Pet's Age
15

Pet's City
Carmel by the Sea and San Antonio Texas

Pet's Story or Bio
I have been involved in animal rescue in San Antonio Texas for many years, primarily as the organizer of the Brackenridge Park Community Cat Project (to help deal with the wholesale abandonment of domestic pets in San Antonio’s largest urban park).

It was on a bicycle ride through that park with a friend (himself a former mayor of San Antonio) that I first noticed a large black cat living at an abandoned auto dealer’s lot on the park’s edge. The mayor then alerted me to the large number of abandoned animals living within the park’s boundaries. Over the next few weeks I continued my bike rides to the park, now armed with canned cat food for the black cat. We became friends and eventually I took him to the vet to check him out. The diagnosis wasn’t good, living off the land had not been kind to him. He could not go back to the park, was not adoptable in his condition, so he became ours.

Homeless folks at the park had tried to care for him, but they thought he was she, naming him Sarah –likely because of his sweet disposition. We changed his name to Sam and he has been with us for 11 years now. It was my chance encounter with Sam that has led to hundreds of cats being saved from a very difficult life. Sam is a hero, and a wonderful, loving friend. He spends his California summers enjoying the cool air and warm sunshine on our deck by the ocean – and no doubt still celebrating being out of that park! Sam is a very wise old cat.