Cherny was owned by a kindly, older woman who made it a practice to adopt special needs cats.But, several months ago, this woman was diagnosed with liver cancer and her only hope for survival was a liver transplant.Realizing the precariousness of the situation, she began making plans to find homes for all of her cats.

One of her favorite cats was Cherny, a beautiful “torbie” (a cat with tabby striping over a tortoise shell background).But, she knew that dear Cherny would be one her most difficult cats to find a home for … Cherny was doubly incotinent, unable to control her urination or bowel movements.We learned that when Cherny was about one year old, she was seriously injured.The cause of the injury was unclear to us, but the result was permanent nerve damage to Cherny’s hind area, leading to her incontinence.

As a result, Cherny has no control over her urination or defecation.This turns out to be problematic in several ways:

1. Because she dribbles “pee and poop”, we were concerned about where to house Cherny.We (obviously) didn’t want to keep her in a cage, but were worried about letting her roam a large suite, as it would be difficult to clean up after her.
2. Because she has no control over her bladder, Cherny does not typically empty her bladder at any time.This means that the urine remains in her bladder for long periods of time and she is prone to urinary tract infections.

We decided that our best bet was to have Cherny live in our Special Needs Suite.This suite is much smaller than the other suites and has less vertical sapce.This would make it easier to spot and cleanup Cherny’s “accidents”.

We do two things to help Cherny with her incomplete voiding problem:

1. keep her on a low dose of antibiotics,
2. “express” her blader by hand daily (this is a technique in which her bladder is squeezed by hand to void it of all urine).

Cherny is adorable (as you can see) and a very sweet cat.We are very happy to give her a home.In fact, there are likely only a few places in the world besides Tabby’s Place where Cherny could find a forever home.

But, as you can see, Cherny requires a lot of specialized care and attention.Needless to say, she also has very little chance of being adopted, given her condition.Please sponsor Cherny and help us to care for the very special cat.