Entrant's First Name
Elisabeth & Joe

Your Pet's Rescue Story
I have always vehemently been a dog person; cats just weren’t my thing. You might say we just didn’t vibe. My partner is more of a cat person, opposites attract, and also has severe allergies. We both wanted an animal companion in the house, but his allergies made us hesitant to commit in case he couldn’t breathe. After many discussions we decided to foster through Pet Alliance and see how it went. Of course, I immediately wanted a dog; For years every time an ice cube fell on the floor my bad joke response was ‘If we had a dog, that would be gone already’. We fostered three adorable mixed puppies for 5 days. The dog allergy test didn’t fare too well, so I gave into fostering a kitten. I could handle 3 puppies on my own, but never having owned a cat I figured a single kitten might be easiest to wean me into the cat world. I waited patiently for emails to show up in my in-box, as it wasn’t kitten season. Then one afternoon, 10 days before this past Christmas to be exact, it appeared, ‘Fosters Orlando’ in bold on my screen. Three kittens needed to go out as singles with URI’s. I immediately responded saying I could take one, not caring about the cats gender/breed/coloring. We headed over to the Sanford location and they brought out this small tabby boy in travel crate. They named him ‘Sassy’, but it didn’t fit his face; we decided to call him Sassafras while we had him, it seemed like a better fit. Sassafras spent his entire first day scared and sneezing hiding under a nightstand while I spent the day laying next to said nightstand with food and water. After a few days of antibiotics, Sassafras started to emerge from his sickly kitty shell and transformed into a rambunctious 3-month-old, chasing nothings on the walls, and flying across the house. He would do things that would make me laugh so hard I’d cry. He was extremely well behaved; I was surprised as to how well behaved he was. My fondness for Sassafras grew like the Grinch’s heart over the next two weeks. So much that I asked if we could continue to foster him while he is up for adoption so he wouldn’t have to go back to the shelter [I didn’t want him to be scared]. While I was trying to write the blurb for his online adoption page, I kept getting upset, realizing that I had grown extremely attached to Sassafras since we took him in. I foster failed and failed hard. I now have my first cat. My best four-legged friend. My animal companion. Best part of the whole story, he ironically loves ice cubes.