Cat, once abandoned, now is in the running for a national
contest for rescue stories.
Max, who was rescued after he was abandoned at a vacant house in Philadelphia, walks among posters from well-wishers. Photo by MONICA CABRERA, Allentown Morning Call, 2:21 AM EDT, August 7th, 2007
Article August 7, 2007Max the cat, exhibiting classic feline disdain for his
burgeoning celebrity, sauntered into the living room of Kathryn Gress' Orefield
home and sprawled in front of a poster-sized drawing of himself.
He yawned at a photographer, groomed one paw and took a back-off swat at Rocky,
a Great Pyrenees dog who stands in relation to Max the way Jupiter stands in
relation to Earth: many Maxes would fit inside a single Rocky.
''When I saw Max, I really made a connection,'' said Gress, an animal-assisted
therapy specialist who adopted Max in October 2006 through a Trexlertown rescue
group called The Cat Shack and is now busily promoting his cause through her Web
site.
Max, you see, is one of 10 finalists in a national contest
promoting great stories of animal rescue. His tale is one of abandonment and
scrappy survival in a Philadelphia neighborhood. If he wins, so does The Cat
Shack: contest sponsor Rally to Rescue, a nonprofit created by Purina Pro Plan,
will give the six-year-old nonprofit group $5,000 worth of pet food.
Max is the only feline contestant among a bunch of canines. If personality
counts, he ought to win outright, said Gress, who with her husband, Ben, runs a
large and small animal sanctuary on her property.
Indoors and among people, the short-haired domestic is a warm
and pleasant companion whose wretched experiences with humanity, including an
apparent slashing, have not soured him on bipeds.
Indeed, he has become an essential part of Kathryn Gress' therapy work, in which
animals -- strong, steady, unconditionally loving animals -- cheer and motivate
troubled youths and depressed adults. Outdoors, he is Max of the jungle, an
agile tree-climber and stealthy stalker, clearly able to fend for himself. No
surprise there: unlike his mother and three siblings, Max survived his disposal
by his first owner, a Philadelphia woman who decided to shed her five cats when
she got pregnant. Rather than go to a shelter, she dumped them in the backyard
of an abandoned house in Fishtown.
Happily for Max, the backyard was near the home of Francis and Frances Clifford,
whose daughter, Theresa, is one of the founders of The Cat Shack. The group
shelters and adopts about 200 cats a year and runs an active spay-neuter program
to keep the stray population in check.
''It took my parents a while to realize the cats were abandoned,'' Theresa
Clifford said. ''The other cats disappeared before they realized they needed the
help right away. Max brought himself into my parents' yard. He must have sensed
they were cat-friendly because he planted himself on their back steps.''
Just in time, it seems. The cat was emaciated and had a laceration on his left
shoulder, a wound veterinarians said had probably been made by a knife.
The Cliffords dubbed him Max in honor of another scrappy survivor, a black
Labrador that had been their companion for 14 years after he was rescued from
the shoulder of a highway.
Max was fostered until the day in October when Kathryn Gress visited the
PetSmart store in Whitehall Township, where The Cat Shack runs an adoption
center, and spotted Max among the feline hopefuls. She took to him right away,
was crushed to learn he had been spoken for by another woman, then elated when
the prospective adopter learned she was pregnant and backed out.
Since then, Max has made himself at home in the Gress menagerie, which includes,
in addition to Rocky, a second Great Pyrenees, a couple of alpacas, a gaggle of
goats, two donkeys, two horses, two pot-bellied pigs and some chickens and
bunnies.
Max had made periodic visits to KidsPeace, where Kathryn Gress works part time,
and he has developed a fan club among the children there. One drew the poster
portrait of Max; others created Vote for Max signs. All, undoubtedly, take every
opportunity to vote for him online.
''It's amazing how he can calm a whole room of hyperactive children,'' Gress
said. ''They'll accommodate their behavior to him.''
Theresa Clifford is pleased that Max ended up where he did.
''We do a lot of cats that are rescued from terrible situations, but not too
many go into a situation like Kathryn's where they reach out to people,'' she
said. ''And Max never let his bad experiences taint his feelings about people.''
RESCUE CONTEST
Visit the Rally to Rescue page: http://www.rallytorescue.org/more_for_pets_voting.aspx
Link to the page through The Cat Shack site at http://members.petfinder.org/~PA138/default.html
or the Gress Family Ranch site at http://www.gressmountainranch.com
daniel.sheehan@mcall.com
610-820-6598
Copyright © 2007, The
Morning Call
MONICA CABRERA, Allentown Morning Call ( August 1, 2007)
Max sits at his home at the Gress Mountain Ranch on Highland Road in Orefield. The feline is one of 10 finalists in a nationwide contest for animal rescue stories. The voting for the contest continues through September.