GuesSAngel
Well-Known Member
A newstip let Denver news reporter Chris Vanderveen know about a cat at an animal shelter that walks on its front paws. This is his story:
I know, I know. Here we are offering up another story on another animal that does something strange.
"Don’t you have any better news to cover?" you may soon ask.
Well, maybe you won’t ask me that, particularly if you have a Whiskers, or a Mittens, or even a Socks at home waiting patiently for your return.
Truth be told, I am a dog owner. And I don’t really understand cats. Do they actually wait for your return? Why can’t they fetch? Why do they keep staring at that spot on the wall?
So, yes, even I was a bit skeptical about this story. Even I wondered if it was worth it to do another story on another animal that does something strange.
"Don’t I have any better news to cover?" I asked.
Then I met Lola, a 7-week-old kitty at the Maxfund no-kill shelter in Denver. And when I saw her walk, I jumped up and down, literally up and down, for what I figure may have been the first time in my journalistic career.
That’s when Eric Kehe (our chief photographer) and I decided we had to do the story of Lola the kitty.
So, the next day, the day we brought our camera, Lola did what many animals known to do something strange do. She didn’t do what we thought she could do.
And so we waited. And waited. And waited.
"She does this guys, she really does do this," someone at the Maxfund told Eric and me.
Then someone else asked if we had any better news to cover. "How much time do you guys have to do this?" she quipped. Or at least I thought it sounded like a quip.
We waited for three hours that day.
Then we got the call that someone had been arrested for the murder of JonBenet Ramsey, so we couldn’t justify waiting for Lola to do her strange thing any longer.
Two days later, while I was doing another JonBenet story, Eric returned to the Maxfund. He wasn’t ready to give up.
And neither apparently was Lola.
Eric’s smile said it all to me when he returned to the station.
Lola finally did what we thought she could do. She walked on her front paws, her whole body straight in the air.
Four hours of videotape was all we needed.
So, please, be kind with your comments. I know Lola’s story is not the most important story we could cover.
But it just might make you smile. And if you don’t understand cats, well, it’s not going to make you understand them any better.
I still don’t know what they’re staring at.
By the way, Lola is not ready for adoption, but she may be soon.
The reason why Lola walks this way is because her hind legs are deformed. They’re longer than they should be, and employees at the Maxfund believe she has at least some partial paralysis. But she has adapted, and she is not in any pain.
Maybe that is a story after all.
» Kitten Lola
I know, I know. Here we are offering up another story on another animal that does something strange.
"Don’t you have any better news to cover?" you may soon ask.
Well, maybe you won’t ask me that, particularly if you have a Whiskers, or a Mittens, or even a Socks at home waiting patiently for your return.
Truth be told, I am a dog owner. And I don’t really understand cats. Do they actually wait for your return? Why can’t they fetch? Why do they keep staring at that spot on the wall?
So, yes, even I was a bit skeptical about this story. Even I wondered if it was worth it to do another story on another animal that does something strange.
"Don’t I have any better news to cover?" I asked.
Then I met Lola, a 7-week-old kitty at the Maxfund no-kill shelter in Denver. And when I saw her walk, I jumped up and down, literally up and down, for what I figure may have been the first time in my journalistic career.
That’s when Eric Kehe (our chief photographer) and I decided we had to do the story of Lola the kitty.
So, the next day, the day we brought our camera, Lola did what many animals known to do something strange do. She didn’t do what we thought she could do.
And so we waited. And waited. And waited.
"She does this guys, she really does do this," someone at the Maxfund told Eric and me.
Then someone else asked if we had any better news to cover. "How much time do you guys have to do this?" she quipped. Or at least I thought it sounded like a quip.
We waited for three hours that day.
Then we got the call that someone had been arrested for the murder of JonBenet Ramsey, so we couldn’t justify waiting for Lola to do her strange thing any longer.
Two days later, while I was doing another JonBenet story, Eric returned to the Maxfund. He wasn’t ready to give up.
And neither apparently was Lola.
Eric’s smile said it all to me when he returned to the station.
Lola finally did what we thought she could do. She walked on her front paws, her whole body straight in the air.
Four hours of videotape was all we needed.
So, please, be kind with your comments. I know Lola’s story is not the most important story we could cover.
But it just might make you smile. And if you don’t understand cats, well, it’s not going to make you understand them any better.
I still don’t know what they’re staring at.
By the way, Lola is not ready for adoption, but she may be soon.
The reason why Lola walks this way is because her hind legs are deformed. They’re longer than they should be, and employees at the Maxfund believe she has at least some partial paralysis. But she has adapted, and she is not in any pain.
Maybe that is a story after all.
» Kitten Lola
