The story below was written by StarryNyte about a rather handsome fellow (not unlike myself, purrrrr) who fought against the odds with the help of his wonderful humans.

It was originally titled "Training Guide for Brain-Damaged Kitties", You will find that it is much more than a training guide: it is a wonderful, factually written tale of a veterinary "accident" and how the cat and his people refused to accept the hand that fate dealt them.

About ten years ago, I adopted a feral kitten that was born under my house. Not from choice, mind you, but because when I tried to find a home for him, he had a cold and no one wanted a sick cat.

Predictably, my daughter fell in love with him, and he was a sweet, lovable little fellow. He adapted to being a house cat with remarkable ease, and it only took three baths in cranberry juice to get all the grease (from sleeping under warm cars) off his fur.

When he reached the appropriate size, about six months old as near as we could tell, we took him to get neutered. However, during the process, the vet overdosed him with anesthetic, and... well... I'm sure you can guess. He "died" on the operating table for about 40 seconds, was resuscitated, and then put back in the recovery cage. The vet wanted to keep him for a couple days to make sure he was OK. We went to visit him that night, and he got excited to see us and hear our voices. The vet, in his infinite "wisdom," decided that he was getting too excited and sedated him.

Well, when we went back the next day to visit him, he was totally immobile, couldn't see, and the vet said he'd been brain damaged by the first overdose (which I disputed, since he was so happy to see us the day before). I was, and still am, convinced that that second sedation is what caused the damage.

I wanted to take him home, but the vet said they were hydrating him by using a drip setup, and that until I could get him to eat or drink on his own, he didn't feel Max should be released. I was pretty unhappy with this vet at this point, so I told him to give me my **** cat, and then sat in the vet's big office chair, with Max on my lap and two dishes, one with water and one with food. I tried to get him to drink off my fingertips, but he didn't get it, and in my frustration, I pushed his nose into the water dish. He made a few bubbles, but then started to drink!! I tried the same method with the food, pushing his nose into it, and he ate like he'd been starving (he hadn't had solid food since the "accident"). I called the vet to come in and see, and insisted that I be allowed to take Max home. The vet said he'd pretty much made up his mind to put Max down, and at that point, I just stood up with Max in my arms, and walked out, with the vet yelling after me.

When I got home, I called the animal behaviourist at the local humane society to see if she could offer any advice about retraining Max. She didn't have much to offer, but said if I developed any concrete way to train him, to please let her know.

Well, I did. It was a lot of work, especially since he needed almost constant care and handling the first two weeks he was home, and also, all those things you think are "instinctive" in cats, like meowing, washing, etc., are absolutely NOT!

Well, the upshot was that after we'd worked at retraining Max, teaching him to walk, wash, drink, eat, use paper for his potty business (he would never use a box after that, but hits the paper *most* of the time), I contacted the animal behaviourist again. She was pretty excited, and asked me to do a write-up of what I'd done to train him. To my knowledge, she's still handing out this write-up to people who's cats are brain damaged in car accidents, or, like Max, in medical accidents.

This is an ongoing report of that training and the follow-up over the last ten years.