Hello sponsors of Boots!

I’m your new correspondent. Though not new to Tabby’s Place and their noble mission, I have to admit that I am new to Boots. So, when I received this assignment I immediately seized the opportunity to visit Tabby’s Place with a goal to get to know Boots and to interview him.

When I arrived, he was resting comfortably in a cage in the lobby, watching the world go by. What a gorgeous boy! His white whiskers and eyebrows contrast so beautifully with his gleaming black fur. And what a sweet face. I was upset to learn that he suffers from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). I lost my beloved cat, Dempsey Doodle (a Tabby’s Place alumni), last year from this terrible heart disease and from researching it and many trips to the kitty cardiologist, got to learn about something I’d rather not witness first hand. Some veterinarians think that as many as one in six cats have some form of this disease. While many live long and healthy lives, in others it progresses rapidly.

Our Boots, however, doesn’t seem to know he’s sick. He was sitting in the “contented cat position” – front paws curved under him – and didn’t miss a movement in the lobby around him.

I’m told that Boots had a wonderfully uninteresting medical month. He did manage to entertain everyone with his winning personality, though. He was a “good” cat this month: no grumping, fighting, or terrorizing more mild-mannered felines. Perhaps one of his new lobby-mates, black-and-white Ivan , has something to do with this. Ivan’s a little five-month-old mush, so maybe Boots is feeling a little pressure to step up the effort to be nice in the competition to be Best Black-and-White Cat in the Lobby.

He’s not stressing so much about his dignity, though. When little Linda was adopted earlier this month, her adopter arrived for the journey home with lots of toys for her. Boots was super excited about all the toys, not realizing (or accepting) that they were for Linda, not Boots. He repeatedly approached the stash and made off with one toy at a time. Quite the rascal!

So, thanks to your generous support we are happy to report an uneventful month and a happy kitty. No news is always good news in the fight against HCM.