UPDATE: Chauncey found her forever home — you can follow her adventures on Instagram!
When Misty Geonetta, the owner of The Cat Woman Collective, was on her way to a cat sitting job on New Year’s Day 2019, an adorable black and white kitty with an injured tail appeared seemingly out of nowhere. “She came right up to me and I noticed her tail right away and had already decided that I was going to get a plan in order to get her,” says Misty.
The cat, who Misty named Chauncey after the street in Brooklyn where they met for the first time, actually followed her to her client’s home, waiting patiently until her new friend finished tending to her cat sitting duties.
Misty, who has helped a number of homeless cats in Brooklyn, reached out to Lisa Winters from Little Wanders, a rescue organization in New York City, in order to get Chauncey the medical treatment she needed. She also spoke with members of the community to get more information about Chauncey and the injury to her tail.
“She was TNR’d (trapped-neutered-returned) along with about 17 other cats in the area, all friendly,” explains Misty. “I found out that her tail was an old injury, so she had been suffering with that degloved tail for almost a year.”
While Chauncey was homeless, it was obvious she wasn’t the least bit afraid of people, allowing Misty to simply scruff her, put her in a carrier, and take her to the vet. A medical examination revealed Chauncey was approximately seven years old, and her degloved tail — which was most likely the result of some sort of accident — was necrotic and desperately needed to be removed.
Her teeth were also in bad shape, and while Misty had initially hoped to have dental work done at the same time as her surgery, Chauncey’s amputation just couldn’t wait. “The tail became an emergency almost overnight,” says Misty. “It went from bad to worse quickly.”
After the surgery to remove her tail, Chauncey went to Misty’s home to recover from the procedure. Despite spending years — if not all — of her life on the streets, 7-year-old Chauncey adjusted to her foster home right away, proving just how resilient cats can be. “She immediately took to indoor life, using the litter box, and finding soft places to lie,” says Misty.
Today, Chauncey is with another foster family, awaiting her forever home, and while she doesn’t like having the area around her tail touched — understandable given the injury she suffered — she’s an otherwise typical cat.
After years of struggling to find food and shelter, Chauncey now has a safe home and regular meals, and she is a loving and low-maintenance girl who would make a great pet for practically any family. “She loves to make air biscuits and purr,” says Misty. “She loves to lounge and be by you.”
Without a doubt, Chauncey is very fortunate to have crossed paths with Misty earlier this year, but there were many other people who could have helped her over the past year while she was suffering from a serious — and potentially life-threatening — injury. “People always wait for ‘someone to do something,’ not realizing they are someone and they can also do something! The fact that she suffered that long was completely unnecessary.”
Hopefully, it won’t be long before Chauncey finds her forever home, and Misty hopes her story will inspire other to people to take responsibility for the homeless cats who live in their communities. For Misty, who is simply a normal person who made the decision to get involved with rescue and TNR, the cats she helps inspire her, proving just how rewarding it can be to help animals in need like Chauncey.
“She reminds me of the resilience of these street cats — how they are faced with such adversity, yet, they push on,” explains Misty. “How they trust, how they love. How they know who is going to help them and they find them and demand help! She saw me and just knew I was going to be that ‘someone’ who did ‘something.’ She was what we call a ‘self-rescue.’
If you’re interested in adopting this beautiful cat, you can fill out an adoption application.
If you want to learn more about Chauncey, you can follow Little Wanderers on Instagram.
