After a journey of thousands of miles to North Carolina, this cute kitty has started a new happy life in a sweet home with the soldier who rescued her in Afghanistan.
Christine Bouldin was coming to the end of her last arrangement with the U.S. Army in Afghanistan when she noticed a stray cat and a kitty walking near the base. Bouldin was shocked by the first sight of the kitty, who had problem with walking and appeared to wobble a lot.
“I felt very sorry for her,” Bouldin says. “She couldn’t stand up and would flip over.”
Bouldin, an intelligence specialist, started feeding the cats using food from mealtime, and soon it became an everyday ritual. She found that the kitty, who she named Felix, had cerebellar hypoplasia. The particular affects the cerebellum, thus, movement.
These cats can still have happy and healthy lives with a bit of extra help. Bouldin become very connected with the cats and just couldn’t imagine to leave the cats in Afghanistan.
She began asking around to see if the cats could hitch a ride back to the United States with the canine unit, but her answer was no. Then the mom cat gone and never return back. Bouldin kept Felix safe as she could until she was able to think of a solution. A vet who had given Felix shots mentioned Pam Constable, an American who is performing animal rescue in Kabul.
Bouldin contacted Constable, and Felix was able to stay in Kabul while Bouldin returned to her home in Colorado in 2009. In spite her having “a lot of special needs,” says Constable, the kitty “found ways to do what she needed to do.”
“It’s very exciting to see an animal like that just fight to live because so many people undervalue them,” says Constable.
When Constable flew home the next year, she came with Felix the kitten and was able to reunite her with Bouldin in North Carolina.
Felix now lives in Colorado with Bouldin and her family, including another cat named Gus.
The best endings are the happy ones.
