Valentine was hardly more than a kitten when he was dropped off
at a Los Angeles shelter missing his claws.
Even worse, the surgery was so brutally botched, it left
Valentine in searing pain. His paws were so infected, the staff
wasn't sure if he would even survive.
"He was in so much pain, he was acting out," Jennifer Conrad, a
veterinarian and founder of The Paw Project, tells The Do. "He was
biting. He was terrified."
Valentine's apparent aggression led him to being put on the
shelter's euthanasia list
And if his picture hadn't found his way to Aurelie Vanderhoek,
founder of Zoey Place Rescue, Valentine would not have been long
for this world.
"I saw the picture and my heart dropped," Vanderhoek tells The
Dodo. "The incisions the vet had made were not even stitched. They
were left open to bleed.
"I said, 'I don't care how we're going to do this. He's coming
with me.'"
Freed from his shelter cage, Valentine was brought to the Animal
Healthcare Centre in Eagle Rock, where veterinarian Lisa Hsuan
worked to ease the pain in his festering paws.
And a week later?
"Now, he's in my bathroom," Vanderhoek says with a laugh.
It took a few days, understandably, for Valentine to warm up to
her.
"All I did was sit next to him," Vanderhoek recalls. "I gave him
a small room to get control over. And I just let him come to me.
And within three days, he was purring and playing."
Plenty of care also poured in from a community that had heard of
the cat's plight.
Jackson Galaxy even donated calming remedies to soothe those
troubled paws.
Perhaps most importantly, The Paw Project's program, is covering
the bills for Valentine's spiraling medical expenses.
"We take animals who were going to lose their lives because they
were declawed — and we rehabilitate them," Conrad says. "We've had
a 100 percent success rate in finding these animals homes once
they've been taken out of pain and the infection in their paws has
been taken away."
And Vanderhoek took it upon herself to soothe Valentine's
troubled mind — which is proving the easiest job of all.
"He gets startled very easily with loud noises. I think he was
abused because he has very, very sharp triggers," she says. "He's
playful. All he wants right now is to be held. He just wants to
cuddle.
"This is a cat who just needs a nice, quiet environment and
he'll be fine."
Vanderhoek credits an entire community of animal rescuers for
coming together to give Valentine a real chance at a life — an
opportunity that's all too often not given to declawed cats.
While some people think taking away a cat's claws makes them
easier to deal with.
"There's no doubt that a declawed cat bites more often and bites
harder because they've been robbed of their primary defense,"
Conrad explains. "Anytime you have a behavioral problem, you should
treat it with behavioral management. Not with surgery.
Instead, she suggests simple alternatives like a scratching post
or a toy. Because kittens will be kittens.
"That's what kittens do," Conrad says. "They attack each other.
They attack toys. They go crazy doing their little kitten stuff.
But that's because they're babies."
And now, thanks to an entire community's efforts, Valentine will
get to be the kitten he was meant to be.
