Dory and Lilly: a Rescue Cat Tail

Rescue Cats Rock

After I adopted Louis in early 2014, my family jumped wholeheartedly on the rescue pet – particularly, rescue cat – bandwagon. Rescue cats are great additions to any family. Rescue animals tend to be more genetically diverse than breeder animals, which can help keeps animal healthy.

Furthermore, breeding operations – especially puppy mills – are often renowned for their poor treatment of animals. For more information on this topic, I recommend Ella Bean’s blog.

Dory: a Pawtastic Matriarch Rescue Cat

About three years after I got Lou, my mom adopted Dory and Lilly. Originally, we only knew about Dory, so she only planned on adopting Dory. The day or so before we went to pick her up, we found out Dory had a kitten.

In fact, Dory had eight kittens. Only one kitten was left unadopted, though.

Dory was about a year and a half old at this point. Dory, at a year and approximately three months, gave birth to eight kittens. She was pregnant when she entered Helping Hands Pet Rescue (which closed and many of the people involved moved over to the Humane Society of North Central Florida) and gave birth there. One kitten didn’t make it, but seven did.

Dory on the ride home to her furever home!

Lilly was too tiny to be spayed at the same time as her litter mates. She didn’t weigh enough to be spayed until she was about three months old, so she couldn’t be put up for adoption. Rescues typically cannot adopt out unaltered animals.

How could we leave one kitten!?

Orange tabby Lilly, age 3 months, freshly spayed

Spoiler Alert: We Adopted the Kitten

As you know, we adopted the lone kitten with Dory. When we brought Dory and Lilly home, Lilly was still nursing.

Orange tabby Lilly, age 3 months, checking in on her fur mom, Dory, who was exploring the tub

Dory on her adoption day before we brought her home to my mom

Dory was spayed before my mom took her home. However, postpartum cats who have unweaned kittens when they are spayed generally produce milk until the kittens are weaned.

Lilly didn’t want to be weaned, but Dory took care of that. When Dory decided Lilly was done, she lovingly shoved her kitten off the couch until Lilly got the idea.

Dory was pretty skinny when we adopted her. Her hair was bristly, thin, and wiry. Before long, though, she began to recover from her postpartum exhaustion and spay and filled out. Lilly, similarly, began to sprout into the pretty little lady she is today.

Bonded Rescue Cats

My family jokes that Lilly is a lot more reliant on Dory than Dory is on Lilly. I think Dory talks a big talk, though, because she’s really just a snuggle bug with her kitten.

Dory and Lilly snuggling and grooming in May 2019

In reality, Dory and Lilly are really quite bonded. They snuggle and groom each other every day. If one of the pair can’t find the other, they’ll chirp and yell throughout the house until they meet up again.