About four years ago , when I was doing anything to make money while I was waiting for my business to take off , I delivered sandwiches for a while. one night , on a delivery , I was sent to a house where the people who ordered had kittens. as usual , I asked to see the kittens , and the people let me look at them. A little boy came running over to me and said , ' look , this one has a crooked head!!' I looked at the kitten , and sure enough , the kitty was bent to one side , and every time he tried to take a step he'd fall over to the right. The woman who was there , said , 'yes , we're going to have to take this one to the humane society. 'now , I know how he humane society here works , and I know that a kitten they deem as 'unadoptable' will be put to sleep immediately. I told her I would take the kitten. I picked 'shiloh' up the next day , told my husband ( the husband I was married to then) that I found him on the side of the road and something had happened to him. I called dr. barb right away , and we talked for hours about this kitty. I found out all about kittens who are born with cerebellum damage. She explained to me how they contract it in the womb and as soon as they are born it gets no worse , and as they get older they learn to compensate for the problems, and it is all motor problems , they are not stupid in any way, actually I've found Shiloh to be a bit smarter than the average cat.

I worked with Shiloh and fell in love with him , and sure enough as he got older he got more steady on his feet and learned all the proper kitty behavior. he will always have a kind of an odd walk , and when he gets excited he tends to run in circles , and a lot of things excite shiloh , like dinner. We also believe him to be deaf.

When my husband ( the one I was married to then) and I got divorced , we had a little problem , neither of us wanted to give up any kitties. what we settled on , legally, was I would keep most of them , and he would take five. Yes , Shiloh was one of those five. Our divorce agreement was that each of us have visitation rights to the others cats. How we arranged this between us was one of mine with him for two weeks , one of his with me for two weeks , etc. , ect... this really was working out fine , for us and the cats . then , last summer , we some how both managed to get ringworm in our houses , completely unrelated , we both adopted new kittens. so we stopped visits for a while.

Last week , my sister called me up and said (almost yelled) 'why didn't you tell me about Shiloh?' my heart skipped about three or four beats , I thought maybe she meant lizzie , but I remembered telling her about lizzie just earlier in the week. After catching my breath , with dread in my heart , I said ' what about Shiloh , what are you talking about?' It seems my ex had called her and told her that his back door had come open one night about a month ago and three cats had gotten out , one was Shiloh. Striper came right back and remoh and shiloh were still missing. Remoh and Shiloh had been out for almost a month and he had never called to tell me this. I can't even tell you how angry , furious and so many emotions were raging through me. Remoh had gotten out a few times before , we know exactly where he goes , it just sometimes takes quite a while to get him back in the house. He is one of the most timid cats in the world. But Shiloh , brain damaged and deaf , out there in the bad world , it was ripping my heart out , my poor baby Shiloh.

My husband , Randy and I , we knew our chances of getting shiloh back were damn slim , but we went right into action. We printed up a hundred flyers and had a neighborhood child put them into a bunch of mailboxes , I called the humane society , I put an add in the newspaper. most of the calls I got , believe it or not , were about Remoh , who I look for every day. I actually saw him once.

I got one call at work one afternoon , and a lady said to me , ' I think your cat might be in my garage . My grandson said he saw a grey cat in the a month ago , and I keep hearing something rummaging around in there.' I told here when I'd be there , we got flashlights , a carrier and headed on over there. She opened the door to the garage and we walked in , looking all over the place and randy called me over to a cardboard box in the far corner. I looked in and there were those beautiful gold eyes staring up to me , i reached down and picked him up into my arms , god so light , and I'm crying , Shiloh Shiloh, and i can feel his bones and it's so awful , I'm wondering has he eaten anything in this past month? I thank the lady . offer her money , anything for bringing my shiloh back to me. she refuses , just is so happy that it was my Shiloh.

I bring shiloh to Dr. Barb , she says ,' god , we got him just in the nick of time , he was starving to death.' We weigh him , down to six pounds from eleven. my poor Shiloh , starving in a cardboard box in some dark garage, this beautiful proud cat , getting over and above so much in his life , degraded to this.

Now all I feel is anger with my ex for not getting out there and trying to find him , anger for not telling me he was out, letting him live in a box for a month. He actually told my sister that he had to accept the fact that Shiloh had probably been hit by a car and was dead. he gave up on my Shiloh , and never gave me that chance not to.

So here's where my story stands , shiloh is here with me , and my ex will never see him again , he can go on believing that he is dead. I do feel guilty for doing this , but my love for Shiloh will get my through this. I will never give this cat up , he'll be with me from now on.

I keep looking for Remoh , and when I find him , he's coming home with me. I know he is living under my ex's house, I've offered an award for his safe return , and I've explained to people how timid he is. all the neighborhood kids are looking for him also.

I sent the lady with the garage a beautiful flower arrangement and a card.

Shiloh is putting on weight , slowly and steadily , I love Shiloh.

Two weeks ago , right before I found out that shiloh was missing, I adopted another kitten with cerebellum damage , little 'tardy' , welcome to the family.

bette