THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 2, 1994 TAG: 9409300182
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Coastal Journal
SOURCE: Mary Reid Barrow
LENGTH: Long : 104 lines
Stumpy, a little black kitten, has already used up at least two of its nine lives and owners Don and Boo Moss hope the other seven are never - never, ever - called upon again.
As it is the couple barely can speak of what the kitten has gone through without tears coming to their eyes.
A little over a month ago Don Moss and their two boys, Adam and Justin, were fishing at the Stumpy Lake spillway. It was a misty foggy day and the family heard faint ``meows'' but couldn't see anything.
``We focused in on the sound,'' Don Moss said, ``and there he was at the top of a 40-foot pine tree. We called and called and he finally backed down out of the tree and ran to us.''
The kitten was less than 6 weeks old. The Mosses gathered up the starving little animal that was nothing but skin and bones, and took it home with them.
``He was pitiful looking. The biggest thing about him was his eyes,'' said Boo Moss. ``When we fed him, he acted like he'd never had another meal.''
At the time, the family named the kitten ``Hannah'' because they thought it was a little girl. They also strongly considered the name Stumpy after Stumpy Lake. At the time they didn't know how prophetic the thought was.
Hannah thrived at the Mosses', gaining weight and learning to get along with their other cat. It was full of kitten antics, until a week ago. That's when another of its nine lives was scratched off the scorecard.
That fateful morning, Don Moss, who works for the Virginia Beach Fire Department, got in the car and left for work. About three miles down the road at a stoplight, he saw a woman in the car next to him, mouthing the word ``cat'' and frantically pointing down at the front wheel of his car.
Moss jumped out and there was Hannah lying in the road, cut and bleeding with a front paw missing. ``I could have driven right over her,'' he said.
He figures that when he left home, the kitten must have been sitting on a metal ledge that is part of the car's wheel well. Once again, the little kitten was gathered up and put into his car. He called the fire department's dispatcher and asked for help in finding a nearby veterinary hospital.
It was 8 a.m. and the dispatcher found that Timberlake Veterinary Hospital nearby had just opened. Moss raced to the facility where Dr. Dana Kent and staff were waiting for him. X-rays showed the kitten's front leg had to be amputated and the back leg had a compound fracture. Besides cuts and bruises, there was no other apparent damage.
The cost of two surgeries to repair the legs would be between $500 and $1,000, the Mosses learned, and the kitten would have a 50 percent chance of survival. In addition, internal injuries or brain damage could not be positively ruled out.
There were two choices, euthanize the little animal or go ahead with surgery. As the Mosses saw it, they had only one choice.
``If he survived in the wild all that time, then fought for his life for three long miles, we figured it was meant for him to live,'' Boo Moss said. ``I know that we made the right decision.''
Hannah went into surgery and Boo Moss went to the credit union and withdrew $1,000 in Christmas savings. The first day's bill for the amputation was more than $500. But then the angels stepped in.
Two of Timberlake's employees, Lori Wrenn and Katie Forwalder, paid $50 of the bill the next day, Boo Moss said, and Kent donated more than $200 of the second surgery bill for pinning the broken leg.
``It was an extraordinary experience,'' Kent said. ``These people had this poor little cat and they were willing to go for it. It touched all three of us.''
At some point in the week of treatment, Kent told the Mosses that Hannah was a boy. ``I called him Stumpy,'' she said, never knowing about Stumpy Lake.
Kent will take the cast off in two weeks. Once Stumpy gets his balance back, he should be able to manage well on three legs, she said.
For now, little Stumpy, his body half shaven, a front leg gone and a back leg in a cast, lies on a pillow in the Mosses' living room. He purrs his heart out whenever anybody comes near. He grooms himself and sharpens the claws that are left, To get around, he even drags himself across the floor with his one front leg.
``He's determined,'' said Boo Moss.
And so are all the people who've been caring for him.
P.S.: A SCUBA DIVER will cancel four stamps underwater as part of a second day pictorial cancellation ceremony commemorating Wonders Of The Sea, a new series of postage stamps. The ceremony will be at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday at the Chesapeake Bay Aquarium in the Virginia Marine Science Museum.
KEMPSVILLE DISCOVERY, a series of weekly educational programs on history, travel and other subjects, begins at 10 a.m. Wednesday at Community United Methodist Church on Old Kempsville Road. For information, call 495-1885 or 495-1021.
INTRODUCTION TO BIRDWATCHING, a series of four classes and two weekend field trips, begins at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Old Dominion University. Call 683-4247. MEMO: What unusual nature have you seen this week? And what do you know about
Tidewater traditions and lore? Call me on INFOLINE, 640-5555. Enter
category 2290. Or, send a computer message to my Internet address:
mbarrow(AT)infi.net.
ILLUSTRATION: Photo by MARY REID BARROW
Don Moss, a Virginia Beach firefighter, holds Stumpy, a kitten who
survived starvation in the wild and the loss of a leg while riding
in the wheel well of Moss' vehicle.
by CNB