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Lucy

Feral cat activist Julie Smith tells me of Debbie Meyer, a newspaper columnist who writes informative articles on animals. We finally meet at her serene home on a pond. Three friendly horses approach me and walk right by to Debbie with the hay. In the barn, tabby Violet peers down. Orange tabby Dante inspects my car. Dogs Zelda and Buzz are leaping up in their pen to be noticed. Betsy, the adopted potbelly pig, is not in view. Inside this airy house a one-eyed black & white cat, Schroedinger, greets us, and three-legged black cat Ella scoots by. The youngest cat, Steward, bounds up the stairs.

At animal shelters I have seen people surrender animals to face uncertain futures because they are moving, the animal sheds, or it doesn't match the new couch; the list of heartless reasons goes on. At Debbie and Eric's exquisite new home, the philosophy is the opposite. "You can't replace a life, but you can a couch." Actually, Buzz destroyed their couch -- twice!

Debbie has written on homeopathy for animals, feral cat colonies, good horse care, and a woman that tamed a cat by reading to her nightly from the Bible. An irate reader writes to accuse her of "just" caring about animals. As it turns out, Debbie chairs a mentoring program for youths, works full-time at Duke University on one of the world's most important scientific weeklies, and facilitates a column at the Chapel Hill newspaper called "My View." Would the complainer take in blind amputee cats or care enough about people to help them be heard?

The Queen Mother, cat Lucy, with one blue eye, the other yellow, nearing 20 years, looks out over the pond. Ella shakes her head to the right for Debbie to scratch under her chin. With her right leg missing, she can't reach that spot. "Part of the attraction of getting involved with animals is that they easily make us feel like heroes. I do something as simple as loan a trap. A cat gets caught and spayed, and many lives don't suffer in vain." Nobody is suffering at this location.

// posted by Alice @ Sunday, September 17, 2006