingly impossible mission.  Early Friday morning, (and none of your admins are early risers by choice,) we received a frantic plea for help. Atlanta rescuer Chance Genovese had been contacted by a vet tech named Samantha.  A wee kitten of only 7 weeks had wound up, maybe abandoned, in Samantha’s yard.  Wee little kitten (now named Leo the Lion) was taken to the vet, and deemed pretty darn healthy for a 7 week old, except for one thing.  Leo tested positive for FIV. Now before you say anything, we know that it’s not necessarily a death sentence.  We’re also aware that in young kittens, it could actually be a false positive.

Let’s be honest, though, Atlanta is in the south.  It’s a great climate for what seems to be a culture of cat dumping; as a result, when kitten season starts up, kitten fosters are hard to come by.  Chance knew finding a rescue, sanctuary or shelter to take in Leo, a single kitten with a possible immune system compromising disease, would be nearly impossible, in the Atlanta area.  However, late on Thursday night, Chance encountered a miracle – what we at Imagine Home call “ the Paw of Jack.”

Chance located the Golden Paw Society in Huntington, NY. They had an opening and were willing to help. It was just a minor matter of her getting Leo from Atlanta to New York. It just so happened, Chance’s amazingly tolerant fiance, Daniel, has family in New York City. So the plan was for Daniel the rock star (not really, we just tend to hyperbole when it comes to cat loving men,) to fly to an airport near New York City with Leo the tiny lion. Here’s where Imagine Home’s part of the story starts.

 

atl to huntington ny
Wee Leo was in Atlanta, GA. Could we get him all the way to Huntington, NY? Stay tuned.

We were asked to find somebody to meet Daniel and drive Leo to Golden Paw.  Kelly, our Transport Director, and Noelle, our Jill-of-All-Trades, were determined to make this happen.  We have a soft spot for Ginger kittens. (Who are we kidding? We have a soft spot for cats!)  At the beginning of the request, it was thought that Daniel was going to fly into the Newark Airport.  So naturally, we started our search for drivers in that area of Jersey.

Driver number 1 has some health problems that would have made her journey difficult.   But she had a couple of great suggestions.  Suggestion number 1 was Jackie P.  As always, Jackie was thrilled about helping (she’s an FoJ!).  Not so thrilled about meeting at the Newark airport, but in the goal of helping kitties, Jackie was ready to help and we never needed to consult driver number 2!   Over the next few hours, the meeting place changed, and eventually, we learned Daniel was going to be driving into Staten Island.  Much easier than an airport, right?

The surprisingly large Staten Island. Home of few gas stations conveniently near the interstate!
The surprisingly large Staten Island. Home of few gas stations conveniently near the interstate!

Wrong.  Jackie had never been to Staten Island, and Daniel had only a passing familiarity with the Island.  So how to find a meeting place?   Ask a native. Daniel asked his brother for a suggestion, and was told about a park very near the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.  There’s a big difference between men and women.  That difference becomes a bit more pronounced when arranging a meeting place.  Women go for the most public place possible.  Throw in bathroom access, and we’re in heaven.  So for Jackie (and Noelle, acting as the go-between/transport coordinator), the thought of meeting at a strange park near a bridge wasn’t the best idea of how to spend a Saturday night.  Enter Google, exitexplorer.com, and throw in a little roadnow.com for good measure.  Two hours later, we finally found a nice public place. Who knew that Staten Island has so few gas stations near the highway?  Noelle and BekBek now do!

staten island to huntington
Oh boy with the bridges and all the possible routes! What’s Jackie to do?

Saturday night rolled around, and the amazingly tolerant Jackie P. was armed with an address, a time, and a cell phone number.   Jackie met Daniel and Leo the teensy little Lion and headed East.

"Well that was fun! Now what?"
“Well that was fun! Now what?”

Finally, happily, and without a hitch, Leo arrived at Golden Paw Society.  He was now a New Yorker!  This tiny little kitten had a rough start in life.  Abandoned in the heat of Atlanta, roaming the world without a family to call his own, Leo relied upon the kindness of many strangers.  It took a village to save this tiny boy.  And now at the Golden Paw Society, he’ll be able to find the best Home possible, without the pressure of being in a high kill shelter, or living on the streets of Atlanta.  Your Imagine Home Admins send a thank you to all who made a difference in this small Ginger boy’s life.  This is just one tail of a time that it took many hands to make a difference.  We love those people who are able to adapt and persevere in order to help a kitty in need.  Stay tuned, there may be more tails to come!

"Land! This could be interesting."
“Land! This could be interesting.”
"say! what's down there? I go look."
“say! what’s down there? I go look.”
"Is this my glamour shot?"
“Is this my glamour shot?”
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