THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, April 6, 1996 TAG: 9604060290
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NAGS HEAD LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
Miranda must have been looking for a miracle when she showed up at St. Andrews by the Sea Episcopal Church.
The bedraggled brown tabby cat found one.
Parishioners had been feeding and brushing her since just before Christmas, when she arrived on their doorstep. Someone brought her a cardboard box lined with towels to sleep in beneath the back doorstep. A member of the altar guild even got her a personalized food bowl.
Then, in mid-March, Miranda started losing weight. She stopped eating the canned food people set out behind the church for her each afternoon. Her fur began to fall out.
Two weeks ago, someone attending an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting at the church became worried about the cat and took her to a Kitty Hawk animal shelter.
Three days later, a veternarian extracted a 4-inch fishhook from Miranda's throat.
``She'd swallowed the fishhook. And it was stuck sideways across the back of her throat, imbedded in both sides,'' Luci Twiford, spokeswoman for Martin's Point Veterinarian Hospital, said Friday. ``Evidently, it'd been there for a while because there was a huge hair ball that had built up all around it.
``The doctor pulled the hook out - with much difficulty. And all the hair and globby stuff came out with it,'' said Twiford. ``The cat was very happy after that.
``Within an hour, she was eating again and grooming her matted hair.''
Twiford said it isn't unusual for an animal to ingest a fishhook. Dr. Andrew Horne at the Martin's Point hospital has removed the metal barbs from the throats, stomachs and rectums of several dogs and cats, she said.
Miranda is recuperating in Feline Hope Cat Shelter in Kitty Hawk where manager Lisa Barnes feeds her wet food - and antibiotics - twice a day. By Friday, the petite cat was beginning to regain weight and was ``meowing her thank-yous all the time,'' Barnes said. Church members took up a collection to pay their pet's $120 hospital bill.
Although they said they'd love to have her snuggle beneath the sanctuary again, church members are hoping that someone will adopt Miranda and take her home.
``We've already gotten her spayed. She's had all her shots. And I'd keep her myself, except I already have 13 cats in my house and my husband would kill me,'' said St. Andrews member Pat Fearing - whom some have described as Miranda's guardian angel.
``She's a really sweet cat, very friendly. And she could get a lot out of being someone's own cat - and be loved at a home - instead of just belonging to everyone at the church and having to live outside.''
Barnes agreed. ``She'd just been suffering for so long,'' she said. ``She couldn't swallow or groom herself for weeks. The doctor said she would have died of starvation in another couple of days.
``But Miranda showed up at St. Andrews asking for help - and the people of that church saved her.'' ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
HOW TO HELP:
If you would like to adopt Miranda, call the Feline Hope Cat
Shelter in Kitty Hawk at 261-7130. Several other cats that have been
injured or abused also are available to take home for free. Most of
these animals have been spayed or neutered and have all of their
shots.
by CNB