A young couple befriended a group of cats living along the railroad tracks in West Chicago, providing shelter, food, water and compassion for the animals and working with PAWS Chicago to make sure the cats were healthy and spayed or neutered.
One day a kitten and its mother showed up at the couple’s home. It wasn’t pretty. The kitten’s mangled leg was severed, lying next to her, and her tail was severely fractured. The couple called PAWS, which took in the kitten, named her Metra because of her railroad track origins and went about saving her.
Metra underwent surgery but took a turn for the worse. She surprised everyone by rallying and pulling through.
Today she is 6 months old, spunky and friendly but with some special needs (in addition to being an amputee, she is blind).
She is in need of a home that will provide her with “love, compassion and a lot of treats,” according to PAWS. Check her out at the cat adoption section of the PAWS Chicago Web site (pawschicago.org).
Some people are great. Like the woman who brought two kittens–so young that their eyes were not yet open–to the Anderson Animal Shelter (andersonanimalshelter.org) in South Elgin.
Some people aren’t so great. The woman said the kittens’ mother had been poisoned by a neighbor. The gray and white orphans are now being bottle-fed by one of the shelter’s volunteers and will be put up for adoption when they reach 8 weeks.
Roscoe, an 8-month-old beagle, has learned about Chicago traffic the hard way. He was hit by a car and suffered a broken leg that resulted in his being taken to the Anti-Cruelty Society in Chicago. After the leg was set, Roscoe was paired with a volunteer for foster care. The volunteer–and her own beagle, Buster–bonded so well with Roscoe that they’ve taken him in permanently.
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Shelters and animal-control facilities may suggest items by e-mailing us at q@tribune.com. Put “Unleashed” in the subject field.
