Couple travels hours to adopt blind, beaten cat

KANSAS -- We've all spent hours surfing the Internet and watching random clips from all over the world. But one couple found a story on the Web that touched them so much, they drove miles just to adopt a special cat.

"I just knew something spoke to me and said I needed to take care of this cat. Honey look, look at our new cat!" said Judy Powell, who adopted Rockette the cat. Judy's husband, JT, came across Rockette's story on the Internet.

It told how a fisherman found her in a sack on the Kansas riverbank, beaten and shot several times with a pellet gun. She looked bad in August. Miraculously, she survived and had kittens!

But to fully fight her infections, the pellets and her eyes had to be removed. "Within 48 hours, she just really turned around and you could tell she felt so much better. And she started to play and eat more,” said Deb Malick, Helping Hands Animal Welfare director.

The Powell's began sending donations for Rockette's care and eventually asked if they could give her a home. "How could you not love this cat. She needed someone to take care of her,” Judy Powell said.

 

Helping Hands staff conducted several interviews to ensure the Powells could meet Rockette's special needs.

And this week, "Sammy, you don't realize how long grandma has waited for this cat!" Powell said to a grandchild.

The Powells made the five hour trip from their home in Meade to welcome their new addition. "She's going home with me," Judy Powell said.

For the staff who spent six months nursing her back to health, it's bittersweet. "We're so attached to her. She stayed in the medical center with us and we talked to her every day as we walked by and watched her start to learn to play with her toys and move around more and so yup, we'll miss her,” Malick said.

But this is why they do what they do. "She'll be taken care of, I promise,” Judy Powell said. To give all creatures a place to be loved.

"Wonderful. It makes my heart happy,” Malick said.  Rockette's three kittens all have found homes as well.

(KSLA-TV - Dec 5, 2015)