Paddy [5]

Marianne says: This beautiful mom, who would become known as Lily, was huddled along with her newborn little girl in a cage at a high-kill Los Angeles area shelter. She was just another stray who had either come to the shelter pregnant or was found and brought in, but with no one claiming her and no one wanting to adopt a nursing mom and kitten her time was up at the shelter and she and her days-old baby were to be killed.

Through social networking, Helen Sanders CatPAWS learned of these two in time and contacted the shelter and arranged their release. They were transported directly from the shelter to a veterinary clinic so that a health evaluation could be done. As is often the case, these two had been exposed to illness at the shelter and had to be quarantined before being placed into foster care and started on antibiotics. The mom, Lily, was stuffy and miserable but would be alright. In a baby as tiny as kitten Paddy was, such a virus can prove fatal. She needed intensive, round-the-clock care which also included bottle-feeding, since sick as mom was her milk had dried up.

Mom Lily rebounded well and was adopted by a charming couple who love her and gave her the home she deserved. For a couple months Paddy remained precarious and was in and out of the clinic, requiring IV fluids and syringe feeding by her devoted foster mom to pull her through the worst of it. It was a frustrating ordeal as her little body continued to battle the persistent virus; the only hope was that she could grow bigger and stronger before illness overwhelmed her. But she is a little fighter, our Paddy, and she did grow bigger and stronger, and would come to be a caregiver and source of comfort in her own right to new kittens as they were rescued and placed into foster care.

There is a term among animal rescuers and foster care providers for those helpless souls in need of healing in body and spirit called "failed foster." What that means is that the foster-care provider, who may have nurtured hundreds of animals, loving them, mending them and sending them on their way, cannot say goodbye to this special one. Such was the outcome for our little Paddy who captured the heart of her foster mom.

On their way to becoming another sad statistic at an overcrowded shelter, Lily and Paddy have instead brought love and joy to those who know them -- and many more who followed their story -- and the world is brighter for them being in it.