After leg amputation surgery, a kitten that was found near death in Flower Mound has found a loving home with two local veterinarians and their 9-year-old daughter.
A woman found the 12-week-old kitten limping in the parking lot of the Flower Mound Target store in August. The woman saw the kitten had a severe leg injury and immediately took her to the Flower Mound Animal Adoption Shelter. The shelter saw the kitten was in desperate need of emergency surgery and took her to Main Street Veterinary Hospital in Lewisville, which usually offers free or discounted services to shelter pets. Dr. Geneva Kernaghan immediately gave the kitten the necessary leg amputation that day because the leg was gangrenous. Main Street veterinarians believe the kitten would not have lived even a day longer without receiving treatment.
Dr. Susan Brashear, a general practitioner at Main Street Veterinary Hospital, was out of town that day but her first day back at work, she was checking on the hospital’s ICU patients and noticed the little three-legged kitten, an orange tabby. Brashear, who lives in Highland Village, said she had been specifically looking for a female orange tabby kitten in need of a home because her 9-year-old daughter, Eden, had been asking for a kitten of her own and “as patients, female orange tabbies had always been easy going and were generally sweet cats.” About 80% of orange tabbies are male, so female ones aren’t easy to find.
The kitten was taken back to the animal shelter that day before Brashear got the chance to spend more time with her. That night, Brashear talked to her husband – Dr. Clint Brashear, a veterinarian at Double Oak Veterinary Medical Center — about possibly adopting the kitten for Eden, and they decided to surprise her with the kitten. The next day, Susan picked Eden up from school and told her they were going to the pet store to buy things for the kittens at the shelter, which they did sometimes. After buying supplies, Eden met the kitten at the shelter for the first time. Little did she know, her mom had been there earlier in the day and completed all the adoption paperwork already. As Eden held the kitten, Susan told her she was already hers, and Eden immediately started bawling, thanking her mom profusely as she held her new kitten tight.
“She just lost her mind,” Susan said. “She was so excited to have a special kitten.”
Eden says cats have been her favorite animal since she was in pre-school. She named the kitten Minerva McGonagall, a professor that turns into a cat in the Harry Potter series.
Minerva had difficulties getting around for the first few weeks in her new home.
“She had to relearn how to walk with three legs,” Susan said. “Eden spent a lot of time working with her, helping her getting around things and holding her up to eat.”
Now, Minerva is thriving. She can climb a ladder and run up and down the stairs.
“You’d never know she’s missing her leg,” Susan said. “She hops around like a rabbit.”
Eden has ADHD and anxiety, and she’s also in the gifted program at school, and her new relationship with Minerva is mutually beneficial, Susan said.
“This kitten has been such an emotional boost to her,” Susan said, adding that Minerva helps Eden focus.
This isn’t the first time this family has adopted a kitten with a dramatic back story. They also have a 16-pound male Maine Coon mix who was nearly eaten by a hawk as a kitten. Susan said that about 10 years ago, a man was at his job at a local golf course early in the morning when he saw a hawk circling over the back nine. He went to see what it was circling, and when he got there, he saw the hawk swoop down and pick something off the green and start flying away.
“He yelled, and the hawk dropped it,” Susan said. “He ran over and saw it was a 3-day-old kitten that had somehow wandered onto the golf course.”
The man brought the kitten to Main Street Veterinary Hospital, which raised the kitten until the Brashears took him home when he was 5 weeks old.
They named him Callaway.
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