Happy New Year, beloved Team TNR.

I hope this first update of 2021 finds you wrapped in warmth and hope. I don’t think any year has ever been so loved on arrival as this one, and I pray and trust it comes bearing (good!) surprises for all of us.

As you know so well, cats excel in the field of “surprise,” and so 2021 began with a bang in TNR territory. Just around the turning of the year, Tabby’s Place was called to the scene of a heartbreaking situation. A kindhearted, reclusive older man, devoted to his outdoor cats, passed away suddenly. When his family came to look after the cats, they discovered that two of them were in need of immediate, intensive care.

Thanks to you, Tabby’s Place was able to welcome these two weary wanderers into our family. In the depths of winter, Agnes and Toulouse found life-saving warmth.

At just over four pounds, Agnes was a wisp of a calico. Despite her frail frame, Agnes was bursting with sweetness and affection. This gentle old girl has enough personality for a platoon of cats, and she’s almost as thrilled to be with us as we are to have her. She’s battling an upper respiratory infection and certainly could use a bit more weight, but we’re optimistic that she’ll have the victory on both fronts. (We don’t like to toot our own horn at Tabby’s Place, but we are exceptionally good at making cats…plumper. :-))

But if Agnes was frail, her neighbor Toulouse was trembling on the line between fragile and fractured. Gentle, anxious, and sweeter than candy, our caramel-colored girl came with a world of trouble. Her right eye was infected, thanks to an open wound just below it. She had additional infections at her back end and was painfully constipated. At one point, our vet team worried we might lose her.

But Toulouse had a better tale to tell. She pulled through several days of intensive care, and began gaining weight. (Like I said; fattening cats is our core competency.) She’s responded beautifully to fluids, pain medication, enemas, B vitamins, and all the food she wants (which appears to be “more than Cookie Monster wants”). Our vet team is treating her infections, and, hour by hour, this gentle old soul is deepening her delight in her new home.

On the hinge between two strange years, it would be easy to overlook two aching old cats on a lonely farm. Frankly, most people would do just that. But not you, and not Tabby’s Place. It’s only thanks to you that we can be there for these luminous girls, even in the midst of inscrutable times.

If I had a thousand pages, I couldn’t thank you enough for standing by the cats in 2020, and stepping into the wonder and mystery of this new year with us. Your faithful friendship and tenacious generosity remind us all what love looks like. Thank you from the depths of my heart…and the hearts of two brave, beautiful TNR alumnae!

Love, your correspondent,
Angela