I think my title pretty well sums up this heartwarming story. It comes from Colombia. A wonderful woman whose name is Constanza Hernandez, 37, loves this kitten very deeply, and through her love she has given him a good life. A life as good as any other kitten. It kind of proves that it doesn't matter if you are disabled in the cat world if you are loved by a good human.
Cats don't know they are disabled. They don't know that they've been born with useless hind limbs. They just get on with it and they get on with it extremely well, living full lives. She named him Angelito which I guess means little angel and he is exactly that.
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| Deeply loved Angelito. Photos from the video and via The Daily Mail. |
Constanza found him in a puddle when he was a newborn at 15-days-old. He was born with a spinal deformity which made his hind legs useless. A veterinarian said that he should be euthanised. She disagreed. She nursed him and cleaned him as you can see in the video. It looks as though he is incontinent as well. This means he wears a nappy and that she has to clean him a lot which she does with great tenderness and without complaint. It's just an act of love and that comes across very strongly in the video (at the base of the page).
When she found him, he was also emaciated which is to be expected seeing that he couldn't get around and therefore couldn't survive. And so Constanza built him wheels and, as you can see, he's gone through various stages 'wearing' upgraded models of his 'chariot' which carries his hind legs allowing him to run about on a hard floor very quickly.
Woman’s ‘disability’ sparked an empathy for disabled cats
She used a plastic bottle and wheels from a toy car. Her mother helped her. If she and her mother built this and the earlier models, she's very competent. Constanza lives in Neiva, Huila, in south-central Colombia.
And here's the clincher: she said that she is the one who has gained from the relationship. She said that Angelito saved her life and gave her purpose. She is not thinking about what she did for Angelito but what Angelito gave her during it seems a difficult period in her life. At that time, she said "I had many doubts and voids. I felt that he had saved me."
She said 'He gave me a purpose to my life. I really feel like he was the one who rescued me. He came like an angel. People think that animals with disabilities are unhappy animals because maybe they cannot develop like other animals, but that is totally false.
Living with a disable cat
'Little Angel has no idea that he has a disability. He has developed normally. He is just as crazy, playful and happy just like the rest of the kittens.
'Every day you learn something new. He gives you life lessons. He showed me that he was brave all the time. I felt that I should respond to him in the same way, being brave and accepting my mission, giving him a good quality of life, he deserved in response to his struggle and his will to live.'
And she is completely right. If you adopt a disabled cat the rewards are immense. You've just got to be giving and the more you invest in a disabled cat the greater the rewards. And they are greater at the end of the day than being a caregiver for a healthy normal cat.
Note: This is a video from another website. Sometimes they are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened, I apologise but I have no control over it.
