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| 10/19/2007 2:24:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article |
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| Cover Girl – one of eight feline leukemia-positive cats adopted by Sheila Smith of Shadow Cats – became the poster feline for the rescue of more than 900 cats from a hoarding situation in Nevada. The inset photo shows Cover Girl, weighing less than five pounds, when she was seized by Animal Control. |
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An unlikely 'Cover Girl'
Rescued feline leukemia-positive cats find home in Round Rock
By KATHRYN EAKENS
Leader Staff
"It was like Cover Girl looked at the cameraman and then turned away as if to say 'even you cannot help me now,'" said Sheila Smith.
The founder of Shadow Cats - an organization working to improve the lives of abused, abandoned, feral, stray and injured cats in Round Rock - recently reflected on the first time she saw a photograph of the now infamous Cover Girl.
Cover Girl - and the image of the still upright but just barely alive cat staggering away from a cameraman - has become the poster feline for what quite possibly could be called the largest animal rescue effort in the country.
When Nye County Animal Control seized over 900 cats from a hoarding situation at the FLOCK (For the Love of Cats and Kittens) sanctuary in Pahrump, Nev. in August, authorities asked the Utah-based Best Friends Animal Society to step in to provide the basics of food, water and shelter and ultimately place them in new living situations.
Smith, who initially contacted Best Friends with the intent to sponsor the starving tuxedo cat, has recently taken into her home Cover Girl and seven other felines from the FLOCK rescue who have not only survived the sanctuary's hoarding conditions but also a feline leukemia-positive diagnosis.
Shadow Cats - which primarily focuses on the Trap-Neuter-Return system of decreasing the feral cat population - traded 12 highly adoptable kittens to Best Friends for the eight FeL V cats that are more difficult to place in homes.
"I have a special place in my heart for feline leukemia and feline immunodeficiency virus positive cats - the ones who are the most needy," said Smith.
The special place in Smith's heart for those in need comes not only from her work as a registered nurse but from the top cat in Smith's household, Cookie Princess Warrior, who contracted FeL V from a rescue cat she brought into her home several years ago. Now 11 years old, Cookie and several other FeL V positive cats in Smith's care are proof that the disease is not a death sentence.
"These cats can go on to live happy lives years after contracting the disease," Smith said.
Feline leukemia is actually not a cancer, but a retrovirus that suppresses the cat's immune system leading to various medical problems - the first disease associated with the virus being a form of leukemia. The species-specific disease is most commonly transmitted though mutual grooming or from mother to kittens before birth or during nursing.
"There is a misperception about feline leukemia, not only among the public but also in my perception," said Smith's husband, Dr. Roy Smith, founding veterinarian of the Central Texas Cat Hospital in Round Rock.
Though separated from the cats in Smith's household, her FeL V cats have the run of four rooms in the house - connected to each other by cat doors built into the walls - as well as an enclosed, outdoor deck. Smith has even installed a camera in the cats' main room that provides a live feed to shadowcats.net/cam.html where Cover Girl's fans can sneak a peek at how she and the other cats are doing.
Smith's credits her husband for Shadow Cats' ability to care for cats like Cover Girl - who was also found to have developed skin cancer on her ears from the hot, desert sun as well as a case of ringworm - and her friends.
"This is an aging population and we would not be able to afford the veterinary bills without my husband," she said. "This is how we make our living, but we also have a moral obligation to give back to the neediest animals."
Though Shadow Cats primarily focuses on trap-neuter-return - which includes the trapping and sterilization of feral cats to prevent breeding before returning them to their original habitat - Smith also places socialized and friendly cats in homes though an adoption program. The organization holds an adoption event on the first and fourth Saturday of the month from noon to 4 p.m. at the PetsMart location on FM 1325 and Interstate 35.
Sheila and Dr. Roy will be honored for their work with feral and homeless cats in Austin and Round Rock at the Austin Humane Society's Rags to Wags benefit tonight at 6 p.m. at the Palmer Event Center located at 900 Barton Springs Road.
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