Lily deserves better

Lily is a feral cat with CHD (Cerebellar Hypoplasia Disease) who risks her life every single day trying to get to her feeding station 😿

As we explained in our previous post about Lily, seeing her struggle to get to some food and water broke our hearts. We couldn’t just do nothing about it so since last Christmas, we’ve been trying to bring her to safety.

If living on the streets is a nightmare for any normal cat, imagine what is like for a special-needs cat, it must be a thousand times harder!

Sadly, in the cat rescue world not everyone sees eye to eye.

We were told there was a caregiver who has been feeding Lily and other feral cats in the area for years but we never saw him around and we had no way to contact him so we just tried to sort things out on our own.

We began to bring Lily wet food everyday and, a couple of days before Christmas, we attempted to lure her into a carrier but she did not go in.

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A man suddenly approached us in a very aggressive way; it was Lily’s caregiver.

We immediately explained that we were fellow cat rescuers and that we were just trying to help.

We then told him we thought Lily should not be living on the streets in such conditions and that we’d be willing to take her in, to what he angrily replied “she’s happy here and she ain’t going anywhere”.

He said Lily was born in that feral cat colony and that she has managed to survived for years. He also said in a very unfriendly manner, that he’d rather see her live a short “happy life” on the streets than a “long unhappy life” in a safe home.

But, how can she be “happy” on the streets? what quality of life does she have? we asked.

Lily hides all day until she’s so hungry she has to come out and struggles to get to her food. She falls on her side at least 4 or 5 times on her way to her feeding station which is very near the sidewalk of a busy road.

When she finally gets to her feeding station, she’s clearly in fear of everything and everyone around her.

Maybe she’s used to all the struggle by now, but she’s clearly NOT leading a happy life!, we said.

This man was getting more and more upset by the minute despite the fact that we explained all we were trying to do was to help. We tried to make him come to his senses and understand that a busy road is no place for a special-needs cat.

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Acknowledging he has been her caregiver for years, we kindly requested his cooperation to bring this poor soul to safety but he wouldn’t listen and just kept repeating “she is happy here” like a mantra, ignoring everything we were telling him and the fact that Lily requires special care and a different kind of life.

In the end, he said he had “anger issues” and warned us to stay away. “You’d better leave before I do something crazy” he yelled at Paul.

The situation got really ugly and so that day we left but Paul has been back to check on Lily every other day and leaves a container full of high-quality kibble that we know she loves.

We are NOT giving up on Lily!

We can’t just look the other way, so despite losing our court case and everything else that we are going through, we won’t stop trying to get her off the streets. Our trusted vet is also commited to help us as much as possible to make it happen.

With God’s help, we’ll come up with a plan to change her fate before is too late, and give her the special care she needs.

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