Ailing Kitty Saved By Houghton Shelter Returns -- A Year Old and Healthy

Paolo the cat came into this world with all the odds against him, born into the wild with a chest deformity that pushed his heart to the side and unable to keep up with his three normal siblings.

But now thanks to the extraordinary efforts of the volunteers at Houghton’s and donors who paid for a $1,000 operation last December, he’s a healthy, rambunctious one-year-old kitty living with a family in Seattle.

On Saturday, he returns to MEOW Cat Rescue to see his old friends as the star of a new book, Paolo’s Adventure. Carolyn Banguero, a volunteer at the shelter who wrote Paolo’s story, will be on hand to sign the book and is donating part of the proceeds to MEOW.

“It’s amazing what we do for animals these days,” says Marilyn Hendrickson, another MEOW Cat volunteer who helped care for the sick little kitten.

Paolo had a congenital condition known as Pectus Excavatum, or sunken chest, in which the sternum fails to form properly. In severe cases it results in the ribs pushing the heart and lungs.

Hendrickson’s neighbor discovered Paolo and his litter-mates out on their own, and brought them to the shelter.

“Right away we felt it. We’d had another cat with the condition, and I said ‘Oh boy, we have another pectus kitten,’” says Hendrickson. “His heart was pushed way off to the side.”

Minor exertion would leave the kitten huffing and puffing. “It was like he had just run two miles all the time.”

The shelter has a no-kill policy, but like most volunteer organizations, it operates on a shoe-string budget and is struggling with the current economy. MEOW Cat took a leap of faith and had the surgery performed, then nursed Paolo into health.

Veterinarians put a fiberglass mold into the cat’s chest and sutured it to his rib cage, alleviating the pressure on his organs. Paolo then had to wear a hard body shell for more than 10 weeks. Yet just two days after the surgery Paolo was a frisky little kitty, as you can see on the attached video from KOMO news, which came out and did a story.

The cost of the surgery was ultimately covered by donations. But Hendrickson says the need is constant and great, and the shelter struggles to cover costs. It is mounting a canned cat food drive during the book-signing, at 2-5 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 8, and will gladly accept other donations.

MEOW Cat Rescue is at 10600 NE 68th St. See its web site here; the phone number is 425-822-6369.

As for Paolo, he is currently living happily ever after with the Seattle family who adopted him, Dawn and Paul Lawson, who have also adopted three other cats from the shelter.

“He’s an extraordinarily sweet little kitten,” says Hendrickson. “The sick ones always are.”