A happy ending

By Kelly Sargent

A big thank you to everyone who shared our posts in the interests of finding Little Ginger Boy a home — and of course special thanks to Erin and Rob for letting me borrow the Tucker Law website and Facebook page to look for a home for him. The good news is that at last he has one.

You may remember his story; he was dumped on a gravel road in a very rural Iowa, a few miles north of the Missouri border. By the time a kind woman found him, he was skinny, flea-infested and had worms and ear mites. With all the other animals she already has on the farm to take care of, she didn't feel she could afford one more. He would have had to live in a shed if he stayed with her, and she didn't want that for him, so she contacted me to see if I could find him a home.

Due to the circumstances, a compassionate veterinarian charged next to nothing to vaccinate and neuter LGB and for medications to treat his infestations. Meanwhile I was writing and posting about his need for a home.

One woman was interested right out of the box, but unbeknownst to both of us, she wasn't getting my private messages and of course not responding to them since wasn't seeing them, so I kept looking. I heard from a second interested party from Fort Dodge who wanted him, but a tragedy occurred in her extended family, and she stopped communicating.

Bummer. Then out of the blue, the first interested party found my messages, contacted me and said, "Yes, I really want him! I just didn't get your messages." We were golden — or so I thought. But on the very day we were picking up LGB to make the transfer, she called to tell me she wouldn't be able to take him because her dad had just been put into hospice care.

We had to start all over. In the meantime, we kept LGB and were taking conscientious care of him. We took him to our veterinarian to get him tested for feline leukemia, feline immunodeficiency and feline coronavirus. Fortunately he was negative for all three. We also had the vet thoroughly check and clean his ears and perform a fecal analysis to see if he was clear of worms. No more worms, but his ears still required medication.

His original rescuer had told us several times that he was "very energetic". We weren't sure if that was code for "troublesome mischief-maker", but oh my goodness, he turned out to be such a loving little boy. We were completely smitten and would have kept him in a New York minute, but we have a resident cat of many years named Shye — so named because she is — who really needs to be an only cat.

It was less than ideal for Shye and LGB to be kept alternately sequestered, but we had no other recourse. Our solution was playing musical cats 18 hours a day. We'd bring LGB downstairs and give him the run of the house while Shye was shut in the bedroom. Then we'd transfer LGB to our upstairs office while Shye was able to roam freely.

In the last week, there was a sudden flurry of interest. One woman in particular seemed perfect: recently widowed, she's retired and lives alone, but is young enough to be able to be with him his whole life. Our thought was that they could help each other heal.

We delivered LGB to her Monday night. She has named him Henry, and he's going to get lots and lots of attention. And yes, we miss him. We'd had him for a full two weeks, which was plenty of time for Paul and me to get quite attached to him. (I shed a few tears today as I wrote this.) But we're thrilled to see him in established in such favorable circumstances and adapting so well.

Above photo: My husband Paul and LGB having one last snuggle. The first of the below photos is of LGB and his favorite place to be at our house. The bottom three are of LGB aka Henry in his new home.

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