The Rescue- Part 1

Here I was, sitting on the porch with my daughter trying to help her with a summer enrichment book for math. This in itself was difficult because her mind was in “summer shutdown”.
“Heather, what is 1/4 of 4?”
“Two.”
“Try again.”
“Two and a half?”
“WHAT!”
“Oh, sorry. One.”

At eleven and going into sixth grade, my daughter is extremely bright and this was becoming extremely frustrating to me. I knew she knew the answer and yet... well, I was having mental blocks with the fractions as well! During this wonderful bonding time between my daughter and I (ha, ha!) my nine year old son was running around dribbling a soccer ball. Up and down the sidewalk, behind the house, pretty much all over; minding his own business. Suddenly-

“Mom, that cat’s here again.” “Scat!”
“Honey, leave it alone. Believe me, if it sees you kicking that ball, it’s not going to hang around long.”
“I know, but I think it’s chasing a bird.”

At this, my daughter jumped up and ran to chase the cat away. Both of my children are very protective of the animals that come to our birdfeeder. They love to watch as the squirrels try to steal from the feeder as sparrows, purple finches, chickadees and blue jays vie for position. It is especially exciting when a cardinal or rabbit passes through. The cat that was creating the disturbance was from over the fence behind the house, a Tom that liked to stalk the birds around my feeder.

I watched as my daughter slowly approached the black and white Tom, apprehensive that maybe she should stay back. Lately with the scare of rabies in the news, you never know. I was just about to yell “Leave it alone,” when-

“Mom... I think it’s got a chipmunk!”

This brought back a flood of memories. As I was growing up, my cat, Bandit, used to terrorize chipmunks. Just as I would get close enough to grab her away, she would leap forward and bite the spinal cord, paralyzing it. (Sick cat, but I loved her anyway.) As I jumped up, I realized that this was impossible. Not only had we never seen a chipmunk around here, the squirrels would never allow it. By this time I was close enough to see that the poor tormented soul was a baby rabbit.

This tiny petrified bunny was sitting in the tall-unmown grass just quivering. Within an arms length away crouched the growling cat, ready to spring and reclaim its toy. I quickly instructed my son to get a towel and my daughter to stay away from the cat and slowly advanced toward the trembling rabbit head on. (They can't see you if walk at them head on.) Then, with towel in hand, I stooped and very gently scooped the helpless baby out of danger.

Unfortunately, the danger didn’t vanish quite that quickly. After putting the rabbit into our cat carrier with some grass and clover, my children and I realized that there was a problem with its hind leg. I hoped for something minor, but upon closer inspection we realized the leg was broken, and the bone had pierced through the fur. Ugh! We knew at that point that this poor little one needed medical attention, the quicker the better. We had one problem though, it was already after 5:00 pm, I was headed off to the evening shift at work and we only have one car. Seeing that the rabbit was eating and protected from the cat, we placed the carrier on our front porch in the shade, to wait for morning.

The next morning, while doing Heather’s hair and makeup for a dance competition, I called to the emergency veterinarian clinic not far from my home. Unfortunately they were closed and would not reopen until after 6:00 pm. Then I remembered Hawk Creek, the wildlife rehabilitation center located in East Aurora, New York. I had met one of the volunteers while running a book fair for them at Barnes & Noble. Maybe they could help.
I called and spoke with one of the volunteers and was told that yes they could help and that I needed to get the rabbit there as soon as possible. The reason for this was that the saliva from a cat bite could be lethal. Now another dilemma, the dance competition was scheduled at 11:15 and it was now 10:30, not enough time to get there and back. I only could hope that a few more hours wasn’t going to be too long.

Returning home at 1:30 pm, Heather changed, Joey grabbed more greens for the bunny and we were on our way.

Hawk Creek here we come.